Sports has the greatness of transforming “the conflict into encounter” and “the division into inclusion”, said Pope Leo XIV in a video message to the participants of The Coure matchthe traditional football game whose funds finance beneficial works.
This year The game of the heart (The Heart Party) aims to support the reception project, with which the Bambino Gesù Foundation and Italian Caritas welcome and help children who arrive in Italy from different war areas. At the meeting, singers and representatives of Italian policy play, integrated into the National singers and the National politicians.
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After thanking the participants, the Pope said he came to the mind “another game, that narrated in a film Merry Christmasand in a song by Paul McCartney, played on December 25, 1914 by some soldiers (Germans, French and English) during the so -called Christmas truce, near the city of Ypres, Belgium. ”
That truce began on the night of December 24, when the German soldiers began to sing carols in their trenches. Only a few meters, the English soldiers also sang Christmas songs, also from their trenches.
Both sides agreed to cease fire and exchanged food and gifts, played a football match and gave themselves space to bury their dead.
Leo XIV said that “it is still possible – it is always possible – to find us, even in times of division, bombs and wars. It is necessary to create the opportunities to do so. To challenge divisions and recognize that this is the greatest challenge: to meet. Contribute together to a good cause. Restore unity and broken hearts, ours and those of others. Recognize that in the heart of God we are one.
In that sense, he said that “’party’ and ‘heart’ thus become two words that combine. And it is also wonderful that this happens in a charity event that is both sports and televised. And that collects funds for life, for healing, not for destruction and death”.
“Sport, when they live well those who practice it and those who encourage it, it has this greatness: it transforms the conflict into encounter, the division into inclusion. Community loneliness. And television, when it is not only connection but communion of looks, can help us rediscover how to look at each other. With love instead of hate,” he added.
He also said that the fact that the party is played by singers and politicians “tells us that politics can unite instead of dividing”, if instead of complying with the propaganda that creates enemies, it is involved in the difficult and necessary art of seeking the common good.
“And it also reminds us of how music enriches our words and our memories with meaning; since, as children, we begin to speak and remember. Children, to whom this encounter is dedicated, know it. They have the purity of the heart that allows them to see God,” he said.
Therefore, he encouraged to look into the eyes of the children and learn from them, rediscovering “the courage to welcome and be men and women of encounter. And the strength to believe and ask for a truce, a time to stop the spread of hatred. Our humanity is at stake. That this peace game wins a point in his favor”.
Eduardo Berdejo
Professional in Social Communication of the National University of San Marcos in Peru, I have more than 20 years of experience in Catholic digital journalism. As part of ACI Press, I have been sent to cover the trips of Pope Francis to Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Peru, in addition to the Synod of Sinodality in the Vatican in 2023.