I grew up liking soccer, but at some point, I disconnected from it. Even a week before the World Cup began, I was not planning to watch. But then, while scrolling through social media, I came across the story of two completely different World Cups.
For the first time in its history, the tournament had three cohosts: Mexico, the United States, and Canada. As visiting teams arrived in Mexico, they were officially welcomed with mariachi, folklórico dancers, and adoring fans. In contrast, teams arriving in the United States were patted down, invasively scanned for firearms, and treated like potential criminals.
The contrast was impossible to ignore, especially when Iran’s national team had to spend the night in Tijuana, Mexico, because players were not allowed to stay on U.S. territory, despite all their assigned games being played here.
As the first games began in Mexico, videos appeared on social media of people from different countries celebrating alongside Mexican fans, supporting one another through victories and losses and sharing joyful intercultural exchanges. Some social media users began saying that even if Mexico lost the World Cup, it had already won because it had shown the world a Mexico that was solidario—welcoming and hospitable.
Approximately three weeks later, most of the games shifted to the United States. Fans from around the world arrived, bringing that joy with them. While hospitality had been lacking on our side, the joy of our visitors was contagious, and everyday Americans joined in. Videos appeared on social media of people across cultures dancing, singing, and celebrating together, with captions like, “All the world leaders watching us get along during the World Cup” and “Maybe the problem is our politicians, not our borders.”
I couldn’t believe that this highly commercial sporting event managed to reflect so powerfully what the gospel is about—and to stand in such stark contrast to some trends in our church and government today.
One of the defining characteristics of our times is the division fueled by white Christian nationalism: the creation of an us and a them and the belief that some people belong more than others. Similarly, some traditionalist tendencies within the church are driven by a desire for so-called purity and perfection—an isolated, closed-off church protected from people, ideas, and realities considered threatening or impure.
But the gospel is not the story of people closing themselves off from one another. Nor is it the story of people called to sow division or engage only with those they consider better, purer, or more perfect.
It is the story of a God who became vulnerable by dwelling among us. Of Jesus who welcomed the wounds of people who had been discarded, who was not afraid to feast and find joy among strangers and sinners, who welcomed foreigners, who focused on encounter, who let his own wounds be touched, and who repeatedly crossed social, religious, and cultural boundaries.
For a few weeks, the World Cup offered glimpses of that kind of world.
Not a perfect world. Not a world without borders, disagreements, or differences. But a world where we could celebrate together and encounter one another. I saw a world where strangers cared more about what they had in common than about their differences.
At a time when we are constantly being told to fear one another, close ourselves off, and become distrustful, millions of ordinary people crossed borders and discovered that they could still dance together. And it was beautiful.
For a brief moment, we were reminded of something important: We are not inevitably destined to be divided.
Perhaps the problem has never been that we come from different nations, speak different languages, carry different stories, or even hold different legal statuses.
Perhaps the problem begins when we forget that, before all those things, we belong to one another.
This article also appears in the September 2026 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 91, No. 9, page 9). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
Image: Omar David Sandoval Sida/CC BY-SA 4.0
