Gigi Duncan
Washington DC Newsroom, July 29, 2024 / 12:40 pm
During the Paris Olympics, 120 chaplains from five different faiths meet in a tent at the Interfaith Centre in the Olympic Village to care for the spiritual needs of the thousands of athletes competing.
The centre, which will be open until the end of the Paralympic Games on September 8, will feature a reception area and five rooms relating to Christianity (Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant), Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, in accordance with International Olympic Committee (IOC) regulations.
There, athletes can pray, take part in religious ceremonies and have the opportunity to speak with chaplains daily on a range of topics including mental health, competitive losses and ongoing global conflicts. Organizers found they received more than 8,000 requests for Olympic chaplains during the pre-pandemic Olympics, according to the Associated Press.
Father Jason Nioka, a former judo champion turned priest who oversees the group’s membership of 40 Catholic priests, nuns and laypeople, told the Associated Press that the priests “are [the athletes] I don’t want to come back to reality because after four or five years of working towards this goal, it feels like the end of the world.”
This sentiment was echoed by Father Xavier Ernst, parish priest at St. John Bosco Church in Paris’ 20th arrondissement. In an article by ANS, Father Ernst said that as a pastor, his “service is to be there. The athletes know that in the Olympic Village they will find a space to listen, to share and to build relationships. Our environment is equipped with symbolic decorations and Bibles.”
“Every morning we have a lectio divina, a time for reading and sharing the Gospels. It’s an ecumenical time,” he said, “and every day we celebrate Communion in the church next door to the village, not in the multi-religious center.”
On the eve of the opening ceremony, July 25, an all-night mass was held at the nearby Basilica of Saint-Denis to bless the athletes and present them with the miraculous medals.
Similarly, the Madeleine Church in Paris will offer participants and athletes a place of prayer and meditation during the Olympics with a special chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Athletes. In this space, which will open in September 2023, visitors will be able to light candles, submit prayer intentions and ask for spiritual support.
The Madeleine was also the site of a solemn mass held on July 19 to mark the beginning of the Olympic Truce, a period of peace that traditionally calls for an end to conflicts between countries around the world during the Olympic Games. In his homily, Archbishop Laurent Ullrich of Paris, special representative of the Apostolic See for the Paris 2024 Olympics, emphasized that “ongoing wars will not cease during the Olympic Games, but the desire for peace will spread through the encounters made possible by these sporting events.”
Amid these various events, and the presence of Catholic pastors within the interfaith center, are the Vatican’s Sacred Games, an ongoing effort aimed at leading people to holiness through sports. After reading the Angelus July 21, Pope Francis said sports have a “great social power” and the ability to “peacefully unite people of different cultures.”
“I hope that these Games will be a signpost for the inclusive world we want to build, and that athletes, through the witness of sport, will become messengers of peace and true examples for young people,” the Pope said. “In particular, I hope that, following the custom of this ancient tradition, the Olympic Games will be an opportunity to call for a ceasefire in hostilities and to demonstrate a sincere desire for peace.”
Gigi Duncan is currently interning with Catholic News Agency. She is a recent graduate from the University of South Carolina where she studied Business and Communications.
