--- title: The Catholic Church Made a Game App for "Catching" Saints description: A new app, "Follow JC Go," is using the model of Pokémon Go to encourage Catholics to get out there and catch some saints. canonical: https://time.com/5433546/catholic-pokemon-go/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-10-24T20:40:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:55:38.330Z og:title: The Catholic Church Made a Game App for "Catching" Saints og:description: "Follow JC Go" was made in the image of Pokémon Go og:url: https://time.com/5433546/catholic-pokemon-go/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Catholic Church Made a Game App for "Catching" Saints twitter:description: "Follow JC Go" was made in the image of Pokémon Go twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Catholic Church Has a Version of Pokémon Go Just for Catching Saints > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Oct 24, 2018 8:40 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Oct 24, 2018 8:40 PM UTC Get out there and get evangelizing! At least, that’s the latest word from the Catholic church after an associated organization launched a new app — called [“Follow JC Go”](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/follow-jc-go/id1435610234?mt=8) (JC, presumably, stands for “Jesus Christ”) — to get the faithful involved in religious activity on their smartphones. Taking its cues from the popular augmented reality [Pokémon Go](http://time.com/4846753/pokemon-go-anniversary/) game, in which players try to “catch” creatures like Pikachu through the GPS-enabled interface, Follow JC Go helps users discover biblical figures and icons — literally, saints, represented in stylized cartoon form — as they wander around cities. They’ll interact with the virtual holy characters and add them to an “evangelization team,” as long as they answer certain questions right that refer to biblical history. Gameifying religion: just the next offering [put-upon](http://time.com/5428835/justice-department-catholic-church-sexual-abuse-pennsylvania/) Catholic church. A promotional video suggests that players can win points and compete against friends, gather “e-teams” of believers and even find nearby churches and “make the journey more fun” by playing. The app was developed and launched by the Foundation Ramon Pane, with the intention of getting younger people involved in evangelizing. And they even got the blessing of the [Pope himself](http://time.com/5428174/pope-francis-church-abuse-crisis-reaction/) with the project. “You know, Francis is not a very technological person, but he was in awe, he understood the idea, what we were trying to do: combine technology with evangelization,” said Ricardo Grzona, the executive director of the foundation, to religious news outlet [Crux Now.](https://cruxnow.com/synod-of-bishops-on-youth/2018/10/19/new-app-blends-pokemon-go-with-catechesis-for-young-users/) “Never has the Church had a project like this. This is the Catholic app with the most advanced technology there is.” First launched in Spanish, they have plans to expand the language options to include English, Italian and Portuguese in the coming weeks. It’s free and available for both iOS and Android — because the church apparently welcomes players of any operating system. While it has a 3.8 star rating so far on the App Store, reviews so far [are inconclusive](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/follow-jc-go/id1435610234?mt=8). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5433546/catholic-pokemon-go/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5433546/catholic-pokemon-go/"},"headline":"The Catholic Church Has a Version of Pokémon Go Just for Catching Saints","datePublished":"2018-10-24T20:40:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:55:38.330Z","description":"Gotta catch all the saints","url":"https://time.com/5433546/catholic-pokemon-go/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Religion"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5433546/catholic-pokemon-go/","name":"The Catholic Church Has a Version of Pokémon Go Just for Catching Saints"}}]}] ```