¹ The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), n. 1204, emphasis added.

² Evangelii gaudium, n. 133.

³ A fine contribution to these literatures is Harvey, Lincoln, A Brief Theology of Sport (Eugene OR: Wipf&Stock, 2014)Google Scholar. From a spirituality perspective a useful contribution is Parry, Jim, Robinson, Simon, Watson, Nick and Nesti, Mark, Sport and Spirituality: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Recent relevant learned journal literatures include, Therese Miller, ‘Sport and Spirituality: A Comparative Perspective’, The Sport Journal: https://thesportjournal.org/article/sport-and-spirituality-a-comparative-perspective/; Dev Roychowdhury, ‘Spiritual Well-Being in Sport and Exercise Psychology’, SAGE Open (2019): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244019837460; and Young-Eun Noh and Syazana Shahdan, ‘A systematic review of religion / spirituality and sport: a psychological perspective’, Psychology of Sport Exercise (46:2020, 101603). A social media magazine example is: https://www.ru.org/index.php/sport/30-spirituality-the-hidden-side-of-sports

⁴ http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2018/06/01/180601b.html Now referred to as the Document (and in this reflecting the shift from dicasterial ‘Instructions’).

⁵ Until recently I was not alert to key words in the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World of the Second Vatican Council: ‘May this leisure be used properly to relax, to fortify the health of soul and body…through sports activity which helps to preserve equilibrium of spirit even in community, and to establish fraternal relations among men of all conditions…’, Gaudium et spes (Vatican: Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 2009), n. 61.Google Scholar

⁶ Introducing Giving the Best of Yourself, L'Osservatore Romano, 8 June 2018, page 9. Also, in Giving the Best of Yourself, n. 3.4.

⁷ McGavin, P. A., ‘Sports as Gospel Encounter’, L'Osservatore Romano, 36(2562) (2018), p. 8.Google Scholar

⁸ Pope Francis used this phrase in a December 2018 Domus Santa Matha address: http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Pope:-Every-day-holiness-is-being-salt-and-light-for-others-44141.html This perspective is very much present in the 2018 Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudete et exsultate (nn. 143, 169, 6, 12, 15, 138) which in turn takes up the Second Vatican Council teaching on the universal call to holiness in Lumen gentium, n. 50. In the different language of ‘from time to time, here and now’, the notion also occurs in his June 2019 address on ‘Theology after Veritatis Gaudium’: https://zenit.org/articles/popes-full-remarks-at-theology-after-veritatis-gaudium-encounter-in-naples-italy/ These also amplify the ‘the call to holiness in the contemporary world’ in the 2018 Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudate et exultate, that in turn also takes up the Vatican II, Lumen gentium, teaching on the universal call to holiness.

⁹ Gaudete et exsulate specifically warns against a ‘disembodied spirituality’, n. 40.

¹⁰ The catechetical formula of the human person is ‘as a being at once body and spirit’ (CCC, n.1146).

¹¹ Such as seen in ‘fruits of the Spirit’ (Galatians 5:22-23) or his Hymn to Love (First Corinthians 13).

¹² I adopt this term as proposed by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware in ‘The Spiritual Struggle in the Contemporary World’ in Theosis blogspot, 28 March 2012––with tó meson [‘a halfway’] being a metaphor for moderation of passions, rather than the suppression of passions, as in apátheia. The term metrópatheia does not occur in the New Testament nor in Aristotle––although Aristotelian in its sentiments.

¹³ The phrase ‘in given circumstances’ should be read as redolent of another signature phrase of Pope Francis, ‘concrete circumstances’ (see, for example, Evangelii gaudium, n. 283), and should also be read as invoking an Aristotelian ethics involving the discernment of limits and a mean in ethical judgement and practice.

¹⁴ In Giving the Best of Yourself, this is adapted from a 2015 Address by Pope Francis to Scholas Occurrentes participants (n. 3.2 and footnote 32). The term ‘joy’ and its derivatives is used 44 times in Giving the Best of Yourself, and 3 of these are quotes from Pope Francis.

¹⁵ This also implies development in understanding of the term ‘wholesome pursuits’ as named in the Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics, Personae humanae (Vatican: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1975)Google Scholar, n. XII: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19751229_persona-humana_en.html

¹⁶ The phrase ‘Court of the Gentiles’ (arēopágus, Acts 17:22) derives from a department of the Pontifical Council for Culture created in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI, and from the address by him to the ‘Courtyard of the Gentiles’, a forum for dialogue between believers and non-believers launched in March 2011: https://imagejournal.org/article/courtyard-of-the-gentiles/

¹⁷ 1 Corinthians 9:24 that is also alluded to in Philippians 3:14.

¹⁸ An example is seen in the Institutes of John Cassian (Book V, Chapter 1), where an implicit Stoicism dualism of ‘soul’ versus ‘body’ is present, as also seems to be present in the ‘pommeling of the body’ in 1 Corinthians 9:27.

¹⁹ It is interesting that Abraham H. Maslow, writing from a perspective of the psychology of personal integration that is both objective and subjective three times mentions play, and the first mention is in the language of a ‘godlike gaiety’ as expressive of our created human nature, Toward a Psychology of Being (Princeton NJ: Van Nostrand, 1962), pp. 100, 134, 171.Google Scholar

²⁰ From the lead-quote by Pope Francis introducing Giving the Best of Yourself in the PDF version of the Document on the Dicastery website––and a quote that has given the Document its title:

http://www.laityfamilylife.va/content/laityfamilylife/en/documenti/dare-il-meglio-di-se.html

²¹ Deriving from aisthētikos; pertaining to the sense and perception of beauty.

²² This is recognised in Giving the Best of Yourself, nn. 3.6, 3.8, 5.2.

²³ For example, the tag ‘naturally’ applies with all recognised competitive sports in Australia, where officials of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) may present at any time and conduct testing for use of banned substances.

²⁴ Aesthetics or beauty of the body finds mention in Giving the Best of Yourself, nn. 2.2, 3.3, 4.3, 5.2. Hans Urs von Balthasar is an example of this theology as seen in his magisterial The Glory of the Lord, which is subtitled ‘a theological aesthetics’.

²⁵ This is not generally seen in English versions, as translators do not seem to have noted etymological connection with asceticism that can extend to athleticism.

²⁶ Giving the Best of Yourself, nn. 3.10, 4.1, 4.2, makes recognition of spectator sports, and, while recognising this, my emphasis is on athletic engagement and discipline, whether at high-level or at more everyday-level.

²⁷ Giving the Best of Yourself expresses this as the ‘multi-faceted reality’ of sport, n. 4.2.

²⁸ On the sport of boxing, I notice that boxers at the gym are not pick-a-fight types.

²⁹ As expressed in The Catechism of the Catholic Church: ‘Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul’ (n. 2332). The ‘his’ of catechetical language obviously should be read as ‘his or her’.

³⁰ This is captured in Fides non terminator ad enuntabile sed ad rem: Faith is not directed toward a formulation but rather to a reality––as cited by Msgr Pierangelo Sequeri, President of the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences, in an address on the Institute Charter and revised By-Laws, ‘Understanding Faith and Reality’, L'Osservatore Romano, 2607 (30) (2019). p. 8Google Scholar. The citation is named as ‘a famous Thomistic adage’. The original Summa Theologicae formulation is Actus autem credentis non terminatur ad enuntiabile sed ad rem, which in the edition to which I referred is drawn from Hugh of St Victor, Fides est cetitude quadam arumi de rebus absentibus supra opinionem et infra scientiam constitute: ‘Faith is a form of mental certitude about distant realities that is greater than opinion and less than science’: O'Brien, T. C. (Ed.), Summa Theologicae (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), Vol. 31, (2a2ae.1-7), p. 12Google Scholar. The Hugh of St Victor citation is given as De Sacramentis I, x, 2. PL176, 330 at page 11 of O'Brien and footnote c.

³¹ The phrase ‘abusive behaviours’, rather than ‘abusive sexual behaviours’, is intended to encompass behaviours that are not overtly ‘sexually abusive’, but whose roots are in deficiencies in sexual identity.

³² Pope Francis, speaking in the context of safeguarding probity in clerical sexual conduct, made the important point of moving away from negative approaches in the selection and training of candidates for the priesthood, and focusing on positive approaches: ‘…providing a balanced process of formation for suitable candidates, fostering holiness and the virtue of chastity’ (and referring also to Sacerdotalis Caelibutus, n. 64, of [Saint] Pope Paul VI): ‘Pope's appeal at the conclusion of the Meeting of Provincial Bishops on the Protection of Minors’, L'Osservatore Romano, 1 March 2019, 2486(9), p. 10. The remarks remain apposite to the formation of persons across the spectrum of discipleship living, and not only to those destined to ordained ministerial life.

³³ The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: guidelines for education within the family uses the descriptor ‘a healthy culture of the body’ (Vatican: Pontifical Council for the Family, 1996), n. 106Google Scholar. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family_doc_08121995_human-sexuality_en.html

³⁴ In current usage the phrase ‘sexual identity’ can be read as ‘gender’. The difficulty however is that people nowadays confuse sex and gender, and the term gender often takes a lot of political and ideological loading––thus I have preferred the term sexual identity. The Catechism (n. 2333) probably uses the term ‘sexual identity’ differently from above, and likely contrasts with what is now addressed with the term ‘sexual dysphoria’––or now more often and mis-named as ‘gender dysphoria’. Issues concerning gender dysphoria are sagaciously addressed in Congregation for Catholic Education, ‘Male and Female He Created Them’: Toward a Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender Theory in Education (Vatican City, 2019)Google Scholar: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccatheduc/documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_20190202_maschio-e-femmina_en.pdf

³⁵ With adaptation to sports, the text of 2 Corinthians 4:11 is apposite: ‘For while we live [and in the aspect of sport we see athletic encounters that show]…that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh’. This scriptural quote may be placed alongside the observation in Giving the Best of Yourself, ‘…Encounters with sacrifice in sport can help athletes form their characters in a particular way’, n. 3.4.

³⁶ For example, in Evangelii gaudium there are 34 instances of encounter. For me it is important to be mindful that the emphasis on encounter and witness of Pope Francis is also pervasive in the teaching of his predecessor––an encounter perspective is remarkably exposited in Deus caritas est, the 2005 Encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI. Although, like Bergoglio, Ratzinger was not an athlete, the footnotes of Giving the Best of Yourself cite three relevant addresses on sport by Benedict XVI (fnn. 34, 48, 67).

³⁷ Adapted from a 2019 address of Pope Francis on Veritatis gaudium: https://zenit.org/articles/popes-full-remarks-at-theology-after-veritatis-gaudium-encounter-in-naples-italy/ I would add, ‘...and physical practice’.

³⁸ There are 18 references to ‘dialogue’ involving sports in Giving the Best of Yourself. Not surprisingly, speaking in 2019 on the subject of the 2017 Apostolic Constitution governing universities, Veritatis gaudium, ‘dialogue’ suffuses the extensive remarks of the Pope on theological formation and practice. Pope Francis also makes the crucial point that ‘…the internal organisation, teaching methods and the organisation of [theological/ministerial] studies should reflect the appearance of an outbound Church.’ https://zenit.org/articles/popes-full-remarks-at-theology-after-veritatis-gaudium-encounter-in-naples-italy/

³⁹ Evangelii gaudium n. 283 and passim, Gaudete et exsultate n. 50 and passim.

⁴⁰ Vojtëch Svobada, ‘Theology of Sport in History’, Bulletin of the Pontifical Council for Laity, 2015, surveys past theological representations of sport. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316511726_THEOLOGY_OF_SPORT_IN_HISTORY That article is a discasterial predecessor to Giving the Best of Yourself.