A "holy game" of football

The club football season might be over in Europe and supporters of the so-called "beautiful game" preparing to follow the World Cup which kicks off in a couple of weeks time, but one important match remained to be played last weekend - the Clericus Cup final

As Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency reports, the match was in a sense the Catholic Church's very own version of the event to be hosted next month in South Africa and one in which "both teams could claim to have God on their side."

Players in prayer at the end of the match, Agence France Presse TV screen shot

The Clericus Cup is a tournament which has been contested annually since 2007 and is made up of teams whose players are all priests or seminarists from around the world attending the Vatican City's Papal colleges.

Saturday's final (there are no tournament games on a Sunday) was a repeat of last year's with holders Redemptoris Mater taking on rivals Pontifical North American College; the Italians once again running out the winners with the only goal of the game.

While the president of the Cup, Monsignor Claudio Paganini admitted that there had been several on-the pitch incidents and that perhaps not all the players had always "behaved entirely correctly" the competition had shown another side of the Catholic Church - away from the scandals that have dominated recent news stories.

http://www.france24.com/fr/20100530-football-avant-le-mondial-leglise-catholique-a-deja-son-champion

"At a time when the Church is being attacked over issues of paedophilia we're showing here how games and the body are values and not limitations," he told AFPTV.

"The human body should be used to give glory to God, not for acts of deviance."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlDslMckFCg

Redemptoris Mater have appeared in each of the four finals that have taken place since the Cup began in 2007.

The only time they have failed to lift the trophy was in 2008 when they lost out to Mater Ecclesiae.