If the Vatican curia were a football team

On his Italian blog for L'Espresso, Sandro Magister writes about the reporting in various papers of remarks made by Cardinal Ratzinger on football. These were confined to one page of a book that he published in 1985. In fact, Ratzinger was not a great fan of sport. In Milestones, he describes his disappointment when Hitler changed the curriculum, cutting down on Latin and Greek to make more time for sport in school. (In the quotations that follow, you have my rough translation.)

Magister quotes the summary in L'Osservatore Romano of the future Pope's thoughts:
"Football requires one to order that which is one's own to the needs of the team; it unites by means of the common objective. The success and failure of each one is based on the success and failure of the team; freedom is maintained through the order and discipline in which we learn to act together."
Magister allows himself a rare moment of wry humour:
"As coach of the curia, Papa Ratzinger has little to rejoice in. His team does not act properly for him at all. Each player goes off on his own and every now and then lets slip an own goal."

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