When the fraternal language of sport becomes a channel for diplomacy

One week ahead of the start of the Paris Olympic Games (26 July - 11 August), a Mass of Peace was celebrated in Paris’s Madeleine Church, on Friday, 19 July, coinciding with the start of this year’s Olympic Truce, adopted by a United Nations resolution on 21 November 2023, which calls for a global ceasefire from one week before the start of the Games to one week after the end of the Games, including the Paralympic Games.

Organized by the French Bishops’ Conference and the Archdiocese of Paris, the Eucharistic celebration was presided by Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris, who read the Pope’s message aloud to the faithful, and concelebrated by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Apostolic Nuncio in France; Bishop Emmanuel Gobillard of Digne, delegate of the French Bishops’ Conference for the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games; and many bishops and priests. The Mass was also attended by civil and sporting authorities, athletes, representatives of the Diplomatic Corps and volunteers of “Holy Games”, the French Episcopal Commission’s initiative established to provide spiritual support during the Games. Also present was Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee, who in an audience with Athletica Vaticana in January, had echoed Pope Francis’ appeal for an Olympic Truce.

During his homily, Archbishop Ulrich explained that the “Olympic Truce is the revival of a custom that surrounded the games of Antiquity and was intended to allow the free and well-protected movement of athletes and spectators from one province or country to another”. In our world, he continued, “it corresponds to a desire of the founder Pierre de Coubertin and his friend, the Dominican Henri Didon, to develop contacts and relationships between young people from the nations taking part in these games, to foster the very spirit of peace”. Indeed, he continued, “when we hear the apostle Paul addressing the Christians of Philippi, a city not so far from Olympia, encouraging them to practice ‘whatever is true and noble, whatever is just and pure, whatever is worthy of love and honor, all that is called virtue and worthy of praise’ — we understand this to mean all human activity, all life in civil society, all commerce, but we also understand that it applies in particular to the sporting practices that have developed in our societies over the last two centuries”.

During the Mass of Peace, the faithful prayed in various languages that the Olympic and Paralympic Games may build peace, and that all those involved may experience them also as an opportunity for fraternity.