Vatican Launches Foundation to Promote Values in sports

(29 July,2008) Knowing the very important role of sports in our culture Pope John Paul II addressed the topic in some 120 speeches and messages, said Bishop Carlo Mazza consultor of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. He noted this fact, when he presented the John Paul II Foundation for Sports in the Vatican on Monday. The honorary president of the Vatican foundation explained that the organization, which will run under the auspices of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, will promote the values of the Gospel through sports. The foundation will elaborate a three-year program to promote values such as good sportsmanship at international sporting events, as well as parish-based initiatives. "With his extraordinary intuition, John Paul II understood immediately the value of sport precisely in our present cultural moment," explained Bishop Mazza, who, before becoming bishop was chaplain of the Italian delegation to the last Olympics and in the Mediterranean Games “Hence, it is not about making sport an absolute value, which would be incomprehensible, but of being based on factual data, in the experience and global extension of the sporting event. It is an endeavour to perceive the positive events to interpret them in the light of the faith," clarified the prelate.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, sent a telegram for the presentation, exhorting the founders to promote human and Christian values through sports. Given the Pauline Year, the foundation's first undertaking will be a series of marathons to take place between Bethlehem and Rome. The marathons will begin next April 24 and end June 21 in St. Peter's Square.
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