Chilean Church thanks God for football
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The Chilean Church has given its blessing to the World Cup with an advert showing home international Fabian Orellana booting a ball skywards which comes back down and ends up in the hands of ... Jesus Christ.
"Thank you, Lord, for football," is the message in the campaign which the church has launched on its website, www.iglesia.cl.
The Church recognises, it says, that God and football can co-exist.
"Millions of people go to mass in the morning and off to the football in the evening. Because we are a church with a mission we live out the best of our values alongside the hopes of an entire nation" around the Chilean colours, the campaign suggests.
The campaign also juxtaposes a dozen aspects of religion and football to show how they can be seen as intertwined, including "the kick off (motivation)" and "the best moves (suggestions for communities)."
In the same vein the church calls for a spirit of fair play at the World Cup as for society as a whole while suggesting that international football "speaks to us about the lives of peoples."
And adding to the religious spirit of the game Chilean clergy have highlighted two special World Cup-themed prayers, one based on an idea drawn up by their South African counterparts calling on God to grant that "fairness, justice and peace prevail amongst players and participants".
The other, composed by Chilean bishops, asks God "always to grant fair play in football and life as a whole so that we may, with His grace, reach the eternal goal" not, of necessarily winning the World Cup - which Chile have never managed - but of of "eternal life in Him."
"It's a good initiative," said Isaldo Bettin, of the parish of Our Lady of Pompeya, in Santiago.
Father Bettin, being Brazilian, is needless to say a big fan of the game himself - though he perhaps tactfully avoided mention of whether his personal prayers were with Chile or his homeland.
Father Bettin did, however, say that "we decided last year to leave the whole World Cup month free of church events" so that the people "can watch it without problems."