Vatican cricketers head to UK with interfaith agenda

(Vatican Radio) Members of St Peter’s Cricket Club set out on a second ‘Light of Faith’ tour to the UK this weekend, with ecumenical and interfaith objectives high on their agenda.

Two years ago, in September 2014,  the newly founded team of Rome based Catholic priests and seminarians from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and England travelled to the UK to play against a Church of England side, the Archbishop of Canterbury's XI. The game ended with a narrow victory for the Anglicans, while a return match, played in Rome in the autumn of 2015, saw the Vatican team taking back the prized St Augustine cup.

That first tour by the Vatican cricket team, preceded by a meeting with Pope Francis, generated world-wide media coverage, from the Times of India to America’s National Public Radio, with particular interest in the British press.

On September 13th the two teams will meet again at the Kent County Cricket ground to further their sporting friendships and to pray together again in Canterbury Cathedral.

This year the players will be travelling further afield, to the north of England as well, and their encounters will showcase a broader interreligious agenda. To find out more, Philippa Hitchen sat down with the manager of the team, Fr Eamonn O’Higgins…

Listen to Philippa’s conversation with Fr Eamonn and read a detailed account of the tour and its objectives below….

Listen: 

Fr. Eamonn, what has happened with St. Peter’s team in these last two years?

What has been remarkable is the number of teams, principally from England, who have wanted to come to play us here in Rome. Of course, the weather from April to October here is ideal for cricket, and we’ve had teams from London, Cambridge, Yorkshire, as well as return matches with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s XI, the Authors’ XI and the Royal Household of Windsor. Interestingly, the teams who came to play us also wanted to visit Rome and St. Peter’s Basilica, and often attend Holy Mass in the crypts of St. Peter’s or elsewhere. Many of them said that their religious experience here in Rome brought a new and deeper dimension to their cricket weekend.

A Muslim team also came to Rome last year, right?

Yes, we were surprised by an email from Mount Cricket Club, in Batley, Yorkshire, asking if the team could come to play St. Peter’s last October. And so, in the history of cricket, the first match between an all-Muslim and all-Christian team was played at the Capannelle Ground, in Ciampino, just outside Rome. It was also wonderful to welcome the Muslim team and their families to be present at vespers before a community dinner at the Pontifical International College Mater Ecclesiae, and many of their team also wanted to be present at Pope Francis’ Holy Mass in the Vatican on Sunday.

What about the upcoming tour of England?

St. Peter’s travels to London on Sunday, September 11th, and within an hour of landing we play an inter-faith match at Walthamstow Cricket Club with Muslims, Silks, and Hindus. After visits to Windsor and the kind invitation of the English Cricket Board to a reception at the famous Lord’s ground, we return to Canterbury to play the Archbishop of Canterbury’s XI at the St. Lawrence Spitfire Ground. From there we travel to Birmingham with the Anglicans to visit schools, and on Thursday there is a three-way tournament with both our teams and Mount Cricket Club of Yorkshire at the prestigious Edgbaston Test Ground. On Friday we will be in Yorkshire, visiting the local mosque and I will give a short address there. On Sunday we have a community day with the local Muslim community in Batley, Yorkshire, and on Monday 20th, a match with Mount Cricket Club under floodlights at Headingley. What a tour!

Is it all just about cricket?

As we in St. Peter’s always remind ourselves, we are priests and seminarians who happen to play cricket, not cricketers who happen to be priests or seminarians. We have already, as a team, begun to pray for the real results of this tour, and each day on tour we will have Holy Mass, prayer and communion, all normal parts of a priest’s day. We are also praying with the other teams and in the local places of worship (Canterbury Cathedral, Leeds Cathedral, York Minster…). We also hope, in a simple way, to give witness to the presence of the Lord God in human existence and in society, and to the truth and meaning of human life in God.

Have there been any repercussions for the tour following the recent spate of terror attacks by extremist religious groups?

No, not at all. And I think it's important to reflect on the role of sport in promoting better interfaith relations. A good example might be the British Olympic athletes who did exceptionally well at the Games in Rio, with an overall second place on the medal table. The athletes were Christians, Muslims, who knows of what other faith, or of no professed faith. What strikes me is that each one, living to the maximum his or her core beliefs, which necessarily include a profound respect for others, can live and contribute in harmony, to a common goal. This does not mean eliminating differences and searching for some lowest human denominator, but precisely encouraging each one to be who he or she is, and blending each contribution towards a common goal. As we saw with the GB Team, this is possible, and offers us a small example of how the common good of society can be achieved. I also believe, notwithstanding the horrendous recent incidents in France and Germany, that a human society based on mutual respect and deference to religious difference, is possible and does happen in so many discreet ways in our society.

Wasn’t British parliamentarian Jo Cox, tragically killed just before the Brexit vote, involved in preparations for St. Peter’s visit to Headingley?

Yes, she was. In fact, one of the messages I received from Headingley was copied to her, shortly before her death. I have read about her and I listened to her speeches at Westminster advocating on behalf of real, suffering people. She had bipartisan political friends with whom she worked on common, humanitarian causes. Her honesty and sincerity were plain to see, for example when she asked the Prime Minister if the Government ‘led public opinion on the refugee crisis or followed it’. An authentic, plain-speaking person with a fair and direct manner, which made her death seem all the more tragic. If there is a greater justice and a greater good than we see in this existence – and I believe there is – then Jo Cox’s death, in some profound, impenetrable way, is her precious contribution to this greater good and greater justice that will prevail. We have prayed for her and her family, and we will be honouring all she stood, and stands for, on our tour.

You are travelling to Post-Brexit Britain. Any comments on Brexit?

I think the result of the Brexit referendum took most people by surprise. I was perhaps unhappy with the process of decision on such a complex, multi-faceted issue as membership of the European Union. Still, the decision has been taken and there is a great opportunity now for people in the United Kingdom to rethink the sources of their unity, to clarify what type of society they want, and how real human society is formed. In this sense, I favour the return to smaller communities. What I mean is that social unity is greater and easier to achieve the more local it becomes. I also think that the European Union (as an organisation, not as an ideal) has, in important aspects, lost its ideological compass and has also become too bureaucratic. The United Kingdom has this ‘Brexit’ opportunity to determine the principles of its unity; and this is a big challenge. It's an opportunity to promote genuine social values, not just economic ones, and the responsibility of knowing that social bonds do not depend on the decisions of some office in Europe, but are the responsibility of each person in his or her local circumstances.

We have wandered a little from the subject of cricket. Does cricket – and the Second Light of Faith Tour – have anything to do with all of this?

In a small but real way, I think it does. Through the medium of cricket we are integrating different nationalities and different religious traditions in a common project that upholds and enhances each tradition. The integration of people into society does not just happen, but needs to be actively promoted and supported. Above all, we have to believe that it is possible to encounter other people with love rather than with fear, in community rather than by segregation. The Second Light of Faith Tour aims to illustrate this possibility.