Sports September 12, 2023
Vatican House of Sport important in current time of war, division
By Deborah Castellano Lubov
The Vatican House of Sport, which will essentially be the operational seat of the Vatican’s official multi-sports association Athletica Vaticana, will be blessed and inaugurated on Sept. 20 by Cardinal Jose Tolentino de Mendonca, Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
In Pope Francis’ recent Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium on the reform of the Roman Curia, the Pope entrusted sport to the aforementioned culture and education dicastery.
With the new House of Sport in Palazzo San Calisto, an extraterritorial property of the Holy See in Rome’s Trastevere neighbourhood, Athletica Vaticana, made up of some 200 men and women, proposes living sport as an opportunity for encounters, sociality, dialogue, friendship, and fraternity.
The statement announcing the inauguration also noted how important the dynamic is in a world torn by wars, tensions, divisions, and fears.
The operational headquarters in Trastevere, the statement said, is to be put at the disposal of the world of sport as a crossroads of encounters between athletes in their uniqueness, with special attention to the most fragile.
Catholic News Agency