{"id":2163,"date":"2005-09-21T09:32:33","date_gmt":"2005-09-21T09:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/in-praise-of-sport.html"},"modified":"2005-09-21T09:32:33","modified_gmt":"2005-09-21T09:32:33","slug":"in-praise-of-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/in-praise-of-sport.html","title":{"rendered":"In praise of sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

At today’s General Audience<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Let the children come to me…<\/a> <\/p>\n

The story:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

During his weekly public audience on Wednesday, September 21, Pope Benedict XVI (bio<\/a> – news<\/a>) praised athletic competition, saying that sports can be "an educational instrument and a vehicle for important human and spiritual values." <\/p>\n

Speaking to 26,000 pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, the Holy Father acknowledged the presence of young soccer players from 16 European countries, who were in Rome for a a charitable fundraising event organized by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum. The Pope said that such sporting events should encourage "mutual respect, loyalty, and solidarity among peoples and cultures." <\/p>\n

The Pope’s catechetical address for the audience was on Psalm 131, describing the entry of the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. King David, he recalled, had vowed that he would not entry his own palace until the Ark was properly located. That promise, Pope Benedict said, drew an answering promise of favor from God. This interchange, the Pope said, illustrates "the dialogue that unites divine liberty and human freedom." <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At today’s General Audience Let the children come to me… The story: During his weekly public audience on Wednesday, September 21, Pope Benedict XVI (bio – news) praised athletic competition, saying that sports can be "an educational instrument and a vehicle for important human and spiritual values." Speaking to 26,000 pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nIn praise of sport - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/in-praise-of-sport.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In praise of sport - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At today’s General Audience Let the children come to me… The story: During his weekly public audience on Wednesday, September 21, Pope Benedict XVI (bio – news) praised athletic competition, saying that sports can be "an educational instrument and a vehicle for important human and spiritual values." 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}