{"id":86926,"date":"2025-05-29T03:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T03:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/86926\/"},"modified":"2025-05-29T03:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T03:03:09","slug":"pope-leo-meets-with-napoli-football-club-following-title-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/86926\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo meets with Napoli football club following title victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pope Leo XIV meets with Naples\u2019 football club, which is celebrating its fourth-ever league victory, and stresses that \u201cit\u2019s the team,\u201d not the individual players, which wins a championship.<\/p>\n

By Joseph Tulloch<\/p>\n

Pope Leo XIV met on Tuesday morning with members of SSC Napoli, the football club which on Friday won the Italian league title.<\/p>\n

In a brief speech delivered before greeting the players, the Pope reflected on the importance of teamwork and the \u201cmoral quality\u201d of sport.<\/p>\n

Before reading his address, however, the Pope joked with the players, suggesting that they hadn\u2019t wanted to applaud for him because the press had reported that he was a Roma fan.<\/p>\n

A team victory <\/p>\n

Pope Leo then read his speech, beginning by congratulating the team for their victory, which he called \u201ca great celebration for all of Naples.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some 200,000 fans thronged the city\u2019s streets on Monday,\u00a0May 26, for Napoli\u2019s victory parade.<\/p>\n

\"Fans<\/p>\n

\n Fans cheer on Napoli’s victory parade \u00a0 (ANSA)\n <\/p>\n

The Pope told the club that, in the past, when a team won a trophy, attention was paid to the performances and skills of individual players.<\/p>\n

Today, however, we recognise that \u201cit\u2019s the team who wins the championship \u2026 the players, the manager and his staff, and the sports club\u201d as a whole, the Pope noted.<\/p>\n

This, Pope Leo said, was the aspect of Napoli\u2019s victory that he wanted to emphasise the most: \u201cthe example of a team\u2014in the broad sense\u2014that works together, with individual talents put at the service of the whole.”<\/p>\n

Sport\u2019s moral dimension <\/p>\n

The Pope then added that he wanted to briefly discuss the \u201ceducational\u201d role of sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately,\u201d he said, \u201cwhen sport becomes a business, it risks losing the values that make it educational, and it can even become harmful from that point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is particularly important when it comes to teenagers, the Pope noted, and he appealed to parents and coaches to \u201cpay close attention to the moral quality of the sporting experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s at stake,\u201d he warned, \u201cis the human development of young people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Pope<\/p>\n

\n Pope Leo with Napoli manager Antonio Conte \u00a0 (@Vatican Media)\n <\/p>\n

Best wishes from Rosa <\/p>\n

Pope Leo then brought his address to an end by thanking the squad for their visit, congratulating them again on their victory, and offering his blessing to the team members and their families.<\/p>\n

He also passed on best wishes from Rosa, one of his cooks:\u00a0\u201cCongratulations also from a lady who\u2019s been cooking for me recently, and who is from Naples. She says: \u2018Congratulations!\u2019 \u2026 that\u2019s from Rosa, a big fan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pope Leo XIV meets with Naples\u2019 football club, which is celebrating its fourth-ever league victory, and stresses that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,23751,13426,817],"class_list":{"0":"post-86926","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-italy","10":"tag-pope-leo-xiv","11":"tag-sport"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114588903631747895","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}