Vatican may create new role for women—on cricket squad

From Catholic News Service: 

The Vatican is about to launch its own cricket club and will field a women’s squad if it finds enough players.

“It may be that instead of watching players who go out to play with cricket caps on, we’re going to have a series who play with veils on as they bat up,” said John McCarthy, a former cricket player and Australia’s ambassador to the Holy See.

“We are looking for Sri Lankan, Indian and Pakistani sisters who have played cricket, and if they’re found, they certainly will be invited to join the cricket club. There is certainly no intention not to have a women’s cricket team at the Vatican,” he told reporters Oct. 15.

The New South Wales’ native came up with the idea for an official Vatican Cricket Club before he began his post at the Vatican in 2012.

The idea, he said, is to field a team of international players who are priests, seminarians, religious and lay Catholics working or studying in Rome or at the Vatican.

There are many seminarians in Rome who not only want to play cricket while they’re here, he said, but they also want to give the game an added ecumenical or interreligious dimension.

“There are many players who are here in Rome who would like to see, for instance, the Vatican play the Church of England at cricket,” he said.

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