What happens when confirmation, championship dates collide

FAYETTEVILLE — After more than two years of confirmation preparations, some St. Joseph parishioners recently faced a case of church versus state — the state high school football championship game, that is.
For the third year in a row, Fayetteville and Bentonville high schools were playing in Little Rock for the 7A state championship. Fayetteville won in 2010; Bentonville was the 2011 champion, so the rivalry is intense. And this year, the championship game fell on Dec. 1, the same day 59 parishioners, most of them teenagers, were scheduled to be confirmed at St. Joseph Parish.
Confirmation dates are set more than a year in advance so Suzanne Krumpelman, the parish’s director of religious education, thought about the possibility last fall.
“It hit me last year (that) if Fayetteville made it to the playoffs, there might be some conflict.”
While most of those to be confirmed are ninth-graders who aren’t yet playing varsity sports, many have siblings who play ball, cheer or perform in the band, she explained.
Five days before the big events — confirmation and the football game — pastor Father John Antony addressed the issue through the parish’s e-mail “Grapevine.”
“The Lord blesses us in many ways, some earthly, others heavenly. Fayetteville High School Bulldogs received an earthly blessing (some might say a miracle) last Friday, advancing to the state football championship game Saturday, Dec. 1,” he wrote.
For those students scheduled for the “heavenly blessing of confirmation,” Father Antony gave them permission to participate in another parish’s celebration — and even included the dates for other northwest Arkansas parishes (all in the spring) as well as for three parishes further away with December dates.
The final tally was 58 of 59 confirmandi attended Mass. Krumpelman said the one student who missed has a brother who is a senior on the football team.
Final football score was 31-20, another win for the Fayetteville Bulldogs.

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