Pope Benedict XVI’s Message to Cardinal Rylco at the Seminar on Sports, Education and Faith

(November 07, 2009) The sport has great potential especially in the education of youth and, therefore, holds great importance not only in the use of leisure time, but also in shaping the individual, said Pope Benedict XVI. He communicated this in his message to Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity at the Seminar on the theme "Sport, education, faith, for a new season of the sports movement Catholic," in Rome on Saturday, 7^th of November. The Pope added that this is true for the sport in general, as it is undertaken in schools and sports clubs, in order to ensure a human and Christian formation of new generations. Through sports, said the Pontiff, the ecclesial community contributes to the formation of youth, providing a framework suited to its human and spiritual growth. In fact, when they are concerned with the development of the person and managed by qualified and competent people, the sports initiatives prove successful occasion in which priests, religious and lay people can become real life teachers and educators of young people. It is therefore necessary that, in our time - in which there is an urgent need to educate the new generations - the Church continues to support sport for young people. In this perspective, said the Holy Father that he finds it very useful that this third seminar entitled "Church and Sport" of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, focusing its attention on the specific mission and Catholic identity of the sports associations, schools and organisations run by the church. He fervently hoped that it helps to understand the many valuable opportunities that sport can offer to youth ministry, and while he wished them a very fruitful meeting. Referring to the earlier address to the swimmers in the month of August, the Pope said: sport, practiced with passion and alert sense of ethics, particularly for youth, becomes a healthy sense of competition and advanced physical training school, for human and spiritual values.