Messages to Athletes

When we see athletes giving their very best, sport fills us with enthusiasm, with a sense of marvel, and it makes us almost feel proud.  There is a great beauty in the harmony of certain movements and in the power of teamwork.  When it is like this, sport transcends the level of pure physicality and takes us into the arena of the spirit and even of mystery."
                                                              ~ Pope Francis

"Your presence gives me the opportunity to shed light on the importance of sport, a discipline which, if practiced in respect for the rules, becomes an educational instrument and a vehicle for important human and spiritual values. May today's initiative also serve to revitalize in each of you the commitment to ensure that sport contributes to building a society characterized by a mutual respect, loyalty of behavior, and solidarity between peoples and cultures."
                                               ~ Pope Benedict XVI, September 21, 2005

"[The Church] considers sports as an instrument of education when elevated human and spiritual ideals are fostered; when they form young people in a complete way in values such as loyalty, perseverance, friendship, solidarity and peace. Sports, overcoming the diversity of cultures and ideologies, provide the ideal occasion for dialogue and understanding among people for the construction of the desired civilization of love. I therefore invite you, to put into practice these values, based on the dignity of the human person, in the face of possible interests that can cast a shadow on the nobility of sports."

~ Pope John Paul II, September 16, 2002
Homily of Pope John Paul II - Sunday, 29 October 2000