MILAN – On Monday 25 November at 15:00 a presentation will be held at the Vatican for the first ever inter-religious sporting event to promote peace, which will also be based on education and anti-discrimination.
The event will be a football match in Italy in March of 2014. Its primary objective is to help spread a message that is inter-religious, educational, collective and one full of hope, which aims to reach the entire world through sport. The match will involve the participation of many different personalities who are committed to taking part in this special game and are certain that true peace is founded upon a society in which everyone has what they need to carry out their lives in accordance with their own culture and principles.
This project was brought about through a proposal from the Red Mundial de Escuelas para el encuentro (www.scholasoccurrentes.org), an organisation promoted by Pope Francis and one he holds dear, as well as the PUPI Foundation (Por Un Piberio Integrado), an NPO established by Javier Zanetti (www.fondazionepupi.org).
The event’s presentation will be held at 15:00 on Monday 25 November at the press room of the Accademia Pontificia delle Scienze, in Cascina Pio IV, Vatican City.
Directors of the Red Mundial de Escuelas para el Encuentro and the PUPI Foundation will discuss the project, the motivation behind it, the ideas that brought them to create this meeting between both organisations, as well as the purpose of this collaboration.
The presentation will also boast the participation of personalities from the football world and from different religious faiths: Javier Zanetti (Catholic) and Dudu Aouate (Jewish), along with many other athletes.
The game will take place in March 2014, the day on which we will celebrate the first Pontifical year of Pope Francis as a humble offering and as a source of inspiration and a calling towards an encounter. The event itself was inspired by his words: "Today either we all gamble on reaching out to one another, or we all lose; choosing the right road helps the path to become fruitful and safe," and "The measure of greatness in a society is seen in how it treats those most in need." – Pope Francis
