The Word Hits the Football Field
“I’m a Sportsman,’’ St. John Paul said — he never played Ann Arbor until…
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Worlds collide: It’s jolting to see the papal throne of St. John Paul the Great on a football field and realize his coat of arms looks like it was meant for the University of Michigan.
“It was meant to be,’’ our friend Rory Clark, one of the driving forces organizing Accept the Challenge, said with a satisfied grin. “He was a sportsman.’’
Would Jesus play football?
The big “M’’ on John Paul’s papal seal (built into his throne) looks decidedly like Michigan’s “Block M’’ logo. Similar colors and a similar look and feel.
John Paul’s “M’’ refers to his devotion to Mary, the Mother of God. “The so-called People’s Republic of Ann Arbor’’ doesn’t seem religious but Catholicism is often hidden within the roots and foundations of Western Civilization. Visible yet overlooked..
Dig Deeper…
The University of Michigan was founded by a saintly and history-changing priest, Father Gabriel Richard, joining forces with a judge and a Presbyterian minister to start America’s first truly national university in 1817.
A Catholic French-American immigrant priest, a Protestant minister and Judge Augustus Woodward — who could be more different? Michigan has championed diversity ever since — just as John Paul advanced ecumenicalism.
Ann Arbor remains a hub of nationally influential Catholicism, the headquarters of Ave Maria Radio and headquarters of Legatus whose founder Tom Monaghan is a major patron of the Church.
John Paul’s Michigan Altar has only been used twice before…
- A special altar was built for John Paul when he came to Detroit in 1987, celebrating Mass in the Pontiac Silverdome.
- The altar and throne were used a second time in 2018 at another football field, Detroit’s Ford Field, when Blessed Solanus Casey was beatified.
The Altar is being used a third time — yet again on a football field…
Accept the Challenge, sponsored by the Diocese of Lansing and the Michigan Knights of Columbus, is gathering a record 1,400 men at a U-M indoor football practice facility Saturday, February 22. The goal: make men better.
“Original sin attempts to abolish fatherhood itself starting with our relationship to God, the Father,’’ St. John Paul warned. “This crisis has spread, threatening our culture and families as never before.’’
Throughout the Church, a growing men’s movement calls on men to recognize their role as fathers — or potential father figures — to someone or a group of people, to do what they can to make a difference.
Bishop Thomas Olmstead of Arizona, in calling on men to go “Into the Breach,’’ stresses:
“Men, do not hesitate to engage in the battle that is raging around you, the battle that is wounding our children and families, the battle that is distorting the dignity of both women and men. This battle is often hidden, but the battle is real. It is primarily spiritual, but it is progressively killing the remaining Christian ethos in our society and culture, and even in our own homes…’’
Michigan’s founder, Father Gabriel Richard, brought Catholic education and the first printing press to Michigan, gave the city of Detroit its motto and spent two years in Congress securing support for today’s Michigan Avenue. A patron to Accept the Challenge, he died heroically ministering to the sick, always focused on protecting his people of his flock like a good and true father to all.
U-M also embraces interdisciplinary research and education, which spawns the great breakthroughs that occur when people from totally different studies and disciplines find previously unimagined answers in the gaps between them.
Ann Arbor happens to be part of the Diocese of Lansing, near U-M rival Michigan State so the green and white Spartans and maize and blue Wolverines will come together working as one at Accept the Challenge.
And Michigan’s football players, as well as the men “hitting the field” for the sold-out Accept the Challenge embrace the same words of Proverbs 27:17:
“Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.’’