As Americans, our country is immersed in sports right now from this past weekend’s Wimbledon finals to this week’s highly anticipated conclusion of the FIFA World Cup and the playing of the 96th Major League Baseball All-Star Game. And in just a few weeks, NFL teams will open up training camp for the 2026-2027 football season.
Our pope has unapologetically identified himself as a lover of sports, and all across our country the Catholic Church has used sports as a means to build community, promote vocations, and engage young people. A few weeks ago, the Holy Father said of the beauty of sports, “Sport is a medicine for both body and spirit, when it is practiced well. It integrates the different dimensions of the human person and directs them toward very important values such as commitment, solidarity, and honesty.”
During his own high school years at St. Augustine Seminary High School in Holland, Michigan, Pope Leo XIV participated extensively in sports. This included his school tennis team, a sport that the pope continues to enjoy playing today. He is pictured below (front, right) as a high school sophomore with his tennis team.
Fittingly, after becoming pope, he met with the world’s No. 1 ranked tennis player, Jannik Sinner. The 24-year-old Italian star defended his Wimbledon title yesterday, defeating Germany’s Alexander Zverev in four sets in the men’s final to capture his fifth Grand Slam and make it back-to-back singles titles at the famed All England Club.
We are seeing Pope Leo’s vision of the beauty of sports play out in communities we support across the country. Catholic Extension Society is proud to promote athletic competitions where people, sports and faith come together to achieve this genuine love described by the Holy Father.
Their own World Cup
The men’s FIFA World Cup has undoubtedly been the talk of the sports world this summer. And the world’s most popular game has certainly taken on heightened interested across our country with North American nations Canada, Mexico, and the United States serving as the tournament hosts.
Throughout the U.S., parishes and dioceses are using sports and tournaments, not only to build community, but as a tool to welcome people who might be disaffiliated from the Church. Some dioceses like Lafayette, Louisiana and Yakima, Washington use friendly matches to help promote vocations, organizing games where priests play seminarians. Other dioceses see sports as a way to promote the formation of young adults. This was evident last year November when a group of energetic 20-somethings gathered at a ministry retreat and soccer tournament – named the Copa Católica – co-hosted by Catholic Extension Society and the Southeast Pastoral Institute (SEPI), which serves Latino Catholics in 30 dioceses of the Southeast United States.
You can read more about the first tournament that took place in 2023 here.
This year’s Copa Católica took place in Atlanta, Georgia, and featured 12 teams from dioceses across the southeast.
We heard from young people participating in our soccer tournament and how more than just playing a game, they became motivated to ‘build church’ among their fellow young adults.
Henry, a player from Tennessee, said, “we are already winners because we’ve gained friends and had very special encounters with God. So, it’s very beautiful. … So, we leave here very motivated to go out and make some noise out there.”
Just like Henry, others saw the soccer tournament as a launching pad to other community-building activity in their parishes. As Kenny Castaneda from Louisiana said, “Me and some of the guys were saying, ‘let’s start a Bible study or something. Let’s meet up twice a week or twice a month. Let’s talk, let’s catch up, see how everyone’s going; maybe start playing soccer again, all together.’”
Even after the Copa Católica, many have continued organizing soccer tournaments year-round.
Sports among the marginalized
Apart from developing church leadership and promoting vocations of service, sports is also a great way to reach the margins and build community among the isolated. In the Diocese of Kalamazoo, Sister Maryud Cortés and the Missionary Sisters, Servants of the Divine Spirit, have been teaching, coaching, and refereeing for 10 parishes participating in summer volleyball. Some of their teams consist of young men living in seasonal farmworker camps, who spend the summers far away from their families as they move from field to field harvesting crops.
The program, “In the game- Catholic Communities,” created by Sister Maryud with support from Catholic Extension Society, provides an opportunity for people to get to know one another further through friendly competition.
Around 300 people attended last year’s championship match. The winning parish received $1,000 to support Hispanic ministry efforts.
In other parts of the country basketball leagues have emerged, in places like Canton, Mississippi, Selma, Alabama, and in Puerto Rico, where natural disasters have decimated school facilities.
Still, sports keeps spirits high, like this Catholic school girls basketball team in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, that was a basket short of winning the Puerto Rico state championship, in an island-wide televised game. Although they went home without a crown, the pride in their performance helps sustain these schools as they wait to be repaired and rebuilt.
Recognizing the significance sports plays in American culture and coming together as neighbors, Catholic Extension organized an orientation program for religious sisters coming from other countries to learn American sports, so they could use it as a tool in ministry. Take a look at how they “tackled” their orientation in American football in the video below!
U.S. bishops and sports
Even the U.S. bishops are starting to show enthusiasm for sports, as was evident in the way the newly installed Archbishop of New York, Ronald Hicks, embraced the New York Knicks’ historic NBA championship in June.
Embracing the joy in his new city, Archbishop Ronald Hicks, celebrated New York’s basketball title the next day during his homily at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. As the Archdiocese of New York’s 11th appointed archbishop, he pulled out his own #11 jersey he wore during the historic victory the night before. It is also, of course, the number of New York hero and NBA Finals MVP Jalen Brunson.
As Pope Leo has said, sports can “preserve a healthy contact with nature and with real life, where genuine love is experienced,” he said. In yet another sports-filled summer, Catholic Extension Society is proud to support faith leaders and communities across the country in their continued efforts to use sports as a means of evangelization.
