In all of the Easter festivities this week, it is quite natural that church commemorations that would normally fall during this time in other years become lost. One such event is the liturgical celebration of remembrance for Saint Luigi Scrosoppi, which is marked every April 3, on the day of his death. This year marks the 20th anniversary of his canonization by Saint John Paul II, and so it is worth contemplating his contributions to the life of the contemporary church.
Saint Scrosoppi (1804-84) was born in Udine, the capital city of Friuli, which was a contested area on the Adriatic situated between what we today recognize as the Italian peninsula and Slovenia. After entering the seminary and eventually joining the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri, he became the founder and spiritual guide for the Sisters of Providence, an order of religious sisters approved by Pope Pius IX in 1871. They focused on serving the poor and educating the young, particularly those with physical needs and the deaf.
Saint Luigi (sometimes referred to in Latin America as Luis) rose to international prominence in recent years when he was invoked as a quasi-official patron for footballers. In the European and South American contexts, this almost always refers to what Americans call “soccer,” but the relationship between a patron saint and a particular guild, profession, entity, or cause is a grassroots affair, reflective of the sensus fidelium of believers in various local contexts around the world, and so I think there would be little issue with those on the American “grid-iron” venerating him and seeking his intercession as well.
Because of his consistent care for the young, and his modeling of virtues like fairness, discipline and patience, he was selected as a natural fit for the honor by the bishops of Udine, Gurk in Austria, and the “Church and Sport” section of the body previously known as the Pontifical Council for the Laity. The Italian national soccer team was recently presented with a statue of the saint holding an old-fashioned stitched soccer ball. There is also a semi-professional team in Ontario, Canada called “Scrosoppi FC” in his honor.
Because of the cultural and social impact that it has on so many lives, both of the young and in many cases even of adults, the church recognizes contemporary sports as one among many unique frontiers of Christian witness to the world in the 21st century. Athletics touches everything from billion-dollar businesses to mass media to higher education to the ability to unite the planet around particular events like the Olympics, the World Cup and the Super Bowl. The relationship between strategic physical games and definitions of the good life predates Christianity and crisscrosses the nations of the globe from the ancient world to the present.
In the very first writings of the New Testament, the epistles of Paul, we see how sports can be used as a lens through which to understand our own existence. The Apostle says, “I do all this for the sake of the Gospel, that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to obtain the prize. Everyone who competes exercises self-control in all things. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (1 Cor 9:23-25).
The church is confident that Luigi Scrosoppi has achieved that crown. As Pope Benedict XVI once pointed out, the Second Vatican Council recognized in Gravissimum Educationis (no. 4) that sports belong to the common patrimony of humanity and facilitate both moral development and human formation. We ought to continue to hope that Father Scrosoppi can inspire us to use these new mission “fields” to the best of our ability to bring others to Christ, in whom alone we can “train ourselves for godliness” (1 Tim 4:7).
Originally from Collingswood, Michael M. Canaris, Ph.D., teaches at Loyola University, Chicago.
at the bottom and then tap “Add to Home Screen”
