The nobility of sports practice

Since the election of Pope Leo XIV, we have been aware of the value that the new Supreme Pontiff places on sports. He is a tennis player, as well as a fan of baseball and basketball, typical North American sports. He attended a gym in Rome and had a personal trainer who guided him in his sports. We see that he values ​​the Latin maxim “mens sana in corpore sano” , “a healthy mind in a healthy body”.

In recent days, the Pope received the Napoli football team on the occasion of their victory in the Italian championship. In the audience he granted, he spoke very timely words, given the current situation in sport, saying that “winning the championship is an objective achieved at the end of a long journey, where what counts most is not the achievement of a moment, nor the extraordinary performance of a champion. The championship is won by the team, and when I say “team” I mean both the players and the coach, as well as the entire technical committee and the sports association.”

Pope Leo XIV also highlighted the educational aspect of sport in general and football in particular. For, he said, “unfortunately, when sport becomes a business, it risks losing the values ​​that make it educational, and may even become ‘non-educational’. This aspect requires vigilance, especially when it involves adolescents. I appeal to parents and sports leaders: we must pay close attention to the moral quality of the competitive sporting experience, because what is at stake is the human growth of young people.”

Playing sports, being part of a group, doing physical exercise and being able to follow the rules of the game, as well as working as a team, can do wonders for building the personality of a child, teenager or young person.

I can confirm, from my own experience, that when sport is healthy, it can instil values, create self-control and enjoyment in achieving goals. I have seen many, many young people, who would not have had a very promising future due to family instability, being part of a disadvantaged background or the risk of coming into contact with drug addiction, alcoholism and delinquency, but it was the practice of sport that rescued them and made them good and honest citizens.

When I was a leader and director of the Dom Bosco Youth Centre in Pinto Bessa, Porto, an association linked to the Salesians, I could see how proud we were when we looked at our honour display case, which featured souvenirs and newspaper clippings of footballing greats that our humble Centre gave to Portugal and the world of sport, such as Fernando Gomes (FC Porto and Golden Boot winner); Pedro Barbosa (Sporting Club de Portugal); Luisinho (SL Benfica) and João Pinto (Boavista and SL Benfica). They all played on our humble clay pitch… there they grew as players and men until someone from a big club noticed them and brought them to the limelight, without ever forgetting their origins. The good example they saw often came to the fore in their sporting attitudes. And hundreds of young people dreamed of being like them one day.

Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, stated: “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one gets the prize? So run in this way, so that you may win. For the athletes impose on themselves all kinds of hardships: they, that they may win a corruptible crown; but we, that we may win an incorruptible crown. So I also run, but not blindly; I strike, but not in the air. I discipline my body and keep it in subjection, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself may not be cast out.”

Words convince, but examples convert hearts. If our sports associations, their directors, managers, players and referees lived the ethical virtues that Pope Leo XIV recommends, how different the atmosphere in the stadiums would be and how noble the practice of sport would be.