Priests in Baltimore archdiocese indulge in World Cup passion

Spiritan Father Uju Patrick Okeahialam, like many around the globe, credits soccer with playing a major role in his life.

The pastor of St. Edward in West Baltimore says the sport helped draw him to the seminary and kept him there.

“I considered playing professionally before the Holy Spirit told me otherwise,” joked Father Okeahialam. “It’s the king of sports and I absolutely love it.”

While the native of Nigeria can’t play as much as he used to because of an ailing knee, he still keeps a soccer ball in his car and makes sure to find time to follow his “hobby.”

That hobby is front and center for Father Okeahialam and other fans this month with the World Cup in the middle of its competition to crown the best team in the world.  

As the most-watched sports event in the world, the tournament features 32 teams that were culled from an original pool of 204 nations. 

This year’s tournament, hosted by the Federation International de Football Association (FIFA), is a bit of a rarity. Because it is being played in Qatar, a nation on the northeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula, the games started in November and will conclude in December instead of the typical timeframe of summer. The games were moved back in the calendar to avoid excessive heat.

That little timing twist has put the legion of passionate soccer fans in the clergy of the Archdiocese of Baltimore in a bit of a bind since the games now fall during the season of Advent – easily one of the busier times of the year for clergy directing parishes and performing other important ecclesiastical and liturgical roles.

Conventual Franciscan Father Emmanuel Acquaye, a chaplain at Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore, thinks soccer and Advent go together like candy canes and Christmas trees.

“I love it,’’ said Father Acquaye, a native of Ghana who played as a goaltender through high school before coming to the U.S. in 2013. “I think Advent and the World Cup are a natural fit. Advent is all about the joy of waiting for the arrival of the Lord, and the World Cup is all about joy. When you enter that stadium or turn on that TV, you forget about religious ideologies and politics and it’s just the joy of the game. It’s like walking into heaven.

“Soccer finds a way to cut through differences and bring people together,” said Father Acquaye, who regularly makes time to watch the English Premier League each Saturday and Sunday and has been mostly following the World Cup on radio and through YouTube highlights when he can’t watch a live television broadcast. 

He did make time to watch his native Ghana’s 3-2 victory Nov. 28 over South Korea and a 3-2 loss Nov. 24 to Portugal.

Father Okeahialam hasn’t had an issue with keeping up with his favorite sport either, typically waking early to catch the 5 a.m. broadcast and then some of the 8 a.m. game before diving into his work day.

“It hasn’t been an issue so far,” he said. “We will see how it goes when the games get into the knockout stage,” he said, referring to the Round of 16 beginning Dec. 3.

Father Okeahialam said it is vital for him to find downtime during his workweek, and soccer often provides that outlet.

“It’s a pastime for me,” he said. “It’s important to find time to relax, and soccer helps with that. It’s not a distraction from my ministry, though. When it’s time to work, I go to work. Soccer played a major role in my personal journey, so I still find time to integrate it into my life.”

Because soccer has been so integral in his life, he would like to see the game continue to spread beyond its power bases in Europe and South America. That’s why Father Okeahialam is rooting for his adopted home country of the United States or an African nation to win the title since Nigeria didn’t make it out of qualifying.

“If a non-European team wins, it will make the sport more prominent,” he said. 

The United States gets the opportunity to continue toward a title shot when the team opens play in the Round of 16 Dec. 4, 10 a.m., against the Netherlands.

Email Gerry Jackson at gjackson@CatholicReview.org

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