Pope Francis, the 7 points of the secular encyclical on sport with SportWeek

It will be a really special issue of Sportweek that you will find on newsstands with the Gazzetta dello Sport. The first magazine of the year will in fact have a cover in gold letters and the face of Pope Bergoglio with the title Francescoro. The pontiff closest to our world gave the director of Sportweek, Pier Bergonzi, who interviewed him at the Vatican, a “secular encyclical” on sport that you will find assembled in its entirety in a cellophane book to keep forever. What we have renamed the “secular encyclical” unfolds into seven key concepts that we present in the magazine in question and answer form. Each of the concepts is completed with an explanatory intervention by Don Marco Pozza, the priest, cyclist and marathoner, friend of the Gazzetta, with whom the project was born. Together with him we have identified the seven sports personalities that best represent the values ​​indicated by the Pope, here is a sample of what you find in Sportweek.

One: Loyalty

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Words of the Pope: “Sport is respect for the rules but also the fight against doping. Taking shortcuts is one of the temptations that we often have to deal with in life. Doping in sport is not only a trap but also a lack to steal from God that spark that, by his designs, he gave some in a special way.

The character: Gaetano Scirea

The assistance of Don Marco Pozza: “The Pope seems to say” If the world cheats, it accepts to lose instead of winning unfairly. “I think of Gaetano Scirea, a whole career without any expulsion: he was the emblem of refinement and exclusion”.

Two: Commitment

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Words of the Pope: “Talent is nothing without application. History, not just sports, tells of so many talented people who later got lost along the way, as the parable of Matthew tells us (Mt 25, 14-30) in which Jesus appears to us as a demanding coach: if you bury your talent, you are no longer part of a team ”.

The character: Pietro Mennea

Assistance from Don Marco Pozza: “The commitment for me has always been Pietro Mennea, the Freccia of the South. He was not predestined but rather became the Italian to beat because he did not fall asleep on talent but rather worked with effort and selflessness” .

Three: sacrifice

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Words of the Pope: “Sacrifice is a term that sport shares with religion. Nobody likes to fight because fatigue is a burden that breaks you. If, however, you can find meaning in effort, then your yoke is lighter The athlete looks a bit like the saint: he knows tiredness but it doesn’t weigh on him. “

The character: Fiorenzo Magni

Assisted by Don Marco Pozza: “I read sacrifice and think of Magni, who ran the 1956 Giro with an inner tube in his mouth to relieve the pain of a broken clavicle. He finished second in that Giro d’Italia. De Coubertin claimed that the sport seeks fear to dominate it ”.

Four: Inclusion

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Words of the Pope: “This will be the year of the Olympic Games. The Games have always been a sign of inclusion, as opposed to the culture of racism. Certainly the Olympic Games, of which I have always appreciated the innate desire to build bridges in instead of walls, it can also symbolically represent the sign of a new departure and with a new heart ”.

The character: Muhammad Ali

The assistance of Don Marco Pozza: “I see in the Pope the story of Muhammad Ali, the best boxer of all time. He used his class and his fame in favor of the civil rights of African Americans. The issues that struck black brothers less fortunate than he had honorary citizenship in him. ”

Cinque: team spirit

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Words of the Pope: “Unity is fundamental in the logic of sport. Let us think of Moses who, on the mountain, tells God to save the people as well, not only him (cf. Ex 32). It could be said, using a sports metaphor: that we could only save ourselves as a team. ”

Character: Al Pacino (in the movie Every Damn Sunday)

The assistance of Don Marco Pozza: “That nobody is saved alone is a fixed point of Pope Francis. An adaptation, in the key of faith, in the beautiful” Every cursed Sunday “by Al Pacino:” So either we get up now as a collective or we will be individually annihilated. Soccer, guys, that’s it. You want to do”.

Sei: Ascended

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The Pope’s words: “The stories of great companies lead us to think that the sporting gesture is a kind of asceticism. Sport represents it very well: I imagine myself climbing eight thousand meters, diving into the abyss, crossing the oceans as it tries to find a different dimension “.

The character: Sergei Bubka

Don Marco Pozza’s assistance: “Asceticism, among all of them, is perhaps the category that most recalls the limit, the threshold of resistance, the limit between surrender and victory. It is the jump of Sergei Bubka, 35 times holder of the world auction record. “Sport – he said – is not a fashion show, it is really trying it with yourself.”

Seven: Redemption

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Words of the Pope: “To say sport is to say redemption, the possibility of redemption for all men. It is not enough to dream of success, you have to wake up and work hard. That is why sport is full of people who, with the sweat of their brow , He has struck that he was born with talent in his pocket. That is why certain victories provoke emotion “.

The character: Alex Zanardi

Assisted by Don Marco Pozza: “Almost always whoever comes out last has exactly the desire to win.” When I woke up without legs – said Zanardi – I looked at the half that remained, not the half that had been lost. “It was not a joke. For Francesco it is not enough to praise redemption, it is urgent to know how to offer the possibility of redemption.”