Growth in immigrant communities seen fostering love for soccer in US

By Paul Sanchez
Catholic News Service

PORT CHESTER, N.Y. (CNS) -- Before and during the 2010 World Cup games being played in South Africa until July 11, there have been numerous articles and editorials in the American press about what has traditionally been a lack of interest in the World Cup in the United States.

These sentiments were boldly expressed in a May 6 article in The New York Times headlined "Most Popular Soccer Team in the U.S.: Mexico?" It detailed the successes of the Mexican national team and the pride Mexicans in the United States have for that team.

But what seems missing in a lot of the coverage is how the growth of this country's immigrant population may be responsible for a growing U.S. interest in the sport, because immigrants are bringing with them their passion for their national sport.

Not to mention that many of these immigrants also are bringing their Catholic faith to their new home. Many come from predominantly Catholic countries, such as Latin American nations, and account for much of the recent growth of the U.S. Catholic Church.

(And not a few stories in the Catholic press have highlighted the strong Catholic faith of many of the current players.)

Latin America was well represented among the 32 teams that qualified for the 2010 World Cup. And among the eight teams heading into the Cup's quarterfinals were Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay.

One U.S. community noted for its diverse Latin American population is Port Chester in Westchester County. Virtually all Latin American nations seem to be represented there.

One popular locale for the area's massive Brazilian community to watch the games has been Churrascaria Copacabana, a steakhouse with many television screens in the outside bar area.

Anderson Moretti, a native of Sao Paolo, who is the general manager of Copacabana, feels that the World Cup brings the Brazilian community in the United States closer together.

"You can see all the families coming together to watch the matches. It is as big in the Brazilian community here as it is in the U.S. People like to dress up in the colors and team jerseys," he said.

Moretti said that after a Latino country is eliminated, people from that country will root for another Latino country to win it all.

The New York City borough of the Bronx is noted for having communities of almost every immigrant group imaginable, with Latino groups being the most prevalent. However, in the Belmont section of the Bronx, a traditional Italian-American stronghold, both Italian-born people and people of Italian descent had geared up for the World Cup long in advance of the opening game June 11.

Stan Petti, owner of Full Moon Pizzeria, has had a recent poster of the Italian team hanging in his restaurant for months. Petti, a native of Italy's province of Salerno who came to the United States in 1972, has been talking about Italy's chances in the 2010 Cup with his patrons, both Italians and non-Italians, for several months. The restaurant shows many of the games on widescreens.

"The World Cup is a big event in the Italian community because it is a part of our culture. We have followed the World Cup since we were kids," he said. "Besides, if the Italian team does well, it is nice to show off our flag."

Belmont in the past 20 years has seen an influx of Mexican immigrants who live and work in the neighborhood.

Petti said he sees the World Cup as a unifying force for the Italians, Latino groups and Albanians in the neighborhood.

"The World Cup certainly brings people of different backgrounds together, and it does not have to be about the players or different teams but also the referee and the country where the game is played," he said.

Rusty Chorro Serpas, a native of El Salvador who eats lunch regularly at the Full Moon, feels that Salvadorans love soccer so much that they got over the disappointment of their country failing to qualify for the World Cup and were still following the games out of their intense love of soccer.

"I can come in here almost every day to eat lunch, and every day I can talk about the World Cup with people from different countries -- Mexico, Colombia, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Portugal and so many more," he said. "The World Cup is both a unifier and a way of life. When it is over, I can't wait for another four years to pass!"

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Pope names Quebec cardinal head of Congregation for Bishops

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has named Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec to be the new prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, the office that helps the pope choose bishops for Latin-rite dioceses around the world.

Cardinal Ouellet, 66, will succeed Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, 76, who has headed the congregation since 2000.

The appointment was announced at the Vatican June 30. In addition to serving as prefect of the congregation, Cardinal Ouellet also will be president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, which promotes cooperation between the various offices of the Vatican and the Latin American bishops' council.

Cardinal Ouellet welcomed his appointment to one of the Vatican's most powerful posts "with gratitude, but also with a sense of fear," at a June 30 news conference at the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Quebec.

In that role, he will head the office that advises the pope in choosing the world's bishops.

"The holy father has to be very informed, with clarity, with authenticity in order to make a good decision. So it is a difficult task," said Cardinal Ouellet, the primate of Canada and the first North American cardinal to be put in charge of the bishops congregation.

The cardinal said that while he views the appointment as "a mark of great confidence," he feels fear because his new post presents him with a "difficult" and "huge" responsibility.

The cardinal, stressing the importance of the prefect, said bishops play a key role in the life of the church and have to be clever, prudent and patient in working with the rest of the church community. He said he would help bishops be good bishops while respecting their individual styles and personalities.

Ouellet said he expects to officially take over as prefect of the Congregation of Bishops at the end of August or the beginning of September.

Cardinal Ouellet is no stranger to Rome or the Roman Curia, but he also has the direct pastoral experience of leading a large archdiocese.

Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, founder and CEO of Canada's Salt and Light Television, said, "The Curia is only as effective as the seasoned shepherds who lead the various departments" and "the Congregation for Bishops, in particular, must embody what it strives to do: prepare shepherds and pastors to the universal church.

"Under the leadership of Cardinal Ouellet, I believe that the Congregation for Bishops will do great work in a very challenging time," Father Rosica said in an e-mail interview with Catholic News Service.

Cardinal Ouellet had studied in Rome and returned to the city to teach in 1996. A year later, he was appointed chair of dogmatic theology at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family.

In 2001, he was named a bishop and appointed secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. He also served on the Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews.

In 2002 Pope John Paul II named him archbishop of Quebec and in 2003 he made him a cardinal.

He was one of only two cardinals chosen to deliver major speeches to the two-day World Meeting of Priests that preceded the closing of the Year for Priests with Pope Benedict in early June.

He spoke to the priests June 10 about an "unprecedented wave of challenges against the church and the priesthood following the revelation of scandals whose gravity we must recognize and sincerely work to repair."

"But beyond the necessary purification our sins require, we must also recognize that at the present moment there is open opposition to our service to the truth and there are attacks from both outside and inside that aim to divide the church. We pray together for the unity of the church and for the sanctification of priests, these heralds of the good news of salvation," he said.

Cardinal Ouellet has a reputation as an inspiring theologian whose teaching is close to that of Pope Benedict.

The pope named him a member of the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist in 2005 and he was elected to head the commission that drafted the synod's final message. In 2008, he hosted the International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec.

Born June 8, 1944, in La Motte, Quebec, he earned a degree in theology from the University of Montreal in 1968 and was ordained a priest for the Montreal Archdiocese. He joined the Sulpician order in 1972 and was sent to Rome to study philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.

He taught at seminaries in Colombia and Montreal before earning his doctorate in dogmatic theology from Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University in 1983.

He later served as rector of seminaries in Manizales, Colombia, in Montreal and in Edmonton, before returning to Rome to teach.

Cardinal Ouellet speaks French, English, Italian, German and Spanish.

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Contributing to this story was Adeshina Emmanuel in Washington.

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Pope announces formation of pontifical council for new evangelization

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI announced he is establishing a pontifical council for new evangelization to find ways "to re-propose the perennial truth of the Gospel" in regions where secularism is smothering church practice.

Leading an evening prayer service June 28 at Rome's Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, Pope Benedict said there are areas of the globe that have been known as Christian for centuries, but where in the past few centuries "the process of secularization has produced a serious crisis" in people's sense of what it means to be Christian and to belong to the church.

"I have decided to create a new organism, in the form of a pontifical council, with the principal task of promoting a renewed evangelization in the countries where the first proclamation of faith has already resounded and where there are churches of ancient foundation present, but which are living through a progressive secularization of society and a kind of 'eclipse of the sense of God,'" he said.

The challenge, he said, is to find ways to help people rediscover the value of faith.

The pope did not say what the formal name of the pontifical council would be and he did not announce who would head it, although in the weeks leading to the announcement, Vatican commentators suggested it would be Italian Archbishop Rino Fisichella, currently president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Pope Benedict made the announcement at the basilica built over what is believed to be the tomb of St. Paul, who dedicated "his entire existence and his hard work for the kingdom of God," the pope said.

The Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, established by Pope John Paul II in 1985, was the last pontifical council created.

The pope's evening prayer service marked the vigil of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the Vatican's patron saints and the symbols of the church's unity and its universality, he said.

Saying he wanted to focus the evening service on the universal aspect of the church, Pope Benedict recalled how Pope John Paul II repeatedly used the phrase "new evangelization" to describe the need for a new commitment to spreading the Gospel message in countries evangelized centuries ago and the need to find new ways to preach the Gospel that correspond both to the truth and to the needs of modern men and women.

The pope said the social and religious challenges of the modern world cannot be met by human strength and ingenuity alone. In fact, he said, he and other church leaders often feel like the disciples of Jesus faced with a hungry crowd but having only a few fish and a couple loaves of bread to divide among them.

"Jesus showed them that with faith in God nothing is impossible and that a few loaves of bread and fish, blessed and shared, could satisfy everyone," he said.

"But there wasn't -- and there isn't -- only hunger for material food: There is a deeper hunger, which only God can satisfy," the pope said.

Men and women today want "an authentic and full life, they need truth, profound freedom, unconditional love. Even in the deserts of the secularized world, the human soul thirsts for God," he said.

Welcoming a delegation from the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, the pope said the task of new evangelization also is tied to the commitment to working for Christian unity.

"May the intercession of Sts. Peter and Paul obtain for the whole church an ardent faith and apostolic courage to announce to the world the truth we all need, the truth that is God," the pope prayed.

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