Since his election, Pope Francis has been on the front foot, hitting a
few sixes, bowling a few googlies and playing the odd reverse sweep.
As an Argentine, the Holy Father probably wouldn’t get the metaphors,
but he might do soon as the Vatican is about to form its own cricket
club.
Officials at the Pontifical Council for Culture, which has a section
dedicated to sport, is setting up the first ever Vatican club and
tournament in Rome. The initiative is the idea of Australia’s ambassador
to the Holy See, John McCarthy, an avid cricket fan.
Already one match has been played between two Vatican universities –
the Maria Mater Ecclesiae International Pontifical College and the
Pontifical Urbaniana University – on a pitch near Rome’s Ciampino
airport.
“It was an interesting match,” says Xavarian Father Theodore
Mascarenhas, an Indian official at the Pontifical Council for Culture
who will chair the new Vatican cricket board. “They played a
Twenty-Twenty and Ubaniana won by just one run.”
The plan is to extend other twenty over matches to more Rome colleges
and even further afield. “We hope to have at least six teams,” says
Father Mascarenhas. The underlying aim of the initiative, he says, is to
start “a kind of inter-cultural dialogue”.
Players will be drawn from the many seminaries and pontifical
universities in Rome, as well as Vatican officials. Father Mascarenhas
believes around 400 cricket fans reside in the Eternal City. They
include seminarians from the Venerable English College of course, but
also many others, often missionaries, from the Indian sub-continent and
Africa, as well as Australia, the West Indies and New Zealand.
The Vatican also has a star player of its own. Father Tony Currer, an
official in the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity,
played club cricket for Durham until he moved to Rome last month to
oversee dialogue with the Anglican Communion.
“I came to Rome thinking I
probably wouldn’t play much cricket anymore,” he says, “but it looks
like there’s going to be a very good standard.”
Since 2009, Rome colleges have played in a football tournament called
the Clericus Cup comprising 16 teams, 15 international seminaries and
split into two divisions, A and B. The championship has been a success,
attracting widespread media coverage.
But the new “St Peter’s Cricket Club”, run under the patronage of the
Pontifical Council for Culture, promises to be even larger. Father
Mascarenhas says the plan is to start modestly between Rome colleges.
But the Vatican and Ambassador McCarthy are especially keen to organise a
Holy See versus Church of England match, possibly at Lord’s.
In a novel attempt to bridge religious divides, a further goal is to
organise a tournament between the Vatican club and teams from Islamic,
Buddhist and Hindu seminaries in such countries as Pakistan, Bangladesh,
or Myanmar.
The Australian Cricketers’ Association and the Australian government
are supportive, as is Britain’s ambassador to the Holy See, Nigel Baker.
Senior prelates from India and Australia have also given it their
backing, most notably Cardinal George Pell of Sydney.
Father Mascarenhas
also hopes to establish ties with “Cricket Italy”, a successful cricket
federation run by a Sri Lankan which plays against “second level”
national sides such as South Korea and Argentina.
“We have a lot of a support,” says Father Mascarenhas. “Things are getting off the block.”
The Pontifical Council officially launched the initiative at a
press conference Oct. 15, along with a Festive Day of Sport to be held
on Oct. 20.
The day, which aims to underline the educational, cultural
and spiritual values of sport, is expected to attract 5000 people who
will take part in a 100m run on a track stretching from the end of the
Via della Conciliazione to St Peter’s Square.
The Vatican cricket tournament is expected to get underway in the next month or two.