Pope Leo XIV receives the stars of Milano Cortina 2026 in audience: Athletes are witnesses to an honest and beautiful way of inhabiting the world
The day after the return of the Tricolour to the President of the Republic at the Quirinale and the celebratory evening at Casina Valadier, Italys Olympic and Paralympic medallists and fourth-place finishers from the Milano Cortina 2026 Games were received in audience by Pope Leo XIV in the Sala Clementina, on the second loggia of the Apostolic Palace (photo Andrea Masini/CONI).In attendance, alongside the athletes, were CONI President Luciano Buonfiglio, CONI Secretary General and Italy Team Chef de Mission Carlo Mornati, President of the Lombardy Region Attilio Fontana, President of the Veneto Regional Council Luca Zaia, Mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala, Mayor of Verona Damiano Tommasi, President of the Autonomous Province of Trento Maurizio Fugatti, IOC honorary members Manuela Di Centa, Franco Carraro and Mario Pescante, the leadership of the Milano Cortina 2026 Foundation headed by President Giovanni Malag, the ex officio members of the CONI National Council (federation presidents), numerous members of the Executive Board, and the presidents of the CONI athletes and coaches commissions.Holy Father, on behalf of the Italian National Olympic Committee and the entire Italian sporting movement, I would like to express our most sincere gratitude for welcoming us today and for the constant attention you devote to the world of sport, said CONI President Luciano Buonfiglio. Your words represent for us a precious guide: a constant reminder of the most authentic values of sport, such as respect, solidarity, sacrifice and a sense of community. These are values that go far beyond competition and contribute to shaping better women and men. Our athletes, in addition to winning and making us proud, strive every day to share your message in concrete terms, not only in competition but also in daily life, becoming positive examples especially for younger generations. Holy Father, we thank you for your support and for the moral strength you transmit to our movement. We will continue to uphold these principles with responsibility and pride, so that sport may always be an instrument of growth, inclusion and peace. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.CIP President Marco Giunio De Sanctis then addressed the Pope: Your Holiness, we have had the pleasure, the honour and the privilege of personally knowing your predecessors Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. However, I believe this represents a unique, historic and unrepeatable occasion, because it has brought together before you the entire Olympic and Paralympic sporting universe. It is a great moment. I know that you are a man of sport and that you are close to our world, just as our movement is close to the Catholic Church. We share values that are inherent to Christian principles, from loyalty to fair play through to inclusion, regardless of race, traditions or background. Our task is to welcome and engage with everyone in a spirit of fairness, both during competition and beyond it, without neglecting what the Church has promoted for millennia. Particularly in the Paralympic world, differences must no longer exist and we must throw open the doors to respect, integration and full inclusion, not in words but in deeds. All these great athletes gathered here today, who have brought honour to our country, dedicate their medals to you so that each of us may become a better citizen and truly believe in the values that the Church has upheld for so long.I welcome you with joy following the conclusion of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games, which spread throughout the world, alongside competitions of the highest level, a noble human, cultural and spiritual message, said Pope Leo XIV. Thank you for what you have borne witness to. Sport, when authentically lived, is not merely performance, but a form of language, a narrative made up of gestures, effort, waiting, falls and new beginnings. During the Games we saw not only bodies in motion, but stories stories of sacrifice, discipline and perseverance. In particular, in Paralympic competitions we observed how limitation can become a place of revelation, not something that hinders the person, but something that can be transformed, even transfigured into a defining quality. You athletes have become biographies that inspire countless people. Secondly, your cohesion reminds us that no one wins alone, because behind every victory many are involved: from families to teams, through countless days of training, pressure and solitude. It is often precisely in these moments that God reveals Himself. Sport contributes to the development of our character, it requires a noble spirituality and represents a fruitful form of education. Through sport one learns to know ones body without idolising it, to govern emotions, to compete without losing a sense of fraternity, to accept defeat without despair and victory without arrogance. By training the mind together with the body, sport is authentic when it remains human when it remains faithful to its original vocation: to be a school of life and of talent. A school in which one learns that true success is measured by the quality of relationships, not by the number of prizes, but by mutual respect and the shared joy of the game. This is the life in abundance spoken of in the Gospel: a life full of meaning, where physicality and interiority find harmony. That is why I chose this Gospel expression as the title of the letter I wrote at the start of the Games: Life in Abundance. In the present time, so marked by polarisation, rivalry and conflicts that lead to devastating wars, your commitment takes on even greater value. Sport can and must truly become a space for encounter, not a display of strength but an exercise in relationships. During these Games I wished to recall the value of the Olympic Truce: through your presence you made this possibility of peace visible as a prophecy that is anything but rhetorical. To break the logic of violence in order to promote that of encounter. At the same time, we are well aware that sport also carries temptations: that of performance at any cost, which can lead to doping; that of profit, which turns play into a market and the athlete into a celebrity; that of spectacle, which reduces the athlete to an image or a number. Against these distortions, your testimony is essential. Dear athletes, you have been witnesses to an honest and beautiful way of inhabiting the world. You convey the idea that one can compete without hatred, win without humiliating, lose without losing oneself. This applies beyond sport, in social life, in politics and in relations between peoples, because sport, when lived well, becomes a laboratory of reconciled humanity, where diversity is not a threat but a richness. In an era of major climate challenges, these Games also remind us of the link between sport and nature and of our duty to care for our common home. Today, in this hall, we look to the Cross of athletes the Olympic and Paralympic cross which from the London 2012 Games to Milano Cortina 2026 gathers the prayers, expectations, hopes, fears and sufferings of women and men of all ages who share their sporting experiences. Before this supreme and essential example of dedication, we renew the desire to give our best, together, in every activity. Dear athletes, I thank you all for your commitment and I pray that Jesus Christ, the true athlete of God, may inspire each of you to ever more virtuous challenges and grant you the strength to face them with passion. As I accompany you with my blessing, I entrust you with a mission: to ensure that the person remains at the centre of sport in all its expressions. My best wishes to you all.The Pope, who received as gifts the Olympic and Paralympic tracksuits and the two torches, then greeted each of those present individually.At the end of the audience, Giampaolo Mattei, President of Athletica Vaticana, and Bishop Paul Tighe, Secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, accompanied a delegation including Federico Pellegrino, Federica Brignone, Michela Moioli, Francesca Lollobrigida, Arianna Fontana, Davide Ghiotto and several Paralympic athletes to the nearby Santa Marta Paediatric Dispensary to meet families with young children. In addition to providing basic necessities, the Dispensary offers around 500 families almost all foreign and without access to healthcare free specialist medical visits (for children and mothers) with doctors from the Bambino Ges Childrens Hospital, the Gemelli Polyclinic and other institutions. The athletes were welcomed by Archbishop Luis Marn de San Martn, the new Papal Almoner and Prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity, recently appointed by Pope Leo XIV.{igallery id=4851|cid=2880|pid=0|type=category|children=0|addlinks=0|tags=|limit=6}
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