The Catholic Message Board

There was a district sports meet, and the local diocese lobbied to change the competitions on Sunday. Was that necessary?

Do you mean the diocese wanted it postponed so that it wasn't on Sunday? Sounds like a good thing to me.

peregrinator wrote: ↑Sat Oct 07, 2023 11:59 am Do you mean the diocese wanted it postponed so that it wasn't on Sunday? Sounds like a good thing to me.

Yep.

Yeah. Sports meets usually mean families getting up at all hours to drive to this event, packing up all of the kids, waiting through various scheduled games then finals, it can make getting to Mass difficult. Move it to Saturday!

Yes. This is a battle we should have fought more aggressively in the US years ago. Our Catholic schools in this diocese are forbidden* to have games or practice on Sunday, but many of our students are involved in club sports, which have no such limitation.

* If they have a postseason game on Monday, we let them practice on the condition that they all attend Mass together on Sunday morning.

On a related note, an NFL player took the opportunity to turn a post-game presentation into a Sunday homily that is well worth the time viewing. When Jesus came to his door, he answered The Knock. Are you going to answer when He comes knocking?

https://youtu.be/yuPb_JQFO0Q

Our kids have been in many sporting events on Sunday. We never miss Mass. I will be late to a game rather than put sports above Mass.

IMHO, the problem with Sunday organized sports and other such things isn't specifically that it prevents people from assisting at mass or what have you. It's that the existence of such events demonstrates the loss of the sense that Sunday is the Lord's day (not for other organized stuff), and then itself further erodes that social respect. As Catholics, we've never taken the kind of hard line on Sunday stuff that various denominations have at times, but still to arrange an event deliberately for Sunday that could be held some other day is simply a further sign of our growing secularity, and an additional spur to it. The horse is out of the barn, for sure. But what should we do about it? I'm not trying to judge parents who elect to allow their kids to do Sunday sports, but I do think it should be seen as a question of real gravity, rather than just something we take for granted.