Fr. James Baraniak, pastor of St. Norbert College, a Catholic institution of higher education in De Pere, WI, is a board member of Catholic Athletes for Christ, a College press release reports.  This school year he is bringing some of his board colleagues to the College to meet with various St. Norbert College athletes, beginning with Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Archdiocese of Chicago on Thursday, November 5.  The bishop joined the St. Norbert College Green Knights hockey team on the ice as goalie and addressed the team about sports and faith, according to the College.  Source: St. Norbert College

Update (11/17/09): Following Bishop Paprocki’s visit with the St. Norbert College hockey team, Catholic News Agency reported these comments from the bishop:

“The connections that I see between sports and living the Catholic Faith are that they teach us lessons for life.  My faith gives me strength to run marathons, and running marathons teaches me endurance, which helps me to persevere when facing challenges in life. When I'm having a bad game and I'm giving up a lot of goals, I need to keep my spirits up and not give up hope. The same is true when faced with difficulties in life when things are not going so well.”

“I returned to the locker room to give the St. Norbert Hockey Team the blessing I promised.  Before blessing them, I said I had one more word, especially for the goalies: confidence.  We need to play with confidence. The word 'confidence' comes from Latin: 'con' + 'fide' which means, 'with faith.'  We need to have faith in God and in ourselves in using the talents and abilities that he gave us.”