Jesus loves us more, say the Catholics of Notre Dame. No way, Jesus loves us more, say the Mormons of BYU.
I don’t know much about Mormons, except from what I learned from watching the Mormon episode of “South Park” and “The book of Mormon. And I don’t know much about Catholics, other than they’re not very high on birth control or abortion. I do know that BYU’s football team is playing at Notre Dame Saturday in what could be called the Jesus Bowl or the Religion Bowl or simply Catholics vs. A Religion People Don’t Really Understand. Or the Jesus loves us most bowl.
Here’s what I know about Mormons: drinking alcohol, and even coffee and tea are verboten. And Jesus partied with the Native Americans here in ancient times, who were Caucasian. And here’s what I know about the Catholic faith: it’s a very conservative and somewhat strict faith where its followers can’t eat meat on Fridays or have sex before marriage.
So at a school like Notre Dame where many fans get homeless drunk before, during and after football games, adding to the rowdy atmosphere that is South Bend, Ind., while Touchdown Jesus looks down upon the football stadium and the quad. Kind of a hypocritical picture, but I digress.
How the hell are the Mormon BYU fans going to handle this atmosphere?
For that matter, you’ve got the most recognized college football brand in Notre Dame that screams marketing and money going up against BYU, a school that is based in the Mormon faith and requires its students to go on a mission for two years.
Every college football Saturday, God and Jesus are being constantly paged by praying fans demanding a win. Jesus will have incoming calls from both sides Saturday, and guess what only one side will have those prayers answered.
And you’ve got a team in Notre Dame with fervent fans — or Domers — that are probably the most passionate and loud in the Midwest. (Not the country, because that title belongs to any fan base in the SEC and Penn State, God help us.) I’m sure BYU fans are just as passionate and loud, but for some reason I keep picturing them as this nice group of fans waving pom-poms and not going completely ballistic if a call doesn’t go BYU’s way.
If you’ve seen the musical “The Book of Mormon,” there’s a scene at the beginning of Act II where one of the main characters has a nightmare of being in hell, surrounded by some of the worst criminals and individuals in modern times: Hitler and Jeffrey Dalmer, to name a few. Jesus even calls the main character a dick.
That’s the scene I keep picturing when I think of BYU visiting Notre Dame. Sorry, Fighting Irish, I just can’t help it.