Football fans honor Pope Francis with memorial mass

DW (English)

Throughout his life Pope Francis was a fan of San Lorenzo, one of the most popular teams in Buenos Aires, which organized a mass in his memory, following his death.

Transcript

00:00In 1908, a priest named Lorenzo Massa founded the San Lorenzo di Amargo Soccer Club

00:10in this Buenos Aires chapel that shares its name.

00:14Thirty years later, a young boy, Jorge Begoglio, joined the ranks of its supporters.

00:19It was in this same chapel that his parents met.

00:23None of them imagined then that young Jorge would one day become Pope Francis.

00:27This week, a special mass commemorated Pope Francis, the biggest soccer fan the Vatican has ever known.

00:36I'm not religious, but I feel the Pope meant a lot.

00:39His passion for soccer and how he expressed it, even though he was the Pope, showed his humanity.

00:47For me, it meant a lot. It was a much more human connection.

00:53The fact that he was a fan brought me much closer to religion.

00:57He was a global ambassador for San Lorenzo and transmitted the values of our neighborhood.

01:05He never forgot where he came from.

01:11Papal biographer Francesca Ambroghetti says that Francis' father, Mario Begoglio,

01:16installed a passion for soccer in his young son.

01:19One of the biggest impressions from his childhood was going to football matches with his family.

01:27As a priest and later as Pope, Jorge Begoglio always kept an eye on San Lorenzo's progress,

01:33but he stopped watching the matches.

01:34After a bad experience, something shocking he once saw on television, he stopped watching TV,

01:43including soccer matches.

01:44When he needed to know the results, it's believed one of the Swiss guards would inform him.

01:53San Lorenzo, one of the top teams in Argentina, has maintained the tradition of clergy supporters.

01:58In 2008, on the 100th anniversary of its founding, the team gave a membership card to Pope Francis,

02:06then Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

02:09It later led to a strange coincidence.

02:11We gave Monsignor Begoglio his card, numbered 88-235.

02:21He passed away at the age of 88, at 2.35 Argentine time.

02:33Another famous San Lorenzo fan is the actor Viggo Mortensen, who lived in Argentina as a child.

02:39In 2011, Pope Francis, then still the Archbishop of Buenos Aires,

02:45visited and celebrated a mass with special requests from club members.

02:50They asked him, Father, let's pray for San Lorenzo not to be relegated.

02:55He simply said, we are not going to be relegated.

02:58Another asked if we would become champions of America, and we became champions.

03:03He said, I like to play soccer.

03:05It's a very big change in the Catholic Church.

03:09Luccini believes that his passion for soccer showed a Pope who came down from the pulpit

03:16to get closer to the people.

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