Pope Francis's Kazakhstan Trip Should Strengthen Catholicism Despite Criticisms to the Contrary
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The Vatican City National Athletics Team (Track and Field) will participate in this year's Championships of the Small States of Europe on Saturday June 22nd in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar.
Catholic-majority Gibraltar will serve as hosts for 15 other nations and themselves: Cyprus, Malta, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Andorra, Armenia, Georgia, North Macedonia, Albania, Iceland, Montenegro, Monaco, Moldova, and Kosovo.
This event will be centered at the Lathbury Sports Complex on the other side of the rock from the main part of the peninsula as the main national team sporting complex stadium, Victoria Stadium, is being repurposed as a soccer-specific stadium.
Athletica Vaticana has now competed in numerous competitions from the Mediterranean Games to observing the Games for the Small States of Europe which the competition on Saturday is related to.
However, the city-state will only compete as a guest nation on Saturday like they did in Malta in 2022.
The Vatican City has long had national teams in many sports from association football (soccer) to basketball, but they have largely played only unofficial games and had never joined major sporting federations like FIFA or FIBA.
But, under Pope Francis, the Vatican City has revealed an interesting plan to compete in the Olympic Games and other events in the future.
To accomplish this goal, the Vatican City needs to become an official member of five Olympic sports federations.
This process began in 2019 when top officials in the Vatican and Holy See signed an agreement with the Italian Olympic Committee to sponsor them temporarily to become an "observor member" of various events.
By 2021, the process became more independent and fruitful. That year, the Vatican City joined the International Cycling Union (UCI) and World Taekwondo (WT). Additionally, the Vatican City has joined the International Padel Federation in 2022, a non-Olympic sport, but a growing sport related to tennis that has become very popular in Argentina and some other Spanish speaking and Southern European nations.
The next sport on the list to join an official federation is likely to be track and field, a sport the Vatican has competed in most with cycling.
While participation in the Paris Olympics 2024 is unlikely, the Vatican City appear ready to embrace more sports and to join more federations in time for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, and possibly as soon as the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics 2026.
What is most impressive about this venture so far has been the Vatican's embrace of paralympic sports as well, showcasing our Church's focus on all types of athletes.
To qualify as a national team member, you must be a citizen, resident, worker, or first relative of a citizen, resident, or worker. So, you must have a legitimate reason that comes before sports such as studying at one of the local seminarian universities.
This is why many of the national team members are actually lay Catholics and not clergy as your local Diocesan priest is usually not a Vatican citizen.
Monsignor Melchor Jose Sanchez de Toca y Alameda has headed many of these efforts and has outlined that the Vatican teams will not simply be a "B team" for other nationals like Italians to come join. The Vatican City's goals are to win of course, but not by bending the rules. So, the national teams will not "recruit" non-Vatican connected people for now. In other words, Catholic sports stars will not simply trade in their Team USA uniforms for Vatican City uniforms, although one can only dream of seeing an iconic matchup of an All-star Catholic basketball team coached by Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla.
Nonetheless, the Vatican City has achieved some impressive results and looks poised to do the same on Saturday.
In 2022, daughter of two Vatican officials, Sara Carnicelli, finished in third place of the women's 5,000 m and Bambino Gesù Hospital worker, Emiliano Morbidelli, finished sixth place in the men's 5,000 m. These were "unofficial" or honorary results due to the peculiar nature of the Vatican City as a guest or observer member of the Championships of the Small States of Europe and therefore did not "score" any points. So far, only one Vatican athlete has participated as a full-member in any official federation event and that has been Rien Schuurhuis. He is a Dutch-born cyclist who is married to the Australian Ambassador to the Holy See, and thus qualified to race for the Vatican City at the 2022 and 2023 UCI Road Cycling World Championship.
Pope Francis, Vatican sport officials, and Italian sport officials are scheduled to give a talk today, June 17th, which you can watch live or on demand with this link.
As for Saturday, it will be interesting to see how the Vatican City can fare against other small European nations and just maybe they can take home a gold medal, unofficially of course.
These results may only be unofficial or honorary for now, but they provide evidence for future cases of Vatican inclusion into the fast sporting landscape that is the Olympics.
And who knows, maybe the Pope will have a bobsled team for 2026?
Cole Kinder is a recent graduate of UCLA in political science with a focus on international relations. He has written one book, Foreign Policy in 4 Hours, Afghanistan 2021, and has written many articles on various websites such as Crisis Magazine. Cole Kinder specializes in international relations, domestic politics, religious studies (Catholicism), Slavic studies, sports, as well as geography.
