Sports fans around the world are following soccer’s World Cup, the world’s largest multiple-site sporting event, which is being hosted at 16 sites in the United States, Canada and Mexico, leading to the final match on Sunday, July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
Soccer, or football as it’s known in most of the world, isn’t directly connected with religion, although it’s often said that enthusiasts may religiously follow a certain team or nation. But some surprising connections exist between the sport, the Catholic Church, the founder of the World Cup tournament and the four most recent popes.
The man who came up with the idea for the tournament was a devout Catholic named Jules Rimet, who was born in 1873 in France and was greatly impacted by Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which was considered radical for its time because it called for justice for workers, respect for human dignity and social equality.
The current pope, Leo XIV, has said he took that papal name to symbolize his commitment to the encyclical’s social justice principles.
Rimet was 18 when Rerum Novarum was issued and it had a profound influence on the rest of his life, inspiring him to help create an organization providing medical and social aid to the poor.
Rimet’s passion for social reform was matched by a passion for team sports, which in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were forming the structure of clubs and leagues that is familiar today.
In 1897, Rimet founded an athletic club known as Red Star in Paris, which was based on the then-novel idea of having people of all social classes as members. Soccer was included in its programs despite being looked down upon by some French as being only for the English and the lower classes.
Rimet believed in sports having a purpose beyond recreation. He felt that when people played together, race and class barriers could disappear because results of athletic contests were determined solely by physical and mental ability rather than wealth or social status.
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In 1904, Rimet played a key role in establishing the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, better known by the acronym FIFA, one of the first worldwide athletic associations. FIFA was created to govern soccer internationally by setting universal rules for the sport and encouraging cooperation among nations.
Ten years after FIFA was founded, World War I began devastating Europe, costing tens of millions of lives in four years. Rimet was an officer in the French army and came back from witnessing the horrors of the battlefield with a strengthened conviction that international understanding was desperately needed and that soccer could help nations come together.
He became president of FIFA in 1921 and immediately began working toward creation of an international tournament to take place every four years, with the top players of all nations eligible. The Olympic soccer tournament already existed, but the Olympics at the time still were limited to amateurs.
It took nine years of lobbying and negotiations, but the first World Cup tournament took place in Uruguay in 1930, involving 13 nations. The tournament was a triumph, proving that countries from different continents, cultures and forms of government could gather peacefully around a shared passion. It has taken place every four years since then, except for 1942 and 1946 when it was affected by World War II and its aftermath.
Today it involves 200 nations, with 48 making it to the championship rounds.
Throughout history, football has often reflected political tensions, but it has also created remarkable moments of reconciliation.
One notable example occurred during the 1998 World Cup in France. The French national team, made up of players from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, became a powerful symbol of unity in a nation grappling with questions of identity and integration.
Another famous example came in 2002 when Japan and South Korea jointly hosted the World Cup. Despite a complicated history marked by political tensions, the tournament demonstrated how sporting cooperation could build goodwill between neighboring nations.
Even during periods of international conflict, World Cups have provided opportunities for dialogue, cultural exchange and mutual respect. Fans who might otherwise never meet fulfilled Rimet’s dream by sharing stadiums, celebrations and friendships.
Rimet was president of FIFA from 1921 to 1954. When he died in 1956, he had seen the World Cup become a global institution allowing nations to come together and set aside political differences.
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Pope Leo XIV recognized the World Cup this month with a message on social media just before the tournament. “The World Cup begins tomorrow, and many will watch the matches,” he wrote.
“Soccer reminds us of something we must not forget: life is not a race to show off on our own, but a path we learn to walk together. Anyone who does not know how to pass the ball, even if they have talent, has not yet understood the game. Anyone who does not know how to live with and for others has not yet understood life.
“In addition to being kind and gentle, Christians must be compassionate, love selflessly and seek the good of others, knowing that in every brother and sister who suffers it is the Lord Himself Who asks and receives, Who is welcomed or rejected, loved or despised.”
Speaking earlier in Barcelona, Spain, home of one of the world’s most famous soccer teams, he recalled playing with seminarians during his time as a bishop in Peru. He said he played “on defense, if you want to know. I wasn’t a big goal scorer.”
“A little sport is good for everyone; one has to find ways to – let’s say – maintain and enjoy good health: body, mind and soul. So, that has indeed been a part of my life,” he said.
His most recent predecessors also had meaningful relationships with football.
Pope St. John Paul II was a goalkeeper on youth teams in Poland and supported the Cracovia Krakow team, recognizing the sport’s ability to promote teamwork and perseverance.
Pope Benedict XVI supported the Bayern Munich club in Germany and said that, as a boy, his dream was not of the priesthood but of playing goal for them. He emphasized soccer’s potential to teach honesty and solidarity, criticizing the way in which the sport’s key matches often conflict with family and religious life.
Pope Francis, an Argentinian, was a lifetime fan of the San Lorenzo team in Buenos Aires, which was founded by Father Lorenzo Massa in 1908 as an outgrowth of a boys club for children from poor families. Until the end of his life, he paid yearly dues to the club as member No. 88,235, making him eligible for game tickets.
San Lorenzo generally was among the lower-ranked teams in the Argentine league, but in 2014, Francis’ second year as pope, they won the Copa Libertadores, the top club tournament in South America, for the first time. He invited the team to the Vatican and the players and the team’s board of directors visited him there. Following his death in 2025, Argentine clubs honored him and matches were suspended in tribute.
While he was enthusiastic about the game, he spoke out against the fanaticism and violence that sometimes overshadow it. He called on top-level players to show humility and always remember their origins.
“Don’t forget where you came from. Those pitches (fields) in the outskirts, that place for prayer, that small club,” he said in a 2019 speech. “I hope you can always feel the gratitude for your story, which is made of sacrifice, victories and battles. … Being great in life, that is the victory for all of us.”
The Vatican fields its own amateur soccer team, featuring employees and seminarians, with full papal support. Popes often have visited its training sessions.
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Teams of students from the various seminaries in Rome had a competition known as the Clericus Cup from 2007 until it was halted by the COVID pandemic in 2020. Seminarians from the Pontifical North American College won it three times.
Besides San Lorenzo, several other major soccer teams have strong Catholic ties, including Club America in Mexico, Boca Juniors in Argentina, Universidad Catolica in Chile and Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain. Real Madrid traditionally celebrates major trophy victories by bringing the trophy to the cathedral in Madrid to be blessed by the city’s archbishop.
One of the longest-running rivalries in the sport is that between two professional soccer teams in Glasgow, Scotland: Celtic, founded by Catholics, and Rangers, whose supporters are mostly Protestant. The teams have met 349 times since 1888 in what is known as the Old Firm Derby, with Rangers winning 172 times, Celtic 171 and 106 ties.
England’s Premier League has four teams – Everton, Fulham, Manchester City and Southampton – which were started by Anglican churches. Southampton’s home grounds are known as St. Mary’s Stadium and the team is nicknamed the Saints. Everton’s Goodison Park in Liverpool has a church partly within its perimeter and the team doesn’t play home games on Sundays.