I often joke with friends that the biggest religion in the world is soccer.

Yes, soccer. It’s kind of a combination of worldview, faith and sociology.

Depending what part of the world you hail from, this sport is also known as football, futbol, calcio, futebol and voetbal. But no matter what you call it, soccer is the passion of millions upon millions of people across the globe (including this super fan) and increasingly so in the United States.

Soccer, in my experience, can be — and has been — a very unifying force. No matter where in the world I may be, just mention that you follow soccer almost automatically results in a conversation. I have found that to be true everywhere I’ve been — from South Africa to Brazil to Russia. I have also found taxi drivers everywhere to be among the biggest, and most knowledgable, fans of the world’s most popular sport.

Soccer has many parallels to organized religion, especially Catholicism. Some of the world’s best players hail from majority Catholic nations (although evangelicals and Pentecostals are on the rise in South America).

True believers gather — at least they did before COVID-19 — on Sundays inside massive stadiums (often likened to cathedrals) to cheer on their favorite teams with a fervor unseen in other sports around the world. It also isn’t unusual for soccer players to make the sign of the cross after a goal or when a team records a victory. Despite all these parallels, it is often lost on journalists that religious faith, and how it impacts a particular player or team, has very real resonance to the story and readers.

Take, for example, Lionel Messi. The Barcelona star (who seemed to be on the brink of signing with Manchester City) decided earlier this month to stay in the Spanish city.

In an exclusive interview with Goal.com, Messi outlined why he decided to stay. Here’s what he said:

“My son, my family, they grew up here and are from here. There was nothing wrong with wanting to leave. I needed it, the club needed it and it was good for everyone.
“My wife, with all the pain of her soul, supported and accompanied me.”

This is a time when journalists, sports writers in particular, have little trouble asking public figures questions related to politics. Indeed, this summer has seen leagues across the United States, for example, openly advocate for social justice by wearing Black Lives Matter shirts or refusing to play altogether in order to make a statement about police brutality.

If politics can be something athletes can care about deeply, isn’t faith also one of them?

Here we go again.

The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has published a cartoon on its cover page devoted to the August 17, 2017, terror attack in Barcelona that left 13 dead and 130 injured.

Le Figaro, El Pais, and the other European outlets that have picked up the story so far have largely re-published the offending cartoon as has the Qatar based network Al Jazeera.

Newsweek and a handful of American mainstream news outlets have picked up the story, too, but unlike their European counterparts have not reprinted the cartoon. The American press has been down this road before -- engaging in self-censorship so as not to offend radical Islam. And it also revolved around Charlie Hebdo.

The left-wing, satirical magazine entered the conscience of the Anglophone world on January 7, 2015, when two gunmen forced their way into the magazine’s offices and killed twelve of its staff. Brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, Muslims of Algerian descent, carried out the attack in revenge for a cartoon published by the magazine that lambasted the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

In the weeks after the attack, free speech advocates adopted the cry “Je suis Charlie,” (I am Charlie), to show their solidarity with the magazine and the right to free expression. However, support for free speech and Charlie Hebdo’s right to offend was not universal. And this support has further dimmed in recent years.

Catholicism, faith and soccer: Asking some questions about a Messi religion situation

Once again, Charlie Hebdo takes aim at violent Islamists -- this time in Spain