Some 200 participants will gather in Rome next week for an international conference on sport and spirituality organised by the Vatican and the French embassy to the Holy See ahead of the Paris Olympic Games. Source: Vatican News.
The May 16-18 event, titled “Putting our lives on the line”, will gather participants including professional, paralympic and amateur athletes, representatives of international sports bodies, managers of sports clubs, university students and sport chaplains who will reflect on the spiritual implications of what has become one of the most practiced and followed cultural activities in contemporary society.
Cardinal José Tolentino Mendonça, who will open the conference, said sport has always been connected to the spiritual dimension of life, as Pope Francis has emphasised on several occasions.
“If we look at the history of sport in parallel with the history of the Church, there have been many moments in which sport has been an inspiration and a metaphor for the life of Christians, or Christianity itself has enriched sport with its humanistic vision,” the Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education said at a press conference yesterday.
Participants will discuss why sports are so popular today, identify risks, assess their relevance for building a more fraternal, tolerant and fair society and discern how God manifests himself in sports competition.
Cardinal Mendonça said the conference aims to find an answer to two fundamental questions: “What does sport have to say to the Church?” and “ What does the Church have to say to sport?”.
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Rome to host international conference on Sport and Spirituality (By Lisa Zengarini, Vatican News)
