Scottish Catholic Observer

This will take place during a school assembly being broadcast live to more than 800,000 school pupils across England, Scotland and Wales.

A total of 32 children from state, independent and special needs schools, who have achieved sporting success, have been chosen to take part. They will make a pledge before the Holy Father to engage in sport and ‘play with the right spirit, enjoy myself, give of my best, respect others, myself and the rules.’

Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster said sport could teach young people valuable lessons.

“With the Olympic Games less than two years away, we have a moment of opportunity and a whole process in which the aspirations of young people, the meanings of habit and routine in their lives, and the whole notion of achieving excellence can begin to be lifted up again,” he said. “Within the 2012 Games there are seeds for all sorts of good ideas and good initiatives. The John Paul II Foundation for Sport is a venture that I am particularly interested in as it uses sport to try and introduce to young and old alike the importance of health, the dignity of our bodies, the care of physical well-being and its spiritual meaning.”

The John Paul II Foundation for Sport is being established by the Catholic Bishops as a legacy in the UK to the forthcoming 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and the life and witness of Pope John Paul II. He was a passionate sportsman and spoke 120 times during his pontificate about sport, insistent that sport should have its own unique celebration during the Great Jubilee Year 2000.  One of his last major acts as Pope was to form a Vatican Office for Church and Sport in August 2004.

At the Foundation’s launch, Brian Kidd, who scored for Man Utd in the 1968 European Cup Final victory while still a teenager, and is now assistant manager of Manchester City Football Club, will light an Inauguration Candle in the presence of Pope Benedict XVI as a symbol of God’s light present in the world of sport. The schoolchildren will make their pledge before Pope Benedict XVI and will later light their own individual candles which they will return to their schools as a reminder that the Christian faith is something to be passed on, and that Christ is present in and through sport.