Google – AFP, Dario Thuburn (AFP), 22 October 2013
Seminarians
play cricket on October 22, 2013 in the Vatican (AFP, Andreas Solaro)
|
Vatican
City — The Vatican served up tea and cucumber sandwiches on Tuesday as it
launched its own cricket club, challenging the Church of England to a match and
vowing to take on Indian Hindu and Muslim clerics.
With the
coat of arms of St Peter's as its symbol and the Vatican yellow-and-white flag
as its colours, the club will unite cricket-mad priests and seminarians -- and
perhaps eventually nuns.
"The
team will be strong enough to beat anyone in the world," said Father
Theodore Mascarenhas, an Indian priest and a mean off-spin bowler, who is the
chairman of the new St Peter's Cricket Club.
The
initiative brings together the sporting madness of hundreds of clerics --
mainly from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka -- with a Vatican aim to
find new ways to spread the word.
Seminarians
play cricket on October 22,
2013 in the Vatican (AFP, Andreas
Solaro)
|
Sanchez
said cricket could be a way of engaging with other denominations and religions,
saying he hoped the Church of England would form its own team and the two could
square off on Lord's cricket ground in London -- the "home of
cricket".
The planned
"oecumenical" game could be in September next year -- the month
chosen because it is a time of holiday for seminarians in Rome.
The club is
also thinking of other possible matches against teams of Hindu and Muslim
trainee clerics who would come over especially from India.
"I
never imagined cricket was so popular in Rome!" said Cardinal Gianfranco
Ravasi, who is informally known as the Vatican's "culture minister".
"Cricket
is alien to our culture but it has become part of our culture as an expression
of inter-culturality," he said, explaining that a wave of immigration in
Italy had brought many young aficionados of the sport to the country.
While Pope
Francis is known as a fan of the San Lorenzo football club in his native
Argentina, Mascarenhas said he was also "a very open man".
"I
think cricket is another thing that would be part of that openness," he
said, adding: "Cricket will speak a new language -- perhaps Latin."
Various
clerics in Rome already play and the plan is to encourage more to join in and
to then select a team of the best players by early next year, so as to train
together ahead of the Anglican game.
Father
Eamonn O'Higgins, spiritual director at the pontifical college of Maria Mater
Ecclesiae, said his college team had recently defeated a strong challenge from
the lads at Propaganda Fide, the Vatican department overseeing Catholic dogma.
He said
cricket could provide spiritual lessons.
"Any
competitive sport implies a battle, overcoming an adversary... A Catholic
priest is also called to battle an adversary," he said, adding that
"submission to the rules of the game" and "teamwork" were
also key for future clerics.
Philippa
Hitchen, who works for Vatican Radio, is also a club member in the hope that at
some point "we will have nuns playing so the gentlemen's game can also be
a ladies' game," Mascarenhas said.
Preparations
for the cricket club began a year ago thanks largely to the enthusiasm of
Australia's ambassador to the Holy See, John McCarthy, who said this was
"sporting diplomacy" in action.
McCarthy
said he had heard Pope Francis had "an awareness" of cricket because
it was played in the Jesuit colleges in Argentina he once oversaw.
"The
Holy Father has heard of cricket," he said.
St Peter's
Cricket Club will initially play on the grounds of Capannelle Cricket Club
outside Rome and will practice in Trastevere, near the centre.
While the
initiative has novelty value, club members said it could also produce genuine
talent.
One member
is Brother K.M. Joseph, who helped promote sports in schools in India and was
behind the rise of former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin and former
international V.V.S. Laxman.
Father
Robert McCulloch, an Australian priest who works in Pakistan, said: "When
it comes to cricket, every Pakistani is a fundamentalist.
He said the
Vatican club "brings together many countries and nationalities united by
two things -- their faith and their passion for cricket".
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