By Isabella H. de Carvalho

Pope Leo XIV has highlighted the urgency of coming together for peace and the importance of promoting unity through sports, politics, music, and more.

In a video message published on July 15, the Pope addressed the participants in a charity match organized by the Holy See’s Children’s Hospital Bambino Gesù and the Italian Caritas.

“Our humanity is at stake. Let this match that speaks of peace mark a point in its favor,” the Pope said.

In his message, the Pope expressed his hope that all who participate in the event may “look into the eyes of children and learn from them” how to “find the courage to welcome” others, how to be “men and women” that promote encounter, and how to “find the strength to believe and to ask that a truce may come, a time to stop the buildup to hatred.”

“It is still possible, it is always possible, to come together, even in a time of divisions, falling bombs, and war. It is necessary to create the opportunities to do this,” he emphasized. “Challenge divisions and recognize that the greatest challenge is to come together.”

An event to help sick children and their families

The Pope’s message was addressed to the participants of this year’s “La Partita del Cuore” (“The Match of the Heart”), a charity football match and concert taking place on Tuesday, July 15, in the city of L’Aquila in central Italy.

Organized by the Vatican’s Pediatric Hospital Bambino Gesù and the Italian Caritas, the proceeds from the event go to their initiative “Progetto Accolgienza” (“Project Welcome”).

The project offers accommodation and material support to underprivileged families from Italy and abroad whose children need to be treated at the Bambino Gesù Hospital.

The match is the 34th edition of this initiative, and will be between a team of musicians and a team of politicians. It will also feature a concert with various Italian artists and performers.

Supporting life, not destruction and death

Pope Leo said the word “match” surrounding this event means “meeting” and coming together.

“A meeting where even opponents find a cause that unites them,” he said, noting this includes “children who ask for help, who come to Italy from areas of conflict” and are supported by the “Welcoming project.”

“Match and heart thus become two words to be conjugated together,” he added, applauding the event for “gathering funds for life, for cures, not for destruction and death.”

In today’s world, he said, “it seems increasingly difficult, almost impossible, to find listening spaces” for these issues.

The Pope highlighted the example of a football match played between French, English, and German soldiers during the 1914 Christmas Truce during the First World War near the city of Ypres in Belgium.

He mentioned how this event was recounted in a French film, “Joyeux Noel” (“Merry Christmas”), and in a song by Paul McCartney, “Pipes of Peace,” released in 1983.

In his message, Pope Leo encouraged people to “contribute together to a good cause” and to “bring broken hearts back to unity.”

“Recognize that in God’s heart we are one and that the heart is the place where we meet God and others,” he underlined.

Music, sport, television, and politics have a role to play

The Pope then underlined the important role that sports, music, television, and politics have to play in promoting unity and overcoming divisions.

“Sports—when lived well by those who practice and those who cheer—have this great thing about them, that they transform confrontation into encounter, division into inclusion, and solitude into community,” he explained.

He added that television can play a larger role than just connecting people, as it can help promote communion amongst all with “love rather than with hate.”

Similarly, Pope Leo insists that politics can “unite instead of divide, if it doesn’t settle with the propaganda that feeds on building enemies.”

Politics should work towards “the difficult and necessary art of constructive dialogue, which searches for the common good.”

Lastly, the Pope underlined the importance of music that “enriches with meaning our words and our memories, ever since we started speaking and remembering as children.”

“Children—to whom this event is dedicated—know these things. They have the purity of heart that enables them to see God,” the Pope concluded.