Brett Favre, Tom Brady & Catholicism

In Ictu Oculi, a vanitas painting by, Juan de Valdés Leal, (1622-1690)

Here's an interesting article which attempts to contrast Brett Favre and Tom Brady, both of whom were raised Catholic, from a Catholic perspective: Brett Favre, exemplary American Catholic

Here's a quote:

Earlier this month, legendary Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre announced his retirement after seventeen years in the NFL. He walked away holding most of the major records at his position, and as much as any athlete of his time he attracted not just admiration but veneration, inspiring even a "Packers Prayer" ("Our Favre . . . Hallowed be thine arm"). Favre has become a football deity, but he has also achieved the status of an exemplary American Catholic. Indeed, the website Catholic Online (www.catholic.org) names him second among the "Top 10 Catholic Heroes of the Super Bowl." For many Americans, "Our Favre" is less a divine figure than a fellow believer. Favre, though, is a peculiar Christian athlete whose career defies familiar evangelical optimism in favor of a darker, distinctly Catholic vision.

Brett Favre would never be mistaken for Kurt Warner, the born-again former St. Louis Rams quarterback who accepted the Super Bowl trophy in 2000 with a "Thank you, Jesus." Unlike his late Baptist teammate Reggie White, Favre did not convene on-field prayers or claim to receive personal communication from God. Green Bay's gunslinger was never that earnest or, frankly, that devout. The product of a small Mississippi town, his career brings to mind the fiction of Flannery O'Connor or Walker Percy, Southern Catholics for whom faith was often occluded and salvation often arduous.

More than any public proclamations of devotion, Brett Favre's well-publicized personal suffering marked him as a model Catholic for those who cared to look. Early in his career, he struggled with addictions to painkillers and alcohol. In December 2003, his father died unexpectedly. Ten months later, his wife Deanna was diagnosed with breast cancer, only a few days after her brother had been killed in an ATV accident. The next year, Brett's mother's home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Most of these travails followed his lone Super Bowl victory, evoking not so much the generous God of prosperity theology as a more inscrutable Almighty, intent on humbling the exalted. In her bestselling 2007 memoir Don't Bet Against Me!, Deanna Favre compared the couple's ordeals to those of the biblical Job. Indeed, Brett increasingly exuded a Job-like equanimity, remarking after his wife's diagnosis that "if I asked why my father died or why Deanna has breast cancer, I would have to ask why I throw touchdown passes."

Contrast the Favres' litany of grief with the high living of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, also raised Catholic. Brady had a child last year with actress Bridget Moynahan, and then took up with supermodel Gisele Bündchen. Wisconsin's Catholics, who include more recovering alcoholics and cancer survivors than actresses and supermodels, may respect Brady's skill on the football field, but they understand much more deeply a religion of pain and loss. Brady, a three-time Super Bowl winner, is conspicuously absent from the "Top 10 Catholic Heroes of the Super Bowl."

My thoughts:

I don't know much about the personal or professional lives of either of these men beyond blurbs I've read about them here and there. I'm not a fan, but I'm not a "hater" either.

I'm not sure why the article appears to imply Brett Favre is an exemplary Catholic. I suppose I can see good and bad in the things the article shares about his personal history.

The author doesn't seem to think much of Tom Brady. Again, not knowing much about him, I wouldn't presume to pass any judgment on him. I will say I've heard and read more about Tom Brady than Brett Favre, and I've noticed a tendency to tear him down. I'm not sure how much of that is due to Mr. Brady's personal choices and personality, though, and I sometimes get the perception that some writers seem envious of Tom Brady. Maybe they are just articulating the sense that Mr. Brady hasn't always used the gifts God gave him in an unselfish way or demonstrated a sense of humility and a recognition that anything good that he has came from God and was given to him so he could glorify God and lead others to God, but I don't generally perceive sports journalism as tending to think along those lines, especially because of the tendency many sports journalists have exhibited of making heroes out of men they knew were living lifestyles that were debauched. Which is another reason I tend to think picking on Tom Brady has become popular and a potential means of selling advertising space. It may just be that lots of people are envious of the life Tom Brady has led and resent him in the same way they may have resented athletic golden boys in their high school years – or maybe there are things Tom Brady has said and done in public that I don't know about. You probably know more than I do in that regard.

I do know the media, whether it be television, radio, or print (including scholarly biographies) can't tell us what anybody is really like, at least not in the way actually knowing them can, even if we utilize reliable sources or perform extensive studies about the life of some individual. It's also helpful to remember that the way any medium presents any given individual tells you a great deal about the one presenting the information and the perspective (lens) through which they are filtering the information you're receiving.

People often talk and act like they think they know any number of celebrities on a personal level, but they can't and don't really know these people. They know of them. They know what has been reported about these people as being of public interest. They know the image the media, sometimes in collaboration with a celebrity and sometimes against a celebrity's wishes, presents the person to the media.

Sound bites and images are used to present the public with an image that may or may not be accurate, but which is designed to either build the person up or tear them down. This helps sell newspapers, magazines, products, tickets, etc. Sometimes they'll stick with an image that resonates with people, even if it isn't entirely accurate or fair. Sometimes a person is stuck with a label that may reflect one particular choice at one time in their lives, but definitely not the totality of the person.

That's why it's dangerous to give too much credence to the way the media presents celebrities and even the way celebrities present themselves.

You can read ten different biographies on the life of a given individual and even gain some sort of insight or sense about the person, especially in terms of what can be accepted as trustworthy and factual. Yet biographies can't tell you everything there is to know about any person. They give you highlights and paint a picture of a person's life, but can't possibly tell you what it is or was like to live each day in that person's skin.

I don't recommend making a hero out of anyone though, and certainly not an idol. I don't care if they're an athlete or a movie star or a priest or a bishop. Our only idol should be Jesus Christ. We can honor the saints because of the ways in which they reflect Him, but it's generally safer not to try to canonize people before they've died and everything that can be known about their fidelity to the Lord is scrutinized by the Church.

When we make idols who are unworthy of our admiration, we set ourselves up for a fall. Some people end up leaving the Church because of the actions of a priest, religious man or woman, or a bishop. They've clearly put these people on pedestals where they never belonged, and when the truth was revealed, it shattered their faith. Their faith should never have depended on these people to begin with, so the revelation that these people were human, flawed, broken, and even sinful should never be so great of a stumbling block for them as to ruin their relationship with Christ.

Still, there is a paradox we must all be conscious: Despite the fact that we shouldn't make idols out of other people, we must all be a good example to others and will have to render an account before God if our choices scandalized others (which is to say: tempted or led them to commit sin). Nobody should be a idol. The evil choices of others do not justify making those choices ourselves or diminish our responsibility for choosing to imitate or defend them.

To those who have been given much, much will be expected, and the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Yes, some people have been given much, but have wasted their gifts by either not using them or only using them selfishly, but that shouldn't shatter or shock us unless we've given these people more importance than they were due.

Whatever the case, people should resist the temptation to focus on the deficiencies and sins of others in a way that distracts them from honestly recognizing their own failings and amending their own lives.

Any thoughts?

Comments

[Jeffrey]

Can you imagine every serious sin you committed being found in the media? How awful. Sin is ugly enough, but when it is known by everyone it can be very difficult to change perceptions.
Brett Favre certainly seems to be a tough, manly man. I don't know about his personal life, but his dedication to his team is exemplary.

[american aquarium drinker]

i don't get it. brett favre is a good catholic b/c he had alot of bad things happen to him? catholics don't have a corner on suffering, it's a part of the human condition. i didn't even know he was catholic until a couple weeks ago.... and i lived in green bay for 4 years. tom brady is a bad catholic b/c of his "high living"? yes he had a child out of wedlock...so did favre, though favre eventually married the mother of his child. sounds more like the author is a big packer fan and has something against tom brady. for the record i think both are outstanding players and both seem like really decent guys. i do not know enough about them personally to pretend to be able to judge whether or not they are "exemplary" catholics.

Good post though.

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I found this article useful in a paper I am writing at university. Hopefully, I get an A+ now!