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The book is a true “secular encyclical” on sport and contains in its full version an interview given by the Pope to the editor of the Gazzetta Stefano Barigelli and to the deputy editor Pier Bergonzi. Some of its parts are also published in Gazzetta dello Sport and Sportweek
“As a child I liked soccer, but I also played basketball, my dad’s sport. For fun, a ‘rag ball’, a rag ball was enough. I was ‘hard leg’ and then they always put me in the door. Being a goalkeeper was a great school of life.
“Doping nullifies dignity, no sample is built in the laboratory. Sometimes it has happened, but time unmasks them. Talent is a gift ”.
(French Pope)
La Gazzetta dello Sport greets the new year with an extraordinary initiative, an important gift for readers and all athletes: the book to maintain “Sport according to Pope Francis”, in tribute to the newspaper and SportWeek on Saturday 2 January. The book contains in its entirety an exclusive interview with the Pope, a long and intense conversation about life and sport, which combines high principles and personal stories of great humanity: a kind of “secular encyclical” on sport. Parts of the interview are also published on SportWeek and La Gazzetta dello Sport, which will be in an oversized format for the occasion. The Pope’s words come to us at the crucial moment in which the world of sport, deeply marked by the year of the pandemic, faces 2021 with a lot of energy to restart and with the need to anchor itself in fundamental values.
Valuable document
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What La Gazzetta dello Sport offers its readers and the whole sport world is a precious document, which can be considered a “secular encyclical” on sport. Pope Francis answered thirty questions, ranging from deep values to many life memories, reflections from travels, encounters. The first part of the interview, which summarizes his reflections on the value of sport, revolves around seven keywords: loyalty, commitment, sacrifice, inclusion, team spirit, asceticism and redemption. Respect for the rules and rejection of shortcuts, responsibility for one’s own talent, motivation to face sacrifice; and then the human ecumenism of the Olympic Games, the team spirit, the exercise that makes ascetics, the hunger for redemption: these are the concepts that underlie the sporting choice. In his words, sport is also joy, celebration, fun, the ability to make ourselves better: with so many anecdotes and references to historical events and figures, the Pope gives us a vision of great encouragement and hope. From Maradona to Zanardi to Bartali, the Holy Father comments on the deeds and life of great sports. The exclusive interview was granted by Pope Francis in December at the Casa Santa Marta residence in the Vatican, where he received the director of La Gazzetta dello Sport Stefano Barigelli, the deputy director Pier Bergonzi, author of the interview, and Don Marco Pozza, who collaborated in its realization. The full version printed in the book that will be preserved “The sport according to Pope Francis” also contains an epilogue by Don Marco Pozza.
January 1, 2020 (change January 2, 2020 | 00:25)
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