Female players to represent Anglican Church in big game against Vatican

From England-

The Archbishop of Canterbury's cricket team will be welcoming its first female players to join them in a match against the Vatican this summer.

 Thea Smith and Becky Heath-Taylor will be the first women to play for the Archbishop of Canterbury XI, in a match to encourage stronger relationships between church denominations.

 Ms Heath Taylor is currently in training for priesthood at Trinity College, Bristol and Ms Smith is due to be ordained the day before she heads to Rome for the match.

Ms Smith told Premier it was exciting to help represent positive change within the church.
She said: "The face of women’s sport is changing and the church has caught wind of that.

"And the face of our ecumenical church relationships are changing and improving.

More here-

https://www.premier.org.uk/News/UK/Female-players-to-represent-Anglican-Church-in-big-game-against-Vatican

Protestants and Catholics Meet, on the Cricket Pitch

From The New York Times-

Ancient Rome is credited with turning sport from athletic ritual into spectacle. From bloody gladiatorial battles in the Colosseum, to the Derby della Capitale between the soccer archrivals Lazio and A.S. Roma, the city’s stadia have seen every emotion.

It was fitting, then, that this year Rome hosted a cricket match between the Anglican and Catholic churches. Unlike the ancient blood sports, this match fostered unity.

It might not look like much, but the match played on Rome’s only cricket pitch was more significant than it appeared.

“Playing together builds up its own bond, perhaps more of a bond than at a theological level, where set groups start off from very clear postures and are trying to work together,” said Father Eamon, the manager of the Vatican team.

2017 was the tournament’s fourth year, and the second time it has been held in Rome. Three teams competed in 2016: the two Christian teams and a Muslim team from Birmingham, England.

More here-

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/sports/protestants-and-catholics-meet-on-the-cricket-pitch.html

Pope gets signed cricket bat after Anglican-Vatican rematch

From Boston-

Pope Francis has received an unusual gift aimed at boosting relations between the Catholic and Anglican churches: A cricket bat signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and his team following their recent rematch with the Vatican's XI on Rome's Campanelle grounds.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, a former rugby player who nevertheless knows cricket, gave Francis the bat Thursday after the St. Peter's Cricket Club beat the Church of England's XI by 43 runs in a 20-over match this weekend.
More here

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/other/2015/10/pope_gets_signed_cricket_bat_after_anglican_vatican_rematch

Cricket and Good Will

From The Living Church-

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.

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/global-briefs-oct-5

Vatican Cricket Club to face Muslim XI, Anglican Church XI in series of matches

From Cricket Country-

The Vatican‘s increasingly high-profile cricket club has set the date for a highly symbolic first match against an all-Muslim team from Britain, organisers said Thursday. In a series of matches this month, the St Peter’s cricket club, made up of mostly South Asian Rome-based seminarians and priests, will also take on a team from Pope Francis’s home town of Buenos Aires and get a chance of revenge against a Church of England XI. But it is the meeting with Mount Cricket Club from Batley, Yorkshire, on October 17 that is likely to attract the most attention, with the Church hoping it will make a small contribution to global inter-faith understanding.

More here-

http://www.cricketcountry.com/news/vatican-cricket-club-to-face-muslim-xi-anglican-church-xi-in-series-of-matches-335525

Anglican team eases to victory against Vatican XI

Cricket results-

The long-awaited cricketing showdown between the Church of England and the Vatican has ended in a comfortable victory for the Anglican team.

The Anglican XI scored 108 for 4, winning with 5 balls to spare. St Peter’s XI had earned 106 for 4 from their 20 overs. The match was close until the 18th over, when the C of E team gained the advantage.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, presented the trophy to the winners as night fell at St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury.

More here-

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/09/20/anglican-team-eases-to-victory-against-vatican-xi/

and here-

http://www.canterburytimes.co.uk/Wide-Prayer-holy-cricket-match-begins-Canterbury/story-22952670-detail/story.html

Pope Francis blesses Vatican cricket XI ahead of Anglican showdown

From The Telegraph-

The Vatican's "underdog" cricket team was given an official blessing by Pope Francis on Tuesday as it prepares to travel to Britain to take on a formidable Anglican XI as well as a team fielded by the Queen at Windsor Castle.

The Latin American Pope, who is a passionate football fan but knows little about cricket, signed a bat that the team will take with them during their five-match tour of England, which begins on Friday.

After the tour the bat will be auctioned online on eBay or "possibly something more dignified" in order to raise money for a joint Catholic and Anglican campaign against modern-day slavery and indentured labour, the Global Freedom Network, said a Vatican official.

More here-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/11084766/Pope-Francis-blesses-Vatican-cricket-XI-ahead-of-Anglican-showdown.html

From The "You Can't Make this stuff Up" Department-

AN UMPIRE who offered his services to the church for a friendly cricket match was stunned to be turned down – because an ancestor of his was a bishop two centuries ago.

Playwright and cricket buff Michael Claughton was out for a duck in the friendly between the Archbishop of Canterbury's XI and a Vatican XI because he is related to Thomas Claughton, Bishop of Rochester and of St Albans in the 19th century.

The Ashford Borough Council deputy leader was bowled out by the Church Times, which is organising this month's match with Kent County Cricket Club, as they feared he might be biased.

Father-of-one Mr Claughton said: "It's bonkers. This is church bureaucracy gone mad. They said to me 'we'll probably be looking for a Methodist or an atheist'. It's amazing."

More here-


http://www.folkestoneherald.co.uk/Umpire-Anglican-inter-churches-match/story-22876641-detail/story.html

Vatican cricket team brace themselves for match at St Peter's

From The UK-

Vatican priests will be swapping their cassocks for cricket whites when they come to Brighton for a historic match.

Vatican-based St Peter’s Cricket Club will be playing their Brighton-based cricketing namesakes as part of a tour of England which will also see them challenge teams of royals, military chaplains and writers.

David Corney, chairman of the Preston Park-based St Peter’s Cricket Club, said the match next month will be the “most exciting event” in the club’s 131 year history.

More here-

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/11418235.Vatican_cricket_team_brace_themselves_for_match_at_St_Peter_s/

Vatican cricket team set to play Anglican side and Royal Household XI

From The Guardian-

The Vatican’s new cricket team have announced that they will play both an Anglican team and a Royal Household’s XI on their “Light of Faith Tour” in September.

The Vatican formed its team last year, made up of largely Indian and Sri Lankan priests, deacons and seminarians studying in Rome. The idea was the brainchild of John McCarthy, Australia’s ambassador to the Holy See, who had been to play an Anglican squad in England in a show of ecumenical good sportsmanship.

The match against the Anglican team, to be played on 19 September at Kent’s home ground in Canterbury, has been scheduled in order to forge closer ties between the Catholic and Anglican churches, which split in 1534 after King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment. Nearly 500 years later, the two churches remain divided on a host of issues, including female bishops.

More here-

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jun/23/vatican-cricket-tour-anglican-royal-household-xi

Archbishop of Canterbury meets Pope's cricket team

From The Telegraph-

It was his first encounter with the Vatican XI that plans to take on the Church of England at cricket in September - and the bravado of the Pope's top players was not enough to rattle the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Most Rev. Justin Welby professed himself unperturbed to learn that the Vatican had recruited an Indian batsmen and a Sri Lankan bowler to its team.

The Anglicans would still have God on their side when the Church of England's first XI faced their adversaries in their first match in Canterbury in September, he joked.

" This is the first cricket match between the two since the Reformation,” Archbishop Welby said with a grin. "There will be no intervention on the other side," he added as he tossed a cricket ball in the air in the Vatican gardens. "We all know God is English."

More here-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/10901235/Archbishop-of-Canterbury-meets-Popes-cricket-team.html

Anglican priests to play Vatican team at cricket

From The BBC-

The head of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has accepted a challenge from the Vatican to play their first ever cricket match.

Priests from the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church are planning to compete - appropriately enough - at Lord's in London next September.

The Vatican cricket club, founded in October, includes priests from Australia, India and Pakistan.

It has also been suggested the umpires might be Muslim or Jewish.

But the feeling is that their faith will not matter - as long as they are fair, the BBC's Alan Johnston in Rome reports. He adds that anything else just wouldn't be cricket.

Accepting the challenge, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said he was looking "forward to the possibility that this match may actually raise money for charity", according to Reuters.

More here-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25473150

What Christianity can teach cricket

From England-

England's victory in the current Ashes series has captured the imagination of the country this summer. Many of us have been glued to our televisions and radios, or just as likely our computers and mobiles to follow the latest twists and turns of the Test matches.

There have, of course, been controversial episodes in the series and some behaviour which has departed from the high standards of a game that prides itself on a tradition of gentlemanly conduct.

This flared up during the First Test Match at Trent Bridge in July when Stuart Broad edged the ball to first slip and did "not walk." Some think this is further evidence that cricket has left behind its ethical roots, partly derived from Christianity.

As cricket developed in the 19th century, many Christians saw the emergence of the game, with its intricate rules and gentlemanly spirit, as a way of inculcating a moral code. Indeed, one-third of all Oxbridge cricket blues between 1860 and 1900 later trained for the clergy. Christians who played the game in this formative era included J.C. Ryle (1816-1900), the very first Anglican Bishop of Liverpool), the Rev. Edward Lyttleton (1855-1942) and C.T. Studd (1860-1931). Later on, batsmen to make their mark in the first half of the twentieth century included Canon Frank Gillingham (1875-1953), Canon J H Parsons (1890-1981) and the Rev E T Killick (1907-1953).
- See more at:

http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/comment-opinion/1017-what-christianity-can-teach-cricket#sthash.Mw09XMjs.dpuf