The World Cup is set to grace the screens of homes and sports bars around the world. With this year’s tournament arriving in North America for the first time in over 30 years, many Americans have taken a greater interest in soccer. Soccer, or football, is the most popular sport in the world, with the World Cup garnering billions of views and star players being some of the most recognizable celebrities on Earth. The popularity of the sport runs deeper than viewing statistics and jersey sales, though. Children grow up living and breathing this sport, cities and nations bank their collective pride on the outcome of matches, and legendary players are treated with worshipful devotion. While fan devotion in American sports can sometimes reach levels akin to this (speaking as a lifelong Philadelphia Eagles fan), the dedication that some soccer fans have to their teams and players is often on another level. Some may even see this devotion as bordering on religious, and, indeed, some players are called gods for their skill. So, what does the Church have to say about this very real devotion?
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The Church has a lot to say about sport in general and soccer specifically. Saint Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, used the discipline of athletes as a comparison for his spiritual and physical mortification in pursuit of Christ. The papal prayer intention for June 2026 is for the promotion of “the values of sport.” Pope Leo, on the Jubilee of Sport, spoke that sport encourages encounter with God by challenging “us to relate to others and with others, not only outwardly but also, above all, interiorly.” Pope Francis, a soccer fan whose home nation of Argentina gave the world soccer legends like Maradona and Lionel Messi, reflected that “Soccer is a team sport. You can’t have fun alone. And if it’s lived like that, it can do good for your mind and your heart in a society that is exasperated by subjectivism.”
The Church has dedicated several saints to sports in general, such as Saint Sebastian and Saint Christopher. Given the global popularity of soccer, the Church recognized the need for a specific patron saint for the sport. The Church, therefore, named a patron whose connection to the sport may be surprising. That patron’s name is Fr. Luigi Scrosoppi.
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Saint Luigi Scrosoppi was an Italian priest born in 1804 who entered seminary at a young age. He would later join the Oratorians of Saint Philip Neri and become a Third Order Franciscan. He lived his life dedicated to helping the poor, especially orphans and abandoned young girls, establishing an orphanage and a school. Many of the young women under his care were inspired by his example to renounce their material possessions, so he established the Sisters of Providence of Saint Cajetan of Thiene, with the approval of Pope Blessed Pius IX. He served as a spiritual guide, and they assisted in his service to the poor. His work was not easy, and St. Luigi suffered countless setbacks and failures. With the Italian Risorgimento ongoing, the emerging anticlerical Italian government clamped down on Catholic organizations, leaving his Oratorian order suppressed and his orphanage barely escaping legal destruction. Through all this, he acted with humility and perseverance, doing the work of God until his death in 1884.
Given all this, why exactly is this saint the patron of soccer? The answer is that it was considering the fundamentals of soccer, and sport more generally, when choosing this humble Italian priest to be soccer’s patron. Luigi’s life of dedication to the poor, the young, and the downtrodden were what led him to be soccer’s guiding saint. Soccer’s values are found in the youth league, in the children kicking around a ball in a back alley in the city. That is where the spiritual fruits of teamwork, discipline, and camaraderie are truly found.
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These humble beginnings are easily forgotten, especially when the world mostly sees the superhuman feats of world class athletes, the inflated egos, and the billions of dollars that come with them most of the time. Indeed, soccer can take the poor and raise them up to new earthly heights. Greats like Messi and David Beckham came from working class backgrounds and were both scouted at an early age. It is in youth like them where St. Luigi sought to nurture the seeds of virtue and community, and in the same way, it is where soccer finds its true meaning and value. So while we enjoy the beautiful game, let us also remember what gives the sport this beauty in the first place.
Saint Luigi Scrosoppi, pray for us!
