After Argentina’s victory at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a promise made by soccer superstar Lionel Messi to the Virgin Mary has resurfaced. Will he fulfill it?
Lionel Messi, 35, played his fifth World Cup wearing Argentina’s jersey and the team became world champion by beating France on Sunday.
Considered one of the best players in the world, Messi has won 40 titles, 34 with Futbol Club Barcelona (FC) in Spain, two with Paris Saint Germain (PSG) in France, and four with the Argentine National Team. In his career, according to his own words, “this was missing” — to be world champion as a member of his country’s team.
In 2014, the team of which he is captain reached the final in the World Cup in Brazil, where they lost to Germany. In Russia in 2018, Argentina was left out of the competition in the Round of 16.
It was precisely at that World Cup that he made a special promise to the Virgin.
In an interview in Moscow with the Argentine journalist Martín Arévalo, Messi was challenged by the reporter to walk “to Luján or to San Nicolás,” two of the most important shrines in Argentina, if the team won the World Cup.
Lujan, Argentina, is the site of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Lujan, the patroness of the country, which every year attracts millions of pilgrims.
In San Nicolás — a city near Rosario, Messi’s birthplace — is the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary of San Nicolás, which has a history of Marian apparitions that began in 1983 with messages from the Virgin to Gladys Quiroga de Motta.
The apparitions were approved by the Catholic Church on May 22, 2016, through a decree signed by the then bishop of San Nicolás, Héctor Cardelli.
In the 2018 Moscow interview, Messi promised that he would walk from his home in the town of Arroyo Seco to the Basilica of San Nicolás, a distance of about 24 miles, and shook hands with the journalist as a sign of commitment.
During his career, Messi has shown devotion to God and to be a believer. After winning the World Cup, his statements to the press did not omit the role that he attributes to the Lord in the victory: “I knew that God was going to grant this gift to me, I had a presentiment that it was going to be this,” he told the TyC Sports television channel.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Pope Francis at his general audience in St. Peter’s Square on May 17, 2023. / Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, May 18, 2023 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis offered his condolences Thursday after at least nine people died in devastating floods in northeastern Italy.
The pope sent a condolence telegram to Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, the archbishop of Bologna, on May 18 after intense rainfall across the Italian region of Emilia Romagna caused severe flooding and landslides.
Thousands have been evacuated from the worst-hit areas, which include Ravenna, a city famous for its Catholic churches’ sixth-century Byzantine mosaics.
Images from the towns of Faenza and Cesena show cars almost entirely submerged in muddy water. Rescue workers used helicopters and dinghies to help people escape from flooded buildings.
According to local officials, some parts of the region received nearly 20 inches of rain in 36 hours. The heavy rains caused 23 rivers across the region to burst their banks and 120 landslides.
Situazione drammatica in #EmiliaRomagna. Pesante alluvione.
Sarà allerta rossa anche domani. Nel frattempo le immagini che arrivano dalla Romagna fanno paura.
Catholic bishops in Emilia-Romagna have called for the region to remain united in the face of the emergency and committed to doing everything necessary to collaborate with relief efforts to aid those in need. Zuppi has asked for priests to notify Caritas of emergency situations that need to be addressed.
The telegram sent on the pope’s behalf by Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the Substitute (Sostituto) of the Vatican Secretariat of State, said: “While assuring fervent prayers of repose for the deceased and expressing condolences to their families, the Supreme Pontiff invokes from God comfort for the wounded and consolation for those suffering consequences from the grave calamity.”
“Pope Francis thanks all those who in these hours of particular difficulty are working to bring relief and alleviate all suffering, as well as the diocesan communities for their expressions of communion and fraternal closeness to the most afflicted populations. The Supreme Pontiff sends apostolic blessing to all as a sign of his spiritual closeness.”
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, presides over a press conference on Friday, May 17, 2024, on the Vatican’s new document on Marian apparitions. / Credit: Rudolf Gehrig/EWTN News
Standing 100 feet tall, the Christmas Star overlooks the little town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (aka “Christmas City, USA”). / Credit: A. Strakey/Flickr
CNA Staff, Dec 25, 2023 / 07:00 am (CNA).
There are at least 18 cities and towns in the United States named Bethlehem, but one of the first and perhaps the most famous is Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a town of 75,000 in the eastern state’s Lehigh Valley, a short drive from Allentown.
Bethlehem was founded in 1741 — prior to the establishment of the United States itself — when Protestant Christians, members of the Moravian Church, purchased land along the confluence of Monocacy Creek and the Lehigh River and cleared it of trees to begin building hewn-log structures.
According to the city’s official website, the town of Bethlehem was christened on Christmas Eve of that year. It’s not the only town in the area to be named after a biblical location — the valley also is home to towns named Egypt, Emmaus, and Nazareth.
In the intervening years since its founding, the town has sought to lean into its name by branding itself “Christmas City USA.” The town even claims to have put up the first documented Christmas tree in the (future) United States, in 1747.
The town has seen a lot throughout its lengthy history, including the deaths of about 500 of its soldiers in the Revolutionary War. One of the original buildings in the town is thought to be the largest 18th-century log structure in continuous use in the United States, the town’s website says.
The town’s status as a nexus of industry is long as well. Just six years after its founding, the town website says, some 35 crafts, trades, and industries had been established, including a butchery, clockmakers, and numerous mills of different kinds. Bethlehem’s Colonial Industrial Quarter had, the town says, the largest concentration of pre-Industrial Revolution crafts, trades, and industries in America and “can be considered America’s earliest industrial park.”
A steel plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Credit: Peter Miller/Flickr
Bethlehem Steel was once one of the most important manufacturers in the entire country, as it provided the steel for such iconic structures as the Golden Gate Bridge, the Empire State Building, and the Hoover Dam.
And according to at least one historian, the United States may not have succeeded in the two World Wars if Bethlehem Steel, with its wartime peak of some 300,000 workers, had not been able to turn out the necessary materials for the country’s military. Bethlehem Steel alone produced 1,127 ships during World War II.
The massive plant in the corporation’s hometown finally closed down for good in 2003 after the company declared bankruptcy two years earlier. Still a prominent landmark on the city’s riverfront, the rusted, dystopian steel mill towers have been preserved and incorporated into a trendy new public park and music venue.
Inside Holy Infancy Catholic Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which is located on Bethlehem’s south side and founded in 1861, attracting Catholic immigrants from all over the world who came to work in the steel industry. Credit: Courtesy of Holy Infancy Catholic Church
Catholics in Bethlehem
Father Andrew Gehringer, pastor of Holy Infancy Catholic Church, told CNA that his parish, which is located on Bethlehem’s south side, was founded back in 1861 and attracted Catholic immigrants from all over the world who moved to Bethlehem to work in the steel industry. In the town’s heyday, there were six Catholic churches within 10 blocks, he said, with Holy Infancy being the first. Germans, Irish, Hungarians, Polish, Portuguese, and Brazilian people have all made Bethlehem home over the years.
Today, Mass is offered at Holy Infant in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Gehringer said the multicultural nature of his parish lends itself to numerous fascinating Christmas traditions. For example, Portuguese-speaking parishioners participate in the “Novena de Natal” (Christmas novena), a nine-day prayerful meditation on the birth of Christ.
Spanish-speaking Catholics celebrate “Las Posadas” at Holy Infancy Catholic Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which is located on Bethlehem’s south side and founded in 1861. Credit: Courtesy of Holy Infancy Catholic Church
A similar devotion, “Las Posadas,” is practiced by the parish’s Spanish-speaking Catholics. The Spanish word “posada” means “inn,” and this devotion commemorates Mary and Joseph’s journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where they sought shelter for the birth of Jesus. Like the Portuguese Christmas novena, Las Posadas begins on Dec. 16 and involves the recitation of the rosary followed by a procession, Mass, and a celebration with a piñata on the nights leading up to Christmas.
“We really do push the multicultural flair of our parish. So we have multicultural dinners, and we have a multicultural summer festival,” Gehringer continued.
The priest said the town, as you can imagine, goes all out decorating for Christmas. Many of the decorations are religious, such as a Nativity scene in the center of the city, as well as innumerable Christmas trees. Gehringer said some of the parish’s Spanish-speakers have been asked in years past to decorate Christmas trees for the city in the manner of their culture.
The town has had a massive Christmas star set up on a nearby mountain since the late 1930s, a five-pointed star with eight rays. The structure is located at Bethlehem’s highest point — 890 feet above sea level — and the star’s LED lighting array, installed in 2010, can be seen 20 miles away. The star has become a symbol of the city, with signs throughout Bethlehem bearing an image of the star and proclaiming “Follow the Star to Bethlehem Attractions.”
Gehringer said it is special to live in a city where the religious aspects of Christmas are so widely celebrated with symbols — which, of course, include the name of the town itself.
“There’s some very Christian symbolism that’s very prominent in our city, that our city puts up,” Gehringer said. “In some towns, they don’t even allow the Nativity set.”
Man of faith, Lionel Messi is a world champion. Hats off to FIFA Qatar 2022 World Cup heroes.