As World Cup fever grips Italy, nuns and papal aides are being infected by the nation's soccer passion. Benedict XVI did not watch Tuesday night's semi-final between Italy and Germany but the lights stayed on in the papal apartments, said the German pope's personal secretary,
Monsignor Georg Gaenswein.
The 79-year-old pontiff went to bed long before the end of the game, leaving Gaenswein, the four nuns who act as papal housekeepers and Benedict's other personal secretary glued to the TV.
"The pope told us to enjoy the match and asked to be informed of the result in the morning," Gaenswein said, adding that Benedict had then joked that he would know if Italy won anyway because of the noise from Roman streets. In fact, Roman fans celebrated noisily well into the small hours.
Msgr Gaeswein admitted that the spectators in the papal apartments had been divided. The four Italian nuns supported Italy, while Gaenswein himself rooted for his native Germany. The pope's other private secretary, Msgr Mietek from the Ukraine, was initially unsure who to support. For the sake of fairness, he eventually decided to support Germany in the
first half and Italy in the second.
Meanwhile, at a small convent in the central Italian town of Nocera Umbra, a group of cloistered nuns begged special permission to watch Tuesday night's match. Under the convent's rules, the Franciscan sisters should have gone to bed after evening prayers at about 9pm. Instead they watched the match on the community's tiny TV set.
"I went to my room to rest but three sisters stayed up to see the game," confirmed 80-year-old Mother Bernadette, the head of the community, who allowed the rare exception to its austere rules. She said one of the younger nuns whispered to her later: "Mother, we won!"
Mother Bernadette admitted that the result of the match - a 2-0 extra time win for Italy - had given her juniors great "joy", but she stressed that they would have been happy if Germany had won too. They would have rejoiced "for our pope", she said.
Although her juniors may understand the offside rule and the intricacies of Italy's match strategy, it was clear that Mother Bernadette was not well versed in soccer matters or the German World Cup. Perhaps because of the rowdy celebrations that local fans indulged in throughout the night, she was surprised to learn that Tuesday's match was only the semi final.
But on learning that this was the case, she said: "Well, whatever. If they want, they can watch the match on Sunday too".
