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(Vatican Radio) St Peter’s Cricket Club, popularly known as the ‘Vatican XI’ is preparing for a second British tour with both ecumenical and interfaith objectives high on the agenda.

The team, comprised of Catholic priests and seminarians from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the UK, was founded in 2013 and challenged a Church of England cricket team in Canterbury the following year. Since then, the sporting friendships and spiritual experiences have grown, with the Anglican side coming to Rome for a return match in 2015.

From September 11th to 20th the Vatican team sets off on a second ‘Light of Faith’ tour, playing against Anglicans, a Muslim team from Yorkshire and an interfaith match against cricketers from Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist communities in the south east of England.

The Vatican XI, which enjoys the patronage of the Pontifical Council for Culture, will play in venues which have been offered free of charge, including the famous Edgbaston ground in Birmingham and the revered Headingley site which has been used for international test cricket since 1899.

The goals of St Peter’s team members include sharing their faith with others, building bridges across religious and cultural divides and furthering what Pope Francis calls ‘the culture of encounter. To find out more, Philippa Hitchen spoke with team manager, Fr Eamonn O’Higgins, spiritual director of the Maria Mater Ecclesiae seminary where many of the players are in training for the priesthood.

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Fr Eamonn says that the tours are called ‘Light of Faith’ because “deep down, that is what we try to transmit. He notes that while the 2014 tour focused on establishing relations with the Church of England, this second event has a much broader interreligious dimension with Muslims and others who’ve become interested in the opportunities that such encounters can offer.

While cricket is the context in which the players meet, Fr Eamonn says the tour is also about going “to pray and to commune” with people in different ways. He notes that he’s been invited to speak at a mosque on the Friday that the team will be in Batley, Yorkshire with the local community. “It’s a pilgrimage”, he says, adding “that means not only praying ourselves, but understanding and praying with other faiths as well”.

Asked about the effect of these ecumenical and interreligious encounters on the seminarians training at the Mater Ecclesiae seminary, Fr Eamonn says that for “all of us, not just the lads”, it has “an extremely broadening effect”. While we sometimes have our own stereotypes, often influenced by the media’s depiction of other religious communities, he says “the fact of meeting members of other faiths, understanding their contexts, listening to their prayer, being with their families”, enables the team to understand other people and their traditions in a new way.

“You cannot understand another culture or another religion without getting into it from the inside, from somebody else’s point of view, the Vatican team manager insists, “and this is the privilege we’ve been able to experience”.  

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