Pope Leo XIV Tells Olympic Athletes "you have made visible this possibility of peace as a prophecy...breaking the logic of violence..."
Following the close of the Milan-Cortina Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in mid-March, Pope Leo XIV met with the Italian athletes who participated in the world’s premiere sporting event.
ADDRESS OF POPE LEO XIV
TO ATHLETES OF THE MILAN–CORTINA 2026
OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC GAMES
Clementine Hall on Thursday, 9 April 2026
________________________
Your Eminence, Your Excellencies, Minister,
Representatives of Italian sport,
dear athletes,
I welcome you with joy, shortly after the conclusion of the Milan-Cortina Winter Games, which, alongside top-level competitions, have also spread a noble human, cultural and spiritual message throughout the world.
I wish to express my gratitude to the Dicastery for Culture and Education which, with Athletica Vaticana, has organized this meeting. I thank the president Luciano Buonfiglio of the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) and the president Marco Giunio De Sanctis of the Italian Paralympic Committee (CIP).
I wish to involve all of you in this gratitude: thank you for what you have shown. Truly, sport, when lived authentically, is not merely a performance: it is a form of language, a narrative made up of gestures, of effort, of anticipation, of falls and of new beginnings. During the Games we saw not only bodies in motion, but stories: stories of sacrifice, of discipline, of tenacity. In particular, in Paralympic competitions we have seen how a limitation can become a source of revelation: not something that holds a person back, but something that can be transformed, even transfigured into newfound qualities. You athletes have become life stories that inspire a great number of people.
Secondly, your team spirit reminds us that no one wins alone, because behind every victory there are many people involved – from family to teams – as well as many days of training, pressure and solitude. It is often precisely in these moments that God reveals himself, as the psalmist sings: “Thou didst give a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip” (Ps 18:36).
Indeed, sport contributes to the maturing of our character, requires a steadfast spirituality and is a fruitful form of education. Through sport, we learn to know our own bodies without idolizing them, to control our emotions, to compete without losing our sense of fraternity, to accept defeat without despair and victory without arrogance.
By training the mind, along with the limbs, sport is authentic when it remains humane, that is, when it remains faithful to its first vocation: to be a school of life and talent. A school in which one learns that true success is measured by the quality of relationships: not by the amount of prizes, but by mutual respect, by shared joy in the game.
This is the “life in abundance” (cf. Jn 10:10) of which the Gospel speaks: a life filled with meaning, a life in which physicality and inner life find harmony. This is the reason for the choice of this Gospel expression as the title of the Letter I wrote on the occasion of the Olympics and Paralympics (cf. Life in abundance, 6 February 2026).
At the present time, so marked by polarization, rivalry and conflicts that escalate into devastating wars, your commitment takes on an even greater value: sport can and must truly become a space for encounter! Not a show of strength, but an exercise in relationship. I wanted to recall, on the occasion of these Games, the value of the Olympic truce. With your presence, you have made visible this possibility of peace as a prophecy that is by no means rhetorical: breaking the logic of violence to promote that of encounter.
At the same time, we are well aware that sport also brings with it certain temptations: that of performance at any cost, which can lead to doping; that of profit, which transforms the game into a market and the athlete into a star; that of spectacle, which reduces the athlete to an image or a number. Against these excesses, your witness is essential.
Dear athletes, you have been witnesses of an honest and beautiful way of inhabiting the world. You bring the idea that it is possible to compete without hating each other. That it is possible to win without humiliating. That one can lose without losing oneself. And this also applies beyond sport. It applies in social life, in politics, in relationships between peoples, because sport, if lived well, becomes a workshop for a reconciled humanity, where diversity is not a threat but a wealth. In an age of great climatic challenges, these Games also remind us of the bond between sport and nature, and our duty to take care of the common home (cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato si’, 3).
Today, in this hall, we look upon the Cross of Sport – the Olympic and Paralympic Cross – which, from the London 2012 Games to those of Milan-Cortina, embodies the prayers, expectations and hopes, fears and sufferings of the men and women of all ages who share their sporting experiences. Before this supreme and essential sign of dedication, let us renew our desire to give the best of ourselves, together, in every activity.
Dear athletes, I thank you all for your commitment. I pray that Jesus Christ, “God’s true athlete” (cf. Saint John Paul II, Homily for the Jubilee of Sports People, 29 October 2000, 4), may inspire in each of you ever more virtuous challenges and grant you the strength to live them out with passion. As I accompany you with my blessing, I entrust you with a mission: to continue ensuring that the person remains at the centre of sport in all its forms (cf. Letter Life in Abundance).
Good! Best wishes to you all, and welcome!
______________________________________
Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 9 April 2026
TO ATHLETES OF THE MILAN–CORTINA 2026
OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC GAMES
Clementine Hall on Thursday, 9 April 2026
________________________
Your Eminence, Your Excellencies, Minister,
Representatives of Italian sport,
dear athletes,
I welcome you with joy, shortly after the conclusion of the Milan-Cortina Winter Games, which, alongside top-level competitions, have also spread a noble human, cultural and spiritual message throughout the world.
I wish to express my gratitude to the Dicastery for Culture and Education which, with Athletica Vaticana, has organized this meeting. I thank the president Luciano Buonfiglio of the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) and the president Marco Giunio De Sanctis of the Italian Paralympic Committee (CIP).
I wish to involve all of you in this gratitude: thank you for what you have shown. Truly, sport, when lived authentically, is not merely a performance: it is a form of language, a narrative made up of gestures, of effort, of anticipation, of falls and of new beginnings. During the Games we saw not only bodies in motion, but stories: stories of sacrifice, of discipline, of tenacity. In particular, in Paralympic competitions we have seen how a limitation can become a source of revelation: not something that holds a person back, but something that can be transformed, even transfigured into newfound qualities. You athletes have become life stories that inspire a great number of people.
Secondly, your team spirit reminds us that no one wins alone, because behind every victory there are many people involved – from family to teams – as well as many days of training, pressure and solitude. It is often precisely in these moments that God reveals himself, as the psalmist sings: “Thou didst give a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip” (Ps 18:36).
Indeed, sport contributes to the maturing of our character, requires a steadfast spirituality and is a fruitful form of education. Through sport, we learn to know our own bodies without idolizing them, to control our emotions, to compete without losing our sense of fraternity, to accept defeat without despair and victory without arrogance.
By training the mind, along with the limbs, sport is authentic when it remains humane, that is, when it remains faithful to its first vocation: to be a school of life and talent. A school in which one learns that true success is measured by the quality of relationships: not by the amount of prizes, but by mutual respect, by shared joy in the game.
This is the “life in abundance” (cf. Jn 10:10) of which the Gospel speaks: a life filled with meaning, a life in which physicality and inner life find harmony. This is the reason for the choice of this Gospel expression as the title of the Letter I wrote on the occasion of the Olympics and Paralympics (cf. Life in abundance, 6 February 2026).
At the present time, so marked by polarization, rivalry and conflicts that escalate into devastating wars, your commitment takes on an even greater value: sport can and must truly become a space for encounter! Not a show of strength, but an exercise in relationship. I wanted to recall, on the occasion of these Games, the value of the Olympic truce. With your presence, you have made visible this possibility of peace as a prophecy that is by no means rhetorical: breaking the logic of violence to promote that of encounter.
At the same time, we are well aware that sport also brings with it certain temptations: that of performance at any cost, which can lead to doping; that of profit, which transforms the game into a market and the athlete into a star; that of spectacle, which reduces the athlete to an image or a number. Against these excesses, your witness is essential.
Dear athletes, you have been witnesses of an honest and beautiful way of inhabiting the world. You bring the idea that it is possible to compete without hating each other. That it is possible to win without humiliating. That one can lose without losing oneself. And this also applies beyond sport. It applies in social life, in politics, in relationships between peoples, because sport, if lived well, becomes a workshop for a reconciled humanity, where diversity is not a threat but a wealth. In an age of great climatic challenges, these Games also remind us of the bond between sport and nature, and our duty to take care of the common home (cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato si’, 3).
Today, in this hall, we look upon the Cross of Sport – the Olympic and Paralympic Cross – which, from the London 2012 Games to those of Milan-Cortina, embodies the prayers, expectations and hopes, fears and sufferings of the men and women of all ages who share their sporting experiences. Before this supreme and essential sign of dedication, let us renew our desire to give the best of ourselves, together, in every activity.
Dear athletes, I thank you all for your commitment. I pray that Jesus Christ, “God’s true athlete” (cf. Saint John Paul II, Homily for the Jubilee of Sports People, 29 October 2000, 4), may inspire in each of you ever more virtuous challenges and grant you the strength to live them out with passion. As I accompany you with my blessing, I entrust you with a mission: to continue ensuring that the person remains at the centre of sport in all its forms (cf. Letter Life in Abundance).
Good! Best wishes to you all, and welcome!
______________________________________
Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 9 April 2026
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