A congress on sport at the VaticanWhy is the Church's attention to the values of sport important?
-The Church has always been involved in the world of sport, starting with its Pontiffs, from Leo XIII to Pope Francis. This relationship has its roots in the saints of the 19th century, among them saint John Boscowho perceived the great educational and social potential of the game and, later, of sport. As early as 1906, the Church had already organized itself with a Federation of Italian Catholic Sports Associations and shortly afterwards also at the international level.
In 2004, John Paul II, not coincidentally remembered as God's athlete because of his great passion for sport and his deep knowledge of this human phenomenon, he sensed the importance of creating a Section Church and Sports within the then Pontifical Council for the Laity, now the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life.
The Document Giving the best of oneself (2018) was like a compendium of doctrine on the sport....
-If you want to call it that, why not? It is an agile document, because it contains the vision of the person and of sport that the Church has developed over more than a century of promotion and closeness to the practice of sport, but without convoluted philosophies or incomprehensible theories.
A vision that, for the first time, has found a structured form. The document explains in five chapters the value and ethical anchor on which the Christian vision of sport rests, illuminates the educational, social and spiritual potential of sport, offers a critical reading of certain challenges that contemporary sport faces and, finally, proposes concrete ideas for an educational methodology through sport.
What impact did the suspension of activities during the pandemic have on sporting activity and with what consequences?
-The pandemic has been a very significant test for the world of sport. It interrupted or severely limited activities for many months, bringing the entire system to its knees, which showed its economic fragility and overall sustainability, accelerating transformation processes that had already been present for some time.
So now we can already see some of the consequences: financial difficulties and economic resistance; the crisis of sports volunteering; the decrease in the number of practitioners of traditional disciplines; the explosion of individual sports, or rather, of the "sport for all", the "sport for all", the "sport for all". individualistsThis is also favored by the spread of many digital applications, which, while not bad in themselves, encourage the practice of solitary sports; and the increase in the number of e-sports practitioners. A world of sport that has seen the gap widen even further between high-level professional sport, dedicated to the spectacle, and sport for all, of a youth, amateur and social nature.
How can we encourage sport to be seen as an important activity for the integral growth of the person?
-Sport has never been a purely recreational or entertainment experience. Certainly, when doing sport, people have fun and the recreational dimension is still the main motivation that brings them to sport. And it is important that it is not lost. It is a great good luck It is a good thing for sport to be fun, but many have understood it and exploited it from a purely commercial point of view, taking advantage of the recreational dimension to turn it into entertainment. Fortunately, it still has many antibodies to resist these drifts. Doing sport is a practice that involves not only the mind, but also the body and the spirit. It envelops us completely and imbues us with a lifestyle made of virtues such as sacrifice, perseverance, commitment, the pursuit of excellence?
