WASHINGTON — The Super Bowl win in overtime by the Kansas City Chiefs Feb. 11 means San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone will be sending Bishop James Johnston Jr. of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri, some food, and a donation to a diocesan pro-life center.

The two bishops made a friendly wager for this year’s game, as they did four years ago when the Kansas City Chiefs played the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl.

That year the bishops only made their bet with local foods but this year they promised that the bishop from the diocese of the losing team would also support organizations that promote the sanctity of life in the winning diocese.

Since the Chiefs beat the 49ers 25-22 in Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas, Archbishop Cordileone will be sending Bishop Johnston a case of Rice-A-Roni, known as “the San Francisco treat,” and will also make a donation to Alexandra’s House in Kansas City, an organization that helps families facing difficult diagnoses for their unborn child or infant loss. 

If the 49ers had won, Bishop Johnston planned to send a gift package from the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City and donate to Bella Primary Care, a Catholic health care clinic in San Francisco.

A Super Bowl wager between bishops of the dioceses of the competing teams has been a tradition in recent years, with the losing side often agreeing to send local food to the winning bishop or a donation to a charity in the winning diocese.

In the 2020 Super Bowl, when the 49ers faced the Chiefs, the two prelates put local food on the line. Archbishop Cordileone agreed to send Dungeness crabs, a Fisherman’s Wharf treat, to Bishop Johnston if the 49ers lost and Bishop Johnston said he would send steaks from the well-known Kansas City Steak Company if the Chiefs lost.

The Chiefs beat the 49ers 31-20, that year, so a shipment of crabs made their way to the Midwest. 

A spokesman for the San Francisco Archdiocese said that the two Church leaders this year chose to use the platform provided by the Super Bowl to “raise awareness about the efforts to protect the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, particularly as it relates to the protection of human life in the womb, in the face of efforts to limit restrictions on abortion and even enshrine it as a ‘right.”

He told The Tablet that the two bishops are “wagering a donation to organizations in their respective communities that are doing the heroic work of upholding the sanctity of life and prioritizing the health of mothers and children.”