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October
9, 2006
VOL.
44, NO. 17Oakland,
CA
Vatican aims to put Christian values back in sports
VATICAN CITY
(CNS) -- The square in front of St. Peter’s Basilica is vast, flat
and wide-open. In fact, the nearest breakable window is farther than most
people could lob a ball, so perhaps that’s why it made the perfect
venue for a basketball game played in the presence of Pope Pius XII in
1955.
The Vatican also served as prime turf for a marathon bout of “calcio
storico fiorentino,” the Florentine version of nearly ruleless soccer
that looks more like rugby and wrestling combined. During the Renaissance,
Pope Sixtus IV peeked out his studio window every now and then to see
how the grueling match, which lasted from midmorning to dusk, was proceeding.
Though it’s no longer likely pilgrims will see hoopsters shooting
baskets or cleats digging into turf, that doesn’t mean the Vatican
has called a timeout on sports.
Rather, the universal church is even more dedicated to being a presence
in the world’s sports stadiums, on the tracks, and in the hearts
and souls of today’s athletes, supporting them and an ethical sporting
ethos.
Children play soccer in St. Peter’s Square
at the Vatican before the weekly audience of Pope Benedict XVI last year.
CNS PHOTO/ALESSIA GIULIANI
In
an effort to help parents, coaches, athletes, schools, parishes and sports
associations, the Vatican has published a book aimed at “rehumanizing”
a sports world that tends to glorify winning at all costs to the detriment
of players and spectators.
Titled “The World of Sport Today: A Field of Christian Mission,”
the book was released in September by the Vatican’s own fledgling
sports desk at the Pontifical Council for the Laity. The special section
was established in 2004 by Pope John Paul II as a way to help get the
Church off the sidelines and onto the playing field, helping promote Christian
values in today’s sports.
The slim, 146-page paperback compiles speeches and proceedings from the
Vatican’s first international seminar on sports held last November.
The seminar brought professional players, experts, sports fans and chaplains
to talk about how the Church could better promote authentic human values
and the Gospel message in the world of athletics.
The book starts off with a historical perspective, beginning with ancient
Greece, whose pan-Hellenic games helped imbue sports with the values of
equality, fraternity and fair play.
Other chapters look at how those values gradually eroded, giving way to
lucrative economic interests that, according to the head of the Vatican’s
laity council, have robbed sports of its true nature.
In the book’s preface, Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko wrote that sports
today are in the hands of a powerful industry “which produces dreams
of power and success in millions of individuals.”
Sports has become a fast-growing business, now valued at $213 billion,
wrote another seminar participant, Clark Power, associate director of
the Center for Ethical Education at Indiana’s University of Notre
Dame.
While sponsorships, marketing gimmicks and the general commercialization
of sports help sustain an otherwise valid industry, they also feed a culture
of materialism devoid of human values, he wrote in a chapter dedicated
to sports and business.
The book points to a wide range of ills plaguing today’s sports
world, but it also dedicates several chapters to what the Church, Catholics
and people of good will can do to turn sports back into what Archbishop
Rylko called “a school of humanity, virtue and life.”
The consensus among contributors underlined the critical role parents
and coaches play in molding young people’s attitudes and interest
in sports. Parents and coaches, they said, need to teach kids what sports
really are about and how they should be played.
Because ethical values are already at risk in many modern societies, healthy,
human-centered sports can make a world of difference in steering kids
away from an empty or marginalized future, wrote another contributor.
Young people need “to create their own life project, to feel useful
in society and to find solid models from which to take inspiration,”
wrote Edio Costantini, head of Catholic Action’s sports association
in Italy. Coaches, therefore, should not just be concerned with perfecting
athletes’ technique and skills, but should help kids “feel
accepted, direct them and accompany them along their path, thus giving
them hope,” said his text on opportunities for renewing today’s
sports.
Parents, too, can do a lot in boosting their kids’ self-esteem,
identity and autonomy, he wrote, and they can “openly voice opposition
to the negative things” affecting sports.
Sports, taught well and played right, have enormous potential in changing
today’s world by promoting peace and fraternity, many of the writers
said.
They often quoted Pope John Paul -- the skier, canoeist, hiker and goalkeeper
-- who said sports can answer today’s needs.
The late pope said sports can free young people “from the snares
of apathy and indifference,” help free disadvantaged peoples and
nations from poverty and help “eradicate intolerance” as people
unite behind a common goal.
Sports, he said in his homily for the jubilee of sports in 2000, can enhance
“love of life, teach sacrifice, respect and responsibility, leading
to the full development of every human being.”
That sounds like a game that could make everyone a winner.
(The Vatican book on sports can be ordered directly from the Pontifical
Council for the Laity Publications Service, 00120 Vatican City. Its cost
of 10 euros (US$13) includes postage and handling. Checks should be made
out to: Pontifical Council for the Laity.)
