Pope on Football

Pope backs football life lessons - bbc

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/717...

He raised concerns about corruption damaging the image of the so-called Beautiful Game but said younger generations could learn from it. The Pope was meeting Italian football professionals and a delegation from the lower division Serie D. The German-born pontiff is said to be a fan of Bavarian giants Bayern Munich. "I'd like the game of football to be a vehicle for the education of the values of honesty, solidarity and fraternity, especially among younger generations," he told the footballing pilgrims.

“Pope Benedict XVI says football has a crucial role to play in teaching young people the important lessons of life - honesty, solidarity and fraternity.”

But the Pope seemed to have forgotten to mention the ‘important lessons’ football gives to the masses on the virtuous value of ,

‘intra group antagonism’,

‘depreciating the significance of oneself via vicarious identification’,

‘aggression and competition’,

‘inter-national antagonism’,

‘another being appreciated or depreciated by group identification as opposed to content of character’,

‘allowing one’s attention to be deviated from the national elite and locating it in the inter-national scene as opposed to the local one’,

‘its value as a cathartic vent to allay the negative consequences of the masses significance as nothing other than cogs and wheels in a machinery geared toward the aggrandizement of another’……….

That said, i'm not against football per se.  Rather, it is our failure to complement a divisive pastime with pastimes that elicit equal or more fervour that are universalist in nature that renders the former 'deadly' in its socio-psychological impact.

Perhaps the Holy Books of Sociology and Psychology ought to be added between the 'Old' and 'New'.  That might help prevent catholic clerics from supporting wholly non-catholic(non-universalist) pastimes.  The failure to do this basically prefixes, 'sectarian', into the (sexist) phrase, 'brotherhood of man'.  Obviously, the Pope doesn't see the seams on the ball.  

Amen

ed-infinitum

singapore malaysia hong kong thailand india taiwan japan asia uk australia philosophy life culturereligion christianity catholicism pope football nationalism sociology psychology