Exorcising to Win

A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.  This week’s item is from the CNN.com, February 1998, with the headline, “Soccer Team Undergoes Exorcism in Search of Championship.”  Dateline:  Buenos Aries, Argentina.  An Argentine soccer team has reached for divine help to set it on a winning track.  An inexplicable passion is how the long-suffering fans of the professional soccer team, known as Rossing, describe their fervor.  It is a devotion that has been unrewarded since 1966, the last time the team won the championship.  So, the fans enthusiastically joined in a ceremony designed to exorcise the club’s demons and pave the way to a championship season.“We are uniting Roman Catholicism with Rossingism,” said Daniel Laylen, Rossing Club President.  “It is an act of faith.  The same faith displayed by the fans who stoically go to the stadium every Sunday.”  Laylen organized a mass in the stadium, complete with a priestly blessing of the team and the stadium’s goals.  A choir sang Handel’s Messiah.  Once the goals were blessed, the service continued with a rock concert by a popular local band, “Vox De.”  The band performed tunes from one of its first albums, “The Bible.”  It was named that because each song is based on a Biblical passage.A banner hung from the stage that said, “God is a Rossing fan, the devil is not.” However, whatever effect the ceremony may have had was not apparent in the match that followed.  Rossing lost 2-0.  The fans remained devout, however, in a country where soccer is more an obsession than a national past time.  They hope their faith will be rewarded with a championship season.  And if not, a similar ceremony is planned for next year.

Tom:

Boy, this is a mixture, Dave.  You know, Roman Catholicism I’m sure much of this has to do with the spiritual culture of Argentina, where it’s from.  Faith is mentioned, the Bible is mentioned.  Demons seem to be on one side rather than the other side.  

Dave:

I don’t know where you come up with these things, but—

Tom:

It’s from CNN.  

Dave:

CNN, yeah.  Well, it relates to something broader, of course, I mean we have Christian players on NFL teams, NBA teams, and so forth.  Now, you and I have had some personal interest in certain NBA teams because one of our best friends was the coach.  But, I have never prayed that his team would win.  I’ve prayed that they would do a good job, that they would do the very best that they possibly could.  But, who am I to pray that one team would win over another?  Furthermore, I doubt that God is really interested in Rossing or soccer, or football.  I mean, there may be particular instances in which He is, but what are you going to do if you’ve got an equal number of Christians on both teams that are playing one another. Which one is going to win?  I don’t think that that is a proper subject for our prayers, in my opinion.  However, now, this gets a little more ridiculous, I would say.  Now, the priest is out there [and] he’s blessing the goals and he’s blessing the team—

Tom:

After saying Mass.

Dave:

Right.  And, yet, it didn’t work.  Well, they say, we’re still going to believe, and even if we have a losing season, we’ll do it again next year.  Now, that doesn’t make sense.  I don’t want to offend Catholics out there, but, here’s a quote from Cardinal O’Conner, from the New York Times. He was interviewed by the New York Times before his death.  He said, “Church teaching is that I do not know at any given moment what my eternal future will be.”  Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, she was still alive at this time; do not know whether they will get to heaven.  Well, if the Pope doesn’t know whether he’s going to get to heaven, what hope is there for the average Catholic?  So, in Catholicism you say Mass after Mass after Mass in the hope that you will say enough of them to get you out of purgatory, but there’s no proof, even if there is such a place as purgatory.  Tom, I think we need to get back to the Word of God and something a lot more important than whether a soccer team wins, is “where will you spend eternity?”  That’s what faith is all about, that’s what Christianity is all about.  Not about whether a particular team wins or not.  And, the tragedy is, Tom, you’ve got a lot of people here going through these motions and having faith somehow in a priest blessing some goal posts, and they don’t know where they’re going to spend eternity.  I think they ought to stop everything.  Let’s stop everything, shut it all down.  Wait a minute!  Wait a minute! Because when you step out into eternity it’s too late.  Why don’t we get that straight first?  Now, maybe I’m just a narrow-minded killjoy, trying to ruin their fun.  But—

Tom:

But, Dave, as we know, it’s in this country as well as other countries throughout the world.  Sports have become religion.  So there’s no problem with some who are so compelled, as the article says, “an inexplicable passion” that they have, and so, if you have a passion for something, you want at all costs whatever it takes, you want your team to win.  Then, God becomes a genie in a bottle.  You rub him the right way, you do the certain things that you think will appease, or really, I mean this is occultism.  This is sad.

Dave:

And, it doesn’t work, Tom.  I’ve often said, you know, let’s take Luke Skywalker, Star Wars force, and so forth.The whole New Age movement is based upon the idea that there is a “potential within us.”  You’ve got psychic research going on in serious universities from Harvard to Stanford, trying to develop this power, this psychic power within us.  Well, Tom, if everyone in the world had this psychic power it wouldn’t bring peace.  It would make it worse.  Now, everybody is a Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker zapping one another with psychic power.  The problem is—

Tom:

Put them on the playing field in soccer shorts.

Dave:

Yeah.  Who’s going to bring this thing together?  We need one true God.  And all the rest of us need to bow the knee to Him, and allow Him to direct our lives so that we are not in conflict with one another.  The problem is that we’ve got a bunch of little gods running around who all want this power for themselves.  We need to think about eternity.  And, I’m hoping that that’s what we’re helping our listeners to do.  Now, I’m not against your team winning, but everybody’s team can’t win.  But, those that get the championship, they’re happy, and those that lose are sad.  But, in eternity, none of that will matter.  Let’s think about something that’s important.