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The Vatican's "Soccer Missionaries"

Megan Williams (nda)June 4, 2005

The Vatican is not well known for its promotion of sports but with its new sports radio channel, the Holy See is attempting to coax back its flock through the healing power of sport, specifically soccer.

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The Italians know the importance of divine interventionImage: AP

In Italy, they're known as "soccer missionaries." These are the priests and even cardinals who provide commentary on sports.

Now the official radio for the Vatican has started a new show devoted solely to sports. Listeners can tune in weekly to hear the Catholic Church's take on anything from the latest scandals to bad refereeing decisions. While the show is a first for Vatican radio, the link between the church and soccer goes back a long way.

A typical Monday morning at Vatican radio begins with a papal news update, some musical spiritual inspiration and then something completely different.

"Non solo sport" -- Not Only Sports - is a new weekly show on Vatican Radio's 105 Live, the FM station in Rome that hit the airwaves four years ago in an attempt to give the Vatican a new, younger voice. But with the average age of priests somewhere in the 60s, youth is relative.

Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini is the regular commentator on Non Solo Sport. He's 88. Each week he phones in to give host Luca Collodi his take on anything from doping in cycling to the presence of foreign players on Italy's club teams. The show has even caught the interest of the secular media, and the Italian state-run Rai radio picked up Non Solo Sport after its first edition and rebroadcasts it nationally.

Clerical soccer commentary is hardly new in Italy. For years, a nun who was a fan of the Rome team Lazio was a media sweetheart. And the Catholic daily The Roman Observer offers extensive sports coverage.

Paddy Agnew, who has covered sports for the Irish Times in Italy for 20 years, said the church has never shied away from talking soccer.

"Well, I suppose it's simple enough," he told DW-RADIO. "In a Catholic country, people are going to be involved in things.

"I come from Ireland and there are a couple of priests in Ireland who are famous for being tipsters (betting on horses) because horse racing is a national sport in Ireland. So it's normal enough you'd have it here. You've always had people connected to the church playing a role in various cultural manifestations of Italian life, so why not in football?"

Soccer a grass roots part of Catholic life

Papst Johannes Paul II ist gestorben
Pope John Paul II was very happy that Paulo di Canio had scored the winner for Lazio that SundayImage: AP

Even John Paul II was widely known to have loved soccer. He played goalkeeper as a boy and was also quietly rumored to have rooted for the Lazio team.

Soccer historian Stefano Romita said the roots of the game in Italy were planted on the very fields of the Catholic Church.

"Every boy grew up playing soccer after school on the church field," Romita said. "There was space to play, free breakfast, and other little treats in exchange for serving at the mass.

"Whether you were religious or not, as a boy, you spent your free time at the parish church. So the first soccer fields were there, with real goal posts and balls. Playing there, we felt like real soccer players. Like the ones we went to see on Sundays in the stadium."

Continue reading to find out why not all Italians are happy about the church's involvement in sports.


Priests counseled wayward soccer stars

Beten für den Papst
Prayer power is employed elsewhere on a Sunday in ItalyImage: AP

By the 60s, every pro team had taken on a priest for spiritual guidance. Many of the players came from small towns and had troubling coping with the sudden fame and wealth. The priests tried to keep them on the straight and narrow.


But the cozy relationship between the church and soccer didn't last. As commercial interests began to take over the game, the church's role in soccer dwindled. Starting in the 70s, so did the church's role in Italian life. Today, less than 30 percent of Italians believe the church should have a say anywhere beyond the chapel doors. Even fewer go to mass.

The beautiful game replaces the divine path

Italienische Fußball Fans
Image: AP

As Paddy Agnew put it, Italy seems to have replaced one religion with another.

"Sometimes I suspect that Italians are much more a la carte about their Catholicism than they are about their football," he said. "I mean, I think sometimes they take their football far more seriously than they do their Catholicism."

It may explain why the Vatican is charging back into the world of sports. But that doesn't necessarily mean sports fans will want to listen to priests and Agnew wonders aloud if he will.

"That's a good question," he said. "I don't listen to them, I'm not sure why."

Soccer historian Stefano Romita said he bristles at the idea of priests or nuns commentating on sports.

"For the most part, the public has not responded well, no," he said. "Remember, Italy is a very secular country. So Italians, for the most part, have not appreciated this intrusion of the church in public space."

An attempt to save more than penalties

But the Vatican says it's not just about appealing to a larger audience and getting a crack at bringing all those stray sheep back on the Christian team.

Father Carlo Mazza, Director of the Office for Sports and Leisure at the Vatican, would like to go even further than just underlining the personal, spiritual and physical values of sports.


He wants the Vatican to tackle the unsavory aspects of the pro sports world, as well. Because, he said, he'd like nothing less than "to save" soccer.

Working to clean up lives and sport

Champions League Spiel: Gelbe Karte für Esteban, AC Mailand gegen Inter Mailand
Image: AP

"We're in deep dialogue and responsibility with the heads of the soccer world so that together we can work to changing all the negative things in the sport like doping, violence, the excessive commercialization," Mazza says. "We all agree what the problems are. We have to now work together to resolve them."


For now, Mazza hopes Italians will begin to take heed of what the "soccer missionaries" have to say about sports, hoping Italians just might begin to tune back in to his church's broader message.