ROMA (ITALPRESS) – “In today’s time, so marked by polarizations, rivalries and conflicts, which flow into devastating wars, your commitment becomes even greater. Sport can and must become a meeting space. Not the performance of force, but an exercise of relationship. I wanted to remember the value of the Olympic Truce. With your presence you have shown the possibility of peace, breaking the logic of violence to promote that of encounter.” Pope Leo XIV said this during the audience with the Olympic and Paralympic athletes of Milan Cortina 2026. The Pontiff recalled that “sport brings with it also temptations: that of performance at any cost that can lead up to doping, that of profit that transforms sport into market and the athlete in divo, that of the spectacularization that reduces the athlete to a number. Against these drifts your testimony is essential. You have witnessed a beautiful way of living the world,” Pope Leo XIV explained. “The sport when it is authentically lived is not only a performance, but it is a form of language, a story made of gestures, fatigue, expectations, falls and sharing. During the Games we have seen not only moving bodies, but stories of sacrifice, tenacity and discipline, in particular in the Paralympic competitions we have observed how the limit can become a place of revelation”, the words of the Holy Father who entrusted the athletes the mission to make so that the “person remains at the center of sport in all its expressions”.
“From the first day I was elected I wanted to be here. Fortunately, the Olympics took place that made us prestigious and proud. She exalted the values of sport, and of this we are extremely grateful. Every day we carry out this message, because the values of sport are the values of life”. So the president of the Coni, Luciano Buonfiglio.
“All these great athletes dedicate these medals to her, so that each one of us can become a better citizen and believe in the values that the church carries forward. I know you’re a sportsman, our movement is near the Church. We have values that are inherent in the Christian ones, regardless of everything we have to welcome everyone and confront each other, inside and outside the competitions. The most important thing in the paralympic world is that there are no differences anymore, we must open the doors of respect.” So the president of the Cip, Marco Giunio De Sanctis. “I had the honour to personally know his three predecessors, but I think this is a unique and unrepeatable historical occasion – he added. Here the whole universe of sport is brought together, it is a great time.”.
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
