Cricket and Good Will: Pope Francis is said to know little about cricket. Courtesy of his South American roots, soccer is his game. Cricket, however, now has a place among the Vatican’s diplomatic endeavors. Last September the St. Peter’s team, Rome-based players mostly from the Indian subcontinent, visited England and narrowly lost to a team representing the Archbishop of Canterbury. This month they return.
Matches are arranged against the Church of England and the Royal Household. But catching most media headlines is a match against an all-Muslim team, Mount Cricket Club from Batley, Yorkshire, on October 17. Organizers hope it will draw still more headlines in cricket-playing Muslim countries.
Says the Rev. Bob McCulloch, an Australian who worked in Pakistan for more than 30 years and used cricket to further community relations: “Pope Francis says walls are never solutions, bridges always are. What we are doing here is making a good bridge, a small counterbalance to a culture of violence throughout the world.”
Edith Cavell Honored: The railway carriage used to transport the body of the executed World War I nurse Edith Cavell has gone on display in her home county of Norfolk as the 100th anniversary of her death approaches. Miss Cavell was killed by firing squad on October 12, 1915, shot as a spy accused of aiding 200 Allied soldiers to escape to Holland. The carriage contains displays about the heroine and her work. Monarch recently published Edith Cavell: Faith Before the Firing Squad, a biography by Catherine Butcher.
Archbishop Calls for Engagement: The Archbishop of Canterbury has urged faith groups to go the extra mile for the common good. “Christians and Muslims are not called to a ghetto-like existence, although both our faiths have from time to time acted in that way, through fear or defensiveness,” Archbishop Justin Welby said in a speech at the Muslim Council of Wales attended by the Anglican primates of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. “We are called by contrast to be actively involved in our society not for our own good but for the common good.”
Image of cricket players by rupertjefferies, via morgueFile. • http://mrg.bz/noaDnn
