Abstract
This paper seeks to address the question: how is soccer part of Pope Francis’ spatial imagining of the world in his understanding of the Catholic Church’s role in society? Specifically, this paper is interested in the role of soccer in Pope Francis’ understanding of the appropriate mediums and space for the cultivation of particular forms of relationships between people derived from a theology of mutual care and interdependence. Drawing from his public declarations, speeches, and events soccer occupies an important part of both the Papacy and longer history of Pope Francis’ life in the Catholic Church. The paper seeks to argue that the value of soccer for Pope Francis is that its scalability, between the immediacy of the parish and neighbourhood club and its existence as a global phenomenon, mirrors the same desired form of scalability of Francis’ vision of the Church, similarly moving between the immediacy of the parish in a direct theology of care and as global entity with global resonance. Through soccer Francis can articulate a bridging between the care and concern for individual bodies in a parish setting as seen in the ideal of the neighbourhood club and the greater Body of Christ, the unity of a globalised Catholic laity, brought together through faith and soccer as well. Soccer existing both as guide for his desired scalability of the Church, between individual bodies and the greater Catholic global laity of the Body of Christ and as a medium for local and global connection.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Sporting Cultures and Identities
KEYWORDS
Christianity and Sport, Globalisation, Care, Political Economy
