The World Cup’s Catholics

Chances are that a team from a traditionally Catholic country will win the 2014 World Cup, currently held in Brazil.’Only two countries from non-Catholic countries have ever won the World Cup ‘ Germany (three times) and England. And the winning German sides of 1954 and 1974 were dominated by players from traditionally Catholic regions of their country: Rhineland, Palatine and Bavaria.

The other winning nations ‘ Uruguay, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, France and Spain ‘ are traditionally Catholic, although not all their players are. The French side that won the cup in 1998, for example, was remarkably multi-cultural.

Still, the two greatest footballers in the world at the moment profess to be Catholics.

Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo frequently forms his hands in prayerful style, looking heavenwards. According to reports, he actually is praying when he does that. He also wears a rosary and collects crucifixes as an expression of his faith.

Lionel Messi of Argentina described meeting Pope Francis last year as one of the biggest highlights in his life. The player often crosses himself, has been seen wearing a rosary and is rumoured to have made a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, though that has also been strongly denied.

One player who apparently has made a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, incidentally, is Italy’s veteran goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon.

Spain’s Andres Iniesta, Messi’s teammate at Barcelona, scored the winning goal in the final of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Before the tournament the Spanish newspaper Marca asked Spain’s players what they would promise to do if they became world champions. Iniesta answered that he would do the Camino de Santiago, the walking pilgrimage to the shrine of St James in Santiago de Compostela, northern Spain.

His Spain teammate Sergio Ramos, who plays for Real Madrid, is also a devout Catholic who sports a tattoo of the Blessed Virgin on his upper left arm.

In the 2010 final, Spain beat the Netherlands (they met again in the current tournament, with the Dutch winning 5-1). In that Dutch team in 2010 was midfielder Wesley Sneijder, who shortly before the event in South Africa converted to Catholicism, apparently due to the influence of his model wife Yolanthe Cabau and Inter Milan teammate Javier Zanetti.

Brazil has the world’s largest Catholic population, but the Pentecostal and evangelical churches have successfully proselytised in the country. The nation’s football team includes several players from that wing of Christianity, but star player Neymar has declared himself as a Catholic, going as far as making known his dislike of Glasgow Rangers for that club’s long-defunct policy of not signing Catholics.

Teammate Oscar is also a Catholic: ‘My relationship with God is very important for me. Maybe I don’t go to Mass so often these days but I pray every day.’

The most Catholic side in the World Cup must be Argentina’s, which has taken along to Brazil a huge poster depicting the team with Pope Francis. One may presume that the Holy Father, a big football fan, is quietly supporting his compatriots in the World Cup’even if he had promised Brazilians his neutrality, as he told a Spanish interviewer this month.

England’s Wayne Rooney is known to be Catholic’it made headline news when he was spotted wearing a rosary in training in 2010’and has aided various Catholic charities. He went to a Catholic school, and asa a teenager thought of becoming a priest.

In 2012 he told Britain’s talkSPORT Radio: ‘I pray to God, of course. I believe in God [‘] I don’t pray to help me score goals. I pray for the health of me and everyone on the pitch. It is something I have always done. I pray at night. I pray for my family and friends and for the health of everyone I love.’

He has also a soft spot for evangelical Christianity, but has been told by his management to keep his religious views quiet in line with the British ‘We don’t do God’ disease.

His Manchester United teammate Javier Hernandez of Mexico might be the most obvious Catholic in the World Cup: before each game he kneels in the centre circle in prayerful supplication, ending with the sign of the cross.

Unlike many of his fellow Catholics in football, Hernandez reportedly lives his faith in private as well.

But few football players can claim to have been endorsed by the Vatican itself. Ivorian legend Didier Drogba was praised by Fr Kevin Lixey, director of the Vatican’s Office of Church and Sport, for giving glory to God and citing his prayer life after Chelsea’s Champion’s League win in 2012.

There are many more Catholic players participating in the World Cup. Part of the fun for Catholics is to spot them as they make the sign of the cross after scoring or coming on to the pitch, though this year there’s less of that and more of the absurd pointing into the sky.

Still, even the little signs of faith can speak volumes in an age when outward exhibitions of religious faith are often discouraged.