by Fabrizio Peloni
Leaving the Azraq Refugee Camp, in Jordan, to participate in a youth taekwondo competition – scheduled in Rome from 4 to 7 June – is not just a sporting experience. Especially if on the eve you participate in the general audience in St. Peter’s Square and greet the Pope. It is almost incredible for the seven Syrian girls – between 7 and 9 years old – who arrived in Italy from the Jordanian refugee camp to have taken a plane for the first time and live in contact with other athletes from all over the world. In full Olympic spirit and in the name of the values of integrity, perseverance and self-control at the basis of Asian martial art.
Everything was made possible thanks to the Italian Federation of this discipline, which, through the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation, is active in promoting sports practice even in the most difficult contexts. And this morning the great emotion of being able to meet Leo dan.
“The desire is to contribute to the improvement of their living conditions”, said Cito, adding that “the attention is paid in particular to children, often victims of the harshest consequences of wars and discrimination, and to help them in exchanging and sharing the authentic values of sport”.
In addition to taekwondo, there were many other experiences of people, among the twenty thousand present this morning in St. Peter’s Square, which showed the strong link between sport and the construction of a culture of encounter. Also in Rome until June 7th the BNL Italy Major Premier Padel is scheduled. And today the president of the International Federation (FIP), Luigi Carraro, and the champion Francisco Navarro, known as Paquito – accompanied by Alessandra Turco, president of Vatican Padel – Athletica Vaticana, a sports club of the Holy See which is a member of the FIP – donated the official racket of the tournament to the Pope. «Ours is an inclusive sport capable of creating relationships and friendships, uniting people of different nationalities, languages and cultures through a common passion», said Carraro.
Forty athletes from the CSI of Macerata and from the Macerata-Loreto pilgrimage, now in its 48th edition, asked the Pope to light and bless the “Torch of Peace” which will illuminate the march on the night between 13 and 14 June. «For us it is not a race but a sport of the soul», confided Chiara D’Alonzo and Antonino Pedano, the two runners present in the churchyard.
From Argentina, a delegation from River Plate, a sporting and social institution with over 120 years of history in the world of football, participated in the hearing to testify to the profound commitment to the integral development of people through sport, education in values and “the activity of our community in spreading a message of peace, inclusion and respect, values deeply linked to the universal message of the Holy Father”.
From the United States came the weightlifter Joseph Mathias Kovacs, world champion in Beijing 2015 and Doha 2019, with a personal best of 23.23 m, which places him in second place in the all-time world rankings.
And again from the USA, the meeting of Leo XIV with Max Gurney, a veteran of the Second World War who will turn 105 on 10 June, was particularly touching at the end of the audience. «82 years ago, with a group of American soldiers from Cassino we walked up to Florence, freeing Italian territory from the Nazi-fascists», he states very lucidly in perfect Italian, «learned thanks to my father who was a linguist». Gurney continues to fill his agenda with trips, dinners, meetings, adventures and new encounters “not least clearly the one with the Holy Father”.
At the conclusion of the hearing Robert Blackwell jr. — founder and owner of the Killerspin company that produces ping pong equipment in Chicago — donated a white table to the bishop of Rome to encourage people to put aside electronic devices and reconnect through “mindful play.”
