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Vatican office gives soccer support the boot

25 Mar 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah in this Sunday’s first reading, the Lord promises a new covenant with “the house of Israel and the house of Judah” after their ancestors had broken the old one. A Vatican department has broken with a soccer tournament that pits teams from Rome's seminaries against each other because it has lost its "educational" value. Sixteen teams from Rome's seminaries and religious orders compete against each other in the Clericus Cup tournament, including the "Martyrs" from the Pontifical North American College, the U.S. seminary in Rome, which placed fourth in 2011. Father Kevin Lixey, who heads the Church and Sport office at the Pontifical Council for the Laity, said the decision to withdraw support came after the Clericus Cup stopped offering programs to help seminarians reach out to youth and teach them good sportsmanship, which was part of the original intent of the tournament. "They are just organizing a soccer tournament, and they are doing a good job. But this is not what we are interested in: We want to equip seminarians for their job in the field, to help them reach youth through sport," Lixey said. Clericus Cup organizers declined to comment on the matter but stressed that this year the tournament had obtained the patronage of another Vatican department, the Pontifical Council for Culture. The Cup was launched six years ago after the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said he hoped the Vatican could one day field its own team in international competitions.The Cup league stressed fair play and integrity in its players, with the motto, "A different soccer is possible." Even so, in 2010 a bitter fight broke out among players during a match. There have also been reports in the Italian press of supporters chanting sharp-tongued songs against rival teams. Source: An article by Alessandro Speciale for Religion News Service

vatican rome soccer clericus cup kevin lixey seminarians pontifical council for the laity sports youth

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What is the state of the laity?

Short essays about observed trends in Roman Catholic life - Pastoral trends

“We would look awfully foolish without the laity,” as Cardinal John Henry Newman once famously said. What is the state of the laity? The question is best asked as Newman suggests: relationally. How do those who are baptized but not ordained relate to the ordained, and vice-versa? The state of the laity is the state of society is the state of the church. As such the church cannot be said to be outside of society, an “essence” removed from the messiness of history and persons. In some regions and cultural groups, laity and the ordained are quite connected, but in others they are not. In some places a lively faith and rich religious imagination and devotional life and culture nourish the laity, but in other places they do not. There is a fundamental challenge here, and it is to diversity. Precisely because the laity are so different, and the context of church life so different, those who are ordered to the needs of the faith community—the ordained—cannot hope to relate to the only ones who can comprise the faith community—the laity. There is no “state” of the laity because the people of God are dynamic, not static. Just as any understanding of God must be dynamic because God is love, and love is dynamic, so, too, for the people of God. The problem comes up when the church is envisioned as Saint Peter (briefly) did: unable to change and adapt. When Saint Paul’s work brought in uncircumcised Gentiles by the thousands, the work of the Spirit was revealed in a laity which is constantly changing, as doctrine develops around the unchanging, final self-revelation of God in Christ. Ask not about the state of the laity but about the dynamic engagement of the ordained with the people of God. Or how it may be so. © 2013, Bryan Froehle.

Authors Bryan Froehle

laity

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Laity in the church and the world

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Laity JOANNE DIED OF CANCER at 70 years old. She grew up in a small town and went away to the big city to work. She never married, and after a while she came home to be near her mother, Jessie, who worked in a factory until she was 83 years old. After her mother had a stroke and the small business Joanne worked for closed down, she spent most of her days at the nursing home, visiting Jessie and the other residents, helping out in whatever ways she could. She was a very quiet person, physically unremarkable, completely unassuming, as ordinary and plain as daily bread. She came to Mass every weekend and holy day, without fail, and sat alone in the farthest corner of the last pew. Her cancer developed suddenly and spread quickly, and when everyone knew she was dying, she was given a bed in the nursing home with her mother. Those who sat at her deathbed listened to her praying unceasingly for all those she loved and was leaving behind. She called upon the name of Jesus over and over, and then she died. Another Johanna, 30 years younger, is a pediatrician in another small town in another state. Vibrant, passionate, idealistic, a mother of two beautiful children and married to an equally energetic and caring man, this Johanna is as vocal and visible as the other Joanne was silent. Raised in a traditional and engaged Catholic family, a graduate of Notre Dame, her faith is rooted in compassion and a fierce commitment to justice. She values and knows how to create community, how to encourage others, how to teach and liberate. Like many Catholics, she backed away from the church for about a decade and then reentered with gusto after her children were born. Now she participates in a faith-sharing group, leads small retreats, and weaves her beliefs into every aspect of her relationships and professional life. The specific mandate of a layperson, by virtue of Baptism, is to continue Christ’s incarnation, to bring divinity into humanity every day, at all times, in all situations. BOTH OF THESE WOMEN are valid, admirable examples of the role of the laity in the church and in the world. Because the work of the laity is to live your own life fully, consciously, deliberately, according to your unique nature and in response to the circumstances you are given. The specific mandate of a layperson, by virtue of Baptism, is to continue Christ’s incarnation, to bring divinity into humanity every day, at all times, in all situations. The word laity is an unfortunate designation, implying a nonprofessional status. Arising from a time when the church was primarily identified with the clergy, and only the clergy were literate and formally educated, it is our misfortune that the use of the word has persisted. It is easily misunderstood as a condescension, a demeaning term that separates and restricts. “Bearer of Christ” would be a much more accurate title, but “disciple” would also serve well, as would the term the earliest Christians used for themselves, “followers of the Way.” But getting past the label, we can embrace and celebrate the reality. To be a layperson in today’s church, in all its agonies and possibilities, is to participate in the ongoing development of a living organism. This church is a leaky boat on a very rough sea, and there are plenty of reasons for concern, if not despair. But the grace of God is never limited by darkness, and the very best of human nature often shines forth in times of crisis. To be a spiritually alive person and a committed Catholic at this moment in history is to be part of a truly great adventure. God is blessing this church, chastising and purifying and transforming it, and every member of the church is experiencing this transformation, both as agents of change and as separate but connected beings who are being changed ourselves. As a layperson you have tremendous freedom, innumerable choices, immense responsibilities. Without clearly defined roles, you must become an artist in your own life; you must create something unique. Based upon your own spiritual path and your vocation, your environment and your relationships, and the deepest truth that God whispers inside your soul, you must discern, and then live out as completely as possible, just what it means for you, now, here, to be a Catholic, to be a mature and healthy person, to live your own particular holiness, to love and serve and be Jesus in the world.

Authors Mary Vineyard

Special occasion laity

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