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The 75th FISEC-FICEP Games, international sports competitions for Catholic schools, are being held in Budapest. At the opening ceremony on Tuesday evening, Miklós Soltész, State Secretary for Church and Ethnic Relations, emphasized that the event, running until Sunday, celebrates sports, youth, and Catholic Christianity.
Miklós Soltész wished the students a fair and sportsmanlike competition, offering a ceramic statue of the Virgin Mary to the most sportsmanlike team.
The 75th FISEC games at the Budapest Ludovika Arena. Photo: MTI/Lakatos Péter
The message from Pope Leo XIV was conveyed by Csaba Török, president of the Catholic Schools Student Sports Federation (KIDS), organizer of the Budapest games.
The head of the church wrote:
Young athletes are young people who reject the temptation of isolation in the digital world and instead immerse themselves in a reality rich in brother- and sisterhood, effort, and fun.”
Photo: MTI/Lakatos Péter
A school that promotes sports is a school that supports not only the intellectual and spiritual development of its students, but also their physical well-being, he added. Students who compete in international competitions demonstrate the unifying power of sports as a means of peaceful encounter between peoples, the Pope wrote.
He also noted that as students of Catholic schools, participants in sporting events have a special mission compared to other international sporting events: they must compete with each other, but they must also be witnesses of brotherly and sisterly love.
750 high school-aged athletes from Catholic schools and parishes in 15 countries on three continents are attending the competition.
The students will compete in six sports: table tennis, athletics, futsal, basketball, volleyball, and swimming.
The International Sports Federation for Catholic Schools, FISEC (Fédération Internationale Sportive de I’Enseignement Catholique), was founded in Brussels in January 1948. Hungary is represented as a member organization by the Catholic Schools Student Sports Federation (KIDS), founded in 1993.
Via MTI, Featured image: MTI/Lakatos Péter