Pope thanks ‘Match for Peace’ players

The third edition of the 2022 Match for Peace, organised by the Pontifical Foundation Scholas Occurrentes, took place on November 14 at Rome’s Olympic Stadium, with the support and blessing of Pope Francis.

Nov 25, 2022

The Match for Peace players


ROME: The third edition of the 2022 Match for Peace, organised by the Pontifical Foundation Scholas Occurrentes, took place on November 14 at Rome’s Olympic Stadium, with the support and blessing of Pope Francis.

Ahead of the match, the Pope greeted the world-renowned soccer players, organisers and their families, in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.

The game, with the motto We Play for Peace, features the participation of many important figures in the world of football, and follows the first two matches, held on Sept 1, 2014 and Oct 12, 2016.

This year’s edition pays homage to football giant Diego Maradona, who participated in both of the previous Matches for Peace, leading the ‘Scholas squad.’ Maradona passed away in November 2020.

The Holy Father thanked the athletes for sowing seeds of peace in a world marked by war.

Peace, the Pope said, is the fruit of gestures like theirs, namely, “of closeness, friendship, the outstretched hand, always,” and “not with the stone in your hand to throw it.”

These “seeds of peace,” he said, may be small, but “are capable of changing the world.”

“Thank you for this that you do, for today’s game, because you say, “We want peace,” in a world that always looks for wars and destruction.”

Since its inception, Scholas, now a Pontifical Foundation, has become a worldwide network of schools that share assets, with common objectives and special attention to those most in need. Scholas Occurrentes’ roots are to be found in educational projects created for children in impoverished areas in the city of Buenos Aires, at the initiative of the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis. --Vatican News

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