2023-10-31 12:45:03
“I didn’t get into football. Football came to me,” remembers Sr. Elisabeth Siegl in the current podcast episode of “Orden on air”. Father and grandfather were already enthusiastic football fans; They were particularly impressed by SK Rapid – which, by the way, makes the question of Sr. Elisabeth’s favorite club superfluous. “My enthusiasm for football is already anchored in my genetics. It was important to me to play football from an early age. As soon as a ball was within reach, I hit it!” Incidentally, this distinguishes her from her twin sister, who does not share the family football euphoria has inherited.
No red card so far
How many red cards has she received on the football field so far? “Luckily not a single one yet. “I have received yellow twice in my life,” emphasizes the Don Bosco sister. Whether you play more fairly as a religious woman? “Probably,” she says. “Perhaps in principle you think a little more fairly about people and don’t have the thought – as sometimes happens in football – that we have to iron the others down. But I don’t want to say that the others have less fair play.” Sr. Elisabeth thinks that there is no difference in the way men and women play. “Women’s football has become much faster than before, and unfortunately also harder.” However, there is a contrast to men’s football. “Women play 90 minutes, while men only play 60 minutes. For the remaining 30 minutes they lie on the floor and act,” she adds with a laugh.
A “super modern nun”
The path to the order was not set from the beginning. Although the family home was close to the church, it was not strictly religious. “Church and faith have always been important to me, which is why I became a religion teacher after graduating from high school. But becoming a religious was not my goal.” She taught in Vienna for four years, occasionally in difficult classes. “I asked myself, how can we work well with young people? During this time I got to know Don Bosco, his life story and his connection between spirituality and pedagogy, and I thought he had the perfect answer. I still think the way he deals with young people is brilliant today.” When a senior school director said in conversation that she was a “super-modern nun,” this sentence stuck with her. “I didn’t think about anything else. After a short thought I finally decided on the Don Bosco Sisters. I realized that God was not forcing me, but he was inviting me to take this step.” A step that she has never regretted; she also lives out her calling as a religious teacher and in the School pastoral work at the Don Bosco schools in Vöcklabruck.
Playing football is Salesian
How does she balance football and religious life? “The sisters basically knew that I was a sporty person,” says Sr. Elisabeth. “Nevertheless, when I joined the order, I gave up playing football for a while.” But here too, God had other plans for her: the head of the SC Schwanenstadt-Ladys had heard of the nun’s enthusiasm for football and asked her for support. This led to the VBSC Vöcklabruck, which Sr. Elisabeth now looks after as a trainer; Training takes place twice a week. “Of course, religious appointments have priority. But Don Bosco also played football with his protégés,” she says. “So that’s definitely Salesian.”
Play at eye level
In 2020 she and the club received the Solidarity Prize from the Diocese of Linz. “Right from the start, we wanted to show what a football club can do for society, namely to bring people into it in order to enable them to integrate,” says Sr. Elisabeth in a nutshell. The origin, profession, social class or sexual orientation of the players are not important, everyone is worth the same. “You’re not asked what you do or what your outlook on life is, it’s about playing football. That’s the brilliant thing about playing football for me, that it can always have an integrative effect because you meet at the football level. It’s a game of equals.”
Win as a team
Equal eye level – that is also the key word that connects the religious with the church and faith. “We are all human beings, equal and worthy in relation to our Creator, who loves us just as we are. And we also take this idea into playing football, where you can live it in a very practical way,” says the Don Bosco sister. “You can only win if you act together as a team, if everyone has their own place. No matter whether he or she is on the field or on the bench, everyone is important in their own way. If you don’t see the church hierarchically, but as a community of faith around Jesus, then that’s the principle. And then Jesus would be the coach.”
“I would have liked to be a priestess”
What would she change in the church? “In any case, the admission of women to the ordination ministries, that would be my first priority,” says Sr. Elisabeth immediately without much hesitation. “I would have liked to become a priest. The idea of becoming a priest has always appealed to me. As a woman, this is a painful topic, not being able to do certain things in the church to this day.” For Sr. Elisabeth, this topic is often a little neglected in many discussions within the church; The focus is usually on the abolition of celibacy, although “I have nothing at all against weakening celibacy, even as a possible way of living the priesthood.” It is also important that the tap of grace is not always only opened through the sacraments. “Precisely because we see that there are so many fractures in the church, we have to ask ourselves, how can I make God’s experience possible? We must exhaust all the opportunities we have as humans to have an experience of God. We can’t be narrow-minded.”
“Orders on air” – the podcast of the religious communities in Austria
In March 2022, the media office launched the podcast “Order on air”, a new media channel for religious communities in Austria. And the name says it all: The podcast of the Austrian religious communities brings women and men religious in front of the curtain and – in the truest sense of the word – in front of the microphone. The aim is to introduce interesting personalities and special talents and to show the commitment of religious in the many areas of life. The Austrian Religious Communities podcast can be found on all major audio platforms.
Don Bosco Sisters in Vöcklabruck
(Those: Religious communities in Austria)
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