EWTN News portal reports on the 2026 FIFA World Cup and its founder Jules Rimet, presenting him as a “devout Catholic” inspired by *Rerum Novarum* who used sport to unite humanity. The article quotes his grandson calling him a “humanist and idealist who believed that sport could unite the world.” What is presented as Catholic virtue is, upon examination, a textbook case of the modernist substitution of naturalistic humanism for the supernatural mission of the Church.
The “Devout Catholic” Who Served the World Instead of Christ the King
The article presents Jules Rimet as a model Catholic: inspired by *Rerum Novarum*, devoted to the poor, founder of a sports club “open to anyone regardless of social class,” and creator of a tournament meant to “bring nations who may be at war together.” His grandson remembers him as a **”humanist and idealist who believed that sport could unite the world.”**
Let us be precise about what this means. Pope Leo XIII wrote *Rerum Novarum* in 1891 to address the condition of workers within the framework of Catholic social doctrine — a doctrine rooted in the supernatural order, the rights of God, the necessity of the Church’s authority, and the subordination of all temporal matters to eternal salvation. The encyclical’s opening lines invoke the authority of the Apostolic See and the divine constitution of the Church. It is not a charter for building universal fraternity through athletic competition.
What Rimet extracted from *Rerum Novarum* was not its Catholic substance but its naturalistic husk — the vague humanitarian sentiment that could be stripped of all supernatural content and repackaged as secular idealism. This is the perennial modernist method: take a Catholic document, drain it of its doctrinal substance, and refill it with the spirit of the world. St. Pius X condemned this explicitly in *Pascendi Dominici gregis* (1907): the modernists “proceed to the extent of asserting that dogmas, sacraments, and hierarchy are merely modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness” — a proposition condemned as heresy in *Lamentabili sane exitu* (proposition 54).
“Universal Fraternity” Without Baptism: The Religion of Humanity
Rimet’s stated vision for the World Cup was to “promote universal fraternity and solidarity among all people” and to “prevent future global conflicts.” The article notes he wanted to bring together “people from all different races and social classes” and that his club was “open to anyone regardless of social class.”
This language — “universal fraternity,” “solidarity,” “open to anyone” — is not Catholic language. It is the language of the French Revolution, of Freemasonry, and of the liberal indifferentism that Pope Pius IX condemned in the *Syllabus of Errors*. Proposition 15 declared: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.” Proposition 17: “Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.” These were condemned as errors. Yet Rimet’s entire project rests on precisely this foundation: that humanity can be united on a natural plane, without reference to the true faith, the sacraments, or the Church.
The Catholic teaching is unambiguous. As Pope Pius XI declared in *Quas Primas* (1925), the reign of Christ the King “extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church, even though their erroneous opinions have led them astray or discord has separated them from love, but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” Peace is not achieved through sporting events or “universal fraternity” but through the recognition of Christ’s royal authority over all nations. Pius XI was explicit: **”the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.”**
Rimet’s vision is the exact inverse: peace through sport, unity through competition, fraternity through shared spectacle. This is not Catholicism. It is the religion of humanity that Auguste Comte dreamed of and that the conciar sect has since institutionalized.
The World Cup as Counter-Liturgy
Consider what the World Cup actually is: a quadrennial global spectacle watched by roughly 5 billion people, bringing together nations in a shared ritual of competition, nationalism, and mass emotion. The article itself describes it as something that “transcends language, politics, and borders” and gathers “billions of fans.”
The language of transcendence is deliberate and revealing. When the world’s most-watched event is described in terms that properly belong to religious worship — transcendence, unity, devotion of billions — we are witnessing the construction of a counter-liturgy. The World Cup functions as a religious ceremony for the globalist order: it has its sacred spaces (stadiums), its rituals (the opening ceremony, the anthem, the trophy presentation), its priests (players elevated to divine status), its pilgrimages (fans traveling across continents), and its creed (universal fraternity through sport).
This is not accidental. The entire trajectory of modern secular civilization has been the systematic replacement of Catholic worship with secular substitutes. The Feast of Christ the King, instituted by Pius XI in 1925 precisely to combat the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism,” was meant to remind nations that **”not only private individuals, but also rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him.”** The World Cup achieves the opposite: it provides a mechanism for nations to gather, celebrate, and experience collective emotion without any reference to Christ, the Church, or the supernatural order.
The “Catholic Social Teaching” Smokescreen
The article’s invocation of *Rerum Novarum* is particularly cynical. Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical was not a call to build secular organizations for the poor. It was a doctrinal document asserting the rights of the Church, the authority of the hierarchy, the necessity of Catholic education, and the dangers of socialism and liberalism. Leo XIII wrote within the framework of the *Syllabus of Errors*, which had condemned the proposition that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (proposition 55) and that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (proposition 80).
Rimet took the encyclical’s concern for the poor and transformed it into a program of secular humanitarianism. This is precisely the error that St. Pius X identified: the modernist who “under the guise of more serious criticism and in the name of historical method” aims at “such a development of dogmas as appears to be their corruption” (*Lamentabili*, preamble). The social teaching of the Church is inseparable from its doctrinal teaching. Sever the two, and what remains is not Catholic social action but liberal philanthropy wearing a stolen mask.
The Nobel Peace Prize Nomination: A Telltale Sign
The article notes that Rimet “was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize due to his part in creating the World Cup tournament.” This detail, presented as an honor, is in fact a diagnostic marker. The Nobel Peace Prize has historically been awarded to architects of the liberal international order — the very order that the Church has consistently condemned as rooted in religious indifferentism and naturalism.
Pope Pius IX, in the *Syllabus of Errors*, condemned the idea that “the principle of non-intervention, as it is called, ought to be proclaimed and observed” (proposition 62) and that “it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” (proposition 77). The entire liberal international system — of which the Nobel Peace Prize is a ceremonial organ — is built upon these condemned propositions. That Rimet was nominated for this prize confirms that his project was recognized by the architects of the modern order as serving their purposes.
The Grandson’s Testimony: Humanism Laid Bare
Perhaps the most revealing passage in the article is the quotation from Rimet’s grandson Yves: his grandfather was a **”humanist and idealist who believed that sport could unite the world. Unlike many others in his time, he realized that, to be truly democratic, to truly engage the masses, international sport must be professional.”**
Here we have the complete ideology laid bare: humanism, idealism, democracy, mass engagement, professionalism. Not a word about God, Christ, the Church, the sacraments, or the salvation of souls. This is the religion of pure naturalism — the very error that Pope Pius IX condemned in the first proposition of the *Syllabus*: “There exists no Supreme, all-wise, all-provident Divine Being, distinct from the universe.” Whether Rimet personally believed in God is beside the point. His life’s work was organized entirely around naturalistic principles, and the article presents this as Catholic virtue.
The Omission That Condemns
What does the article not say? It does not mention that the World Cup, as a global spectacle, is fundamentally incompatible with the Catholic understanding of human unity, which is achieved only through the Church and the sacraments. It does not mention that the “fraternity” promoted by FIFA is the same false fraternity that the Church has always condemned — a unity built on natural sentiment rather than supernatural grace. It does not mention that the professionalization of sport has created a global entertainment industry that functions as one of the most powerful instruments of distraction from spiritual realities in human history.
Most critically, the article does not mention that the conciliar sect itself has embraced this exact vision. The related article linked at the bottom — “Pope Leo XIV: Sport must be a ‘space for…'” — reveals the logical terminus of Rimet’s project: the usurper in the Vatican endorsing the same naturalistic humanism, completing the circle that Rimet began. The “Catholic” founder of the World Cup and the modernist antipope who blesses it are two expressions of the same apostasy: the substitution of the supernatural order with the natural, of the Kingdom of Christ with the kingdom of man.
Conclusion: The Trophy Bears the Wrong Name
From 1930 to 1970, the World Cup trophy bore the name of Jules Rimet. It would be more honest if it bore the name of the spirit that animates it: the spirit of naturalism, indifferentism, and globalist idolatry that the Church has condemned for over a century. The World Cup does not unite humanity it distracts humanity from the only true source of unity: Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, whose reign the modern world refuses to recognize.
As Pope Pius XI warned in *Quas Primas*: **”When God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed.”** Jules Rimet built an empire on precisely this removal. That a Catholic news portal celebrates this as a triumph of the faith is not a sign of the article’s error but of the depth of the apostasy that has consumed even those institutions that claim to defend the Church.
Source:
Meet Jules Rimet: The devout Catholic who helped create the FIFA World Cup (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 09.06.2026