Pope Leo XIV has sent a video message to all those participating in the "Match of the Heart," a charity football match featuring Italian politicians and singers.
POPE LEO XIV
“Match” means, in this case, an encounter. An encounter in which, even adversaries, find a cause that unites them. This year, in particular, that of children who are asking for help—children arriving in Italy from war zones—who are being welcomed through a project by the Bambino Gesù Hospital and Foundation and Caritas Italy.
Additionally, in his remarks, Pope Leo took the opportunity to offer a historical example and urged the creation of spaces for dialogue and reconciliation.
LEO XIV
Another match that comes to mind—the one told in a film, Joyeux Noël, and in a song by Paul McCartney—played on December 25, 1914, by some soldiers (German, French, and English) during the so-called Christmas Truce, near the city of Ypres, in Belgium.
At the end of the message, he wished all participants to be people of encounter, looking to the children and asking, as in those times, for a new truce.
BAM
Trans. CRT
