POPE BENEDICT AND THE SWIMMERS
The president of FINA,the international swimming federation, greets the Holy Father...
...and the President of the Italian swimming federation presents him with a set of 2009 commemorative medals:
...as well as the team suitcase:
Pope meets swimming championship athletes,
praises their 'exciting performance'
VATICAN CITY, Aug. 1 (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday met athletes participating in the swimming world championships in Rome and urged them to act as role models for fellow youths "in sports and in life."
Benedict blessed and shook hands with athletes in the courtyard of his summer residence of Castel Gandolfo in the hills outside Rome, and praised their "exciting performance."
He playfully put on sports hats the athletes gave him and triumphantly raised a plush green frog — the mascot of the Rome championships.
Among those handing the gifts to Benedict were fellow German Paul Biedermann, who beat American Michael Phelps in the 200-meter freestyle on Tuesday, and Italy's double gold medallist Federica Pellegrini. The two also gave Benedict an Italy and a Germany jersey, and Biedermann's was autographed by his teammates.
Though Phelps was invited, he skipped the audience to rest before his final individual race of the world championships later Saturday.
Benedict blessed the crowd of about
100 athletes, organizers and volunteers using his right hand, encased in a cast since he fell and broke his wrist two weeks ago while vacationing in the Italian Alps.
[A Vatican Radio report says some 2,500 persons came to the audience, which means almost everyone who had anything to do with the event must have shosen to come.]
In a speech, he praised the athletes for choosing to train hard and make sacrifices to succeed in sports.
"With your competitions you offer to the world an exciting performance of discipline and humanity, artistic beauty and tenacious will," Benedict said. "You, dear athletes, are models for your fellow youths and your example can be decisive in positively building their future. Therefore, be champions in sports and in life!"
Benedict also worked an apt sports pun into his speech, telling the athletes: "I hope that you will 'swim' toward ever higher, unmatchable ideals."
Italy's golden girl, Federica Pellegrini, world titleholder in the 200 and 400-m women's freestyle, was chosen to represent the women swimmers with a personal greeting to the Pope.
Paul Biedermann, who beat Michael Phelps* in the 200-m freestyle, was understandably chosen by the FINA officials to represent
the male swimmers - he is a German:
He presents him with a T-shirt signed by the entire German team, and yet another cap.
The Pope enjoys his new headgear...
...and also gets Diva-09, the frog mascot of the 2009 championships.
Here is a translation of the Pope's plurilingual remarks to the delegation:
He started in Italian:
Dear friends,
I accepted with sincere pleasure your invitation to meet with you during these World Swimming Championship meet.
Thank you for your visit. I gladly extend to each of you my heartfelt welcome! I especially greet the president of the World Swimming Federation FINA, Mr. Julio Maglione, and the president of the Federazione Italiana Nuoto (FIN), Hon. Paolo Barelli, whom I thank for the kind words he addressed to me.
I greet all the officials present, technicians, delegates, newsmen and media workers, volunteers, organizers and all those who have contributed to the realization of these championships.
And my affectionate greeting goes especially to you, dear athletes of different nationalities, who are the protagonists in these swimming events.
With your competitions, you offer to the world an attractive display of discipline and humanity, of artistic beauty and tenacious will.
You show what goals can be reached by the vitality of youth when it does not reject the effort of hard training and gladly accepts not a few sacrifices and privations. All this constitute for your contemporaries an important lesson in life.
As we were just reminded, sport when practised with passion and a watchful ethical sense, becomes, especially for the youth, a training ground for healthy competition and striving for physical perfection, a school of formation in human and spiritual values, a privileged ground for personal growth and social contact.
By simply watching these championships and admiring the results achieved, it is not difficult to note how much potential God has endowed the human body and what interesting goals of perfection it can achieve.
It reminds me of the wonder expressed by the Psalmist who, contemplating the universe, sings the glory of God and the grandeur of being human.
"When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place - what are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them little less than a god, crowned them with glory and honor" (Ps 8,4-6).
How then can we not thank the Lord for having endowed man's body with such perfection, for having enriched it with a beauty and harmony that can be expressed in so many different ways!
The sporting disciplines, each with its own modalities, help us to appreciate this gift which God has given us. The Church follows and takes care of sports activities which are practised not as an end in themselves, but as a means, as a precious instrument for the perfect balanced training of the whole person.
Even in the Bible we find interesting references to sport as a metaphor for life. For example, the Apostle Paul considers it an authentic human value - he uses it not only as a metaphor for illustrating elevated ethical and ascetic ideals, but also as a means for human formation and as a component of his culture and his civilization.
You, dear athletes, are models for your contemporaries, and your example can be decisive for them in positively building their own future. Therefore, be champions of sport as well as life!
John Paul II first articulated this when, meeting the world of sport in October of the Jubilee year 2000, he underlined the great importance of sports activities precisely because "it can favor the affirmation among the youth of important values like loyalty, perseverance, friendship, sharing, solidarity" (Teachings, Vol. XXIII/2, p. 729).
Moreover, sports manifestations like yours, thanks to modern means of social communications, exercise a remarkable impact on public opinion, since the language of sports is universal and particularly gets to the new generations.
Therefore, using sports as a vehicle for positive messages contributes to build a more fraternal world.
In French he said:
Dear French-speaking friends in sport, I am happy to welcome you and greet you cordially on the occasion of the world swimming championships.
The sport you practise is a school of generosity, loyalty and respect for others. May it favor the development of friendship and sharing among persons and peoples. And may God bless you!
In English, he said:
I am pleased to greet the English-speaking athletes taking part in the International Swimming Federation World Championships, together with the many officials, support staff, volunteers and friends who have joined you here in Rome during these days.
May your pursuit of excellence be accompanied by gratitude for your God-given gifts and a desire to help others to use their own gifts in building a better and more united world. Upon you and your families I invoke God’s blessings of joy and peace!
In German:
From my heart I greet the German-speaking participants in these World Swimming Championships. Dear friends, as sports competitors, you have received optimal training and are models for many young people. Stand for good and lasting values in your own lives, so that sports can serve the development of the gifts that God has given men. May God bless you in all your endeavors!
In Spanish:
I salute all those Spanish-speaking persons present - athletes, officials and all those who have taken part in various ways in this World Swimming Championships.
I invite you to continue promoting sports according to the highest human values, in a way that favors the healthy physical development of all those who practise sports as an option for the integral formation of children and young people. Thank you.
In Portuguese:
Dear Portuguese-speaking friends who are taking part in these World Swimming Championships, I greet you all from the heart, and take the occasion to thank you for the lesson of life that you offer to the world - a lesson of discipline and humanity, of artistic beauty and strong will to win, and above all, to conquer oneself.
I invoke the help of God for you and your families and impart to you the Apostolic Blessing.
He ended in Italian:
Dear friends, and especially you, dear athletes, while I thank you once more for this encounter, I hope that you may 'swim' towards ever more unprecedented ideals.
I assure you of remembrance in my prayers, and invoke divine blessings on you, your families and all those dear to you, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I think the Pope's reflections above on the God-given wonder of the human body and its possibilities - and the citation from Psalm 8 - deserve to be included in every program on sports - in which the ideals stressed are always the abstract ones, almost taking for granted the very obvious physical/corporeal basis of every sports achievement.
*About the decision by Phelps, the wonder boy of the 2008 Olympics, not to join the papal audience. His coach said he needed to rest for his next event. I suspect it could have been out of pique, too, because Biedermann - whose win over Phelps is controversial because he wore a swimsuit that the swimming federation has now decided to ban - was chosen to represent the male swimmers personally presented to the Pope. A most ill-thought decision, among other things because if Phelps had been there, the Pope himself would have known to seek him out.
P.S. It seems, from Cowgirl's account in a post below, that Phelps may have been asked to represent the male swimmers, but unwisely decided to turn it down. In which case, I apologize for my erroneous surmise above.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/08/2009 03:50]