REGARDING the expulsion of Nicolas Anelka and the dissension and turmoil on the French soccer team:
Athletes should be grounded in their faith and encouraged to engage in prayer and spiritual reading. Historically, sport was considered to be a virtue-making machine. The values that correspond with sports were considered to go hand in hand with those that go into being a person of integrity and faith.
Today, however, sport is increasingly associated with violence, drugs, racism and money. Vince Lombardi, former coach of the Super Bowl winning Green Bay Packers football team, spoke for a generation when he said “winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing”. This mentality has unfortunately become a large part sports today. Sports should be a vehicle to develop good character, to make people courageous, generous losers, and gracious victors. We have to recover these original principles of sports so that we can work together to forge greater bonds between people and help overcome the real and terrible social problems of our time such as abortion, pornography, same-sex marriage, genetic manipulation, human trafficking, the depletion of the earth’s resources, poverty, famine, and illness.
With respectful and cordial best wishes, I remain,