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Before Super Bowl XLVII starts (yes, that’s this year’s) the NFL Channel will air a documentary spotlighting Vince Lombardi, including discussion of how his devout Catholic faith shaped him into the coach he became. (If you are receiving this by e-mail, click here to watch the video.)
The winner of each year’s Super Bowl gets the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Lombardi started out hoping to be a priest, and remained a daily communicant throughout his career.
His love for faith has stayed in his family. So did his love for football. The National Catholic Register this week features an interview with his grandson Joe Lombardi, offensive coordinator for the Lions, who saw his own faith life renewed by Janet Smith’s “Contraception: Why Not?” and the daily Rosary.
Vince Lombardi’s faith won him a place in the American Catholic Hall of Fame at Benedictine College’s Gregorian Institute.
Tom Hoopes, author of The Rosary of Saint John Paul II and The Fatima Family Handbook, is writer in residence at Benedictine College in Kansas and hosts The Extraordinary Story podcast about the life of Christ. A former reporter in the Washington, D.C., area, he served as press secretary of the U.S. House Ways & Means Committee Chairman and spent 10 years as executive editor of the National Catholic Register newspaper and Faith & Family magazine. His work frequently appears in Catholic publications such as Aleteia.org and the Register. He and his wife, April, have nine children and live in Atchison, Kansas.
