World News
'What's Your Goal?' Vocations theme draws on soccer's popularity
Published: May 2, 2006
LONDON (CNS) -- The Gregorian chant sung in churches and soccer anthems that resound through Britain's soccer stadiums may seem a world apart, but those venues are often the only two places where people sing together, said a church official. With this in mind, the Catholic Church is drawing on the "beautiful game" as part of a new campaign to attract "single, practicing Catholics in their 20s" to the priesthood. The latest vocations drive of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales features a poster of a young man in a soccer jersey clutching a ball. As if reflected in a mirror, the same man appears opposite, but this time with his hands joined in prayer and wearing the clerical garb and collar of a Catholic priest. The poster asks, "What's Your Goal?" Then come the words "Pride, Passion, Faith" -- a play on "Pride, Passion, Belief," the slogan of the Nationwide Building Society, a major sponsor of the English national soccer team. The posters were in the more than 5,000 packs sent to Catholic schools, churches and chaplaincies ahead of Vocations Sunday May 7.
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