Pope Francis meets Italian and Argentinian national rugby teams

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Friday met members of the Italian and Argentinian national rugby teams and urged the players to put into practice in their outside lives, the qualities of determination, loyalty and team spirit which are needed when playing a rugby match. The rugby players were received in audience by the Pope on the eve of their match against each other in Rome’s Olympic Stadium.

Listen to the report by Susy Hodges :

The Pope told the players that he finds rugby "a very nice sport" because although it’s a tough sport with a lot of physical clashes, there is "no violence but instead great loyalty and respect for others." Playing rugby, he continued, is very demanding and tiring but this also "helps to form our character and our strength of will." There’s also "a balance in rugby" between the actions taken by groups, such as during the scrums, and then the action taken by an individual player who runs to score a try.

Pope Francis said these actions can be a metaphor for our lives which also involve striving for a goal and often this is a difficult struggle but "the important thing is not to run on our own." In order to arrive at that goal, he said, "we need to run together with the ball being passed from hand to hand "until we score that try or goal. The pope concluded by urging the players to put into practice in their outside lives all those qualities that are needed to play rugby.

Pope Francis also met with FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Friday.