"I jump into a sand pit for a living"
Catholic perspectives on sports (From medieval to modern times)
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Shorter review
The author’s opening gambit is that in the past twenty-five years a great deal has been written about the influence that Protestant Christians on modern sport in England and the United States but very on the relationship between Catholic theological and spiritual traditions and sport.
The basis thesis of the book is that, contrary to what many people think, the Catholic church has had a positive attitude to sport for a thousand years or more. Catholics have engaged in play and sport “routinely and without anxiety and incorporated them in their schools as a matter of course”. The view that the material world was good and that the human person was a unity of body and soul was part of what led Catholics to accept play and sport.
The book reviews the views of the Early Church Fathers on sport before moving into the evidence from the medieval period, when, he contends, participation in sport by Catholic men and women was the norm.
Thomas Aquinas is credited with making a significant contribution to shaping thinking about play. Thomas believed it was possible to sin by having too little play in one’s life. In his Summa Theologica, he posed the question “Whether there can be a virtue about games?,” and answered in the affirmative. For him, it was immoderate to be working all the time. And so play was necessary for a virtuous life.
The Jesuits, having played games and sports during their own training, introduced them into the schools that they ran. This was another major factor in the general acceptance of sport as part of Catholic life.
The role of popes Pius XII, John Paul II and Benedict XVI in formulating policy on sport are acknowledged along with a grass roots example of how sport is integrated seamlessly into the religious life of Immaculata College.
Having traced the history, Kelly now attempts to draw out some principles for modern sport. He suggests that the play element has largely disappeared from youth sport and that the church cannot sit idly by at let it happen. He writes “An important part of the task of Catholic theologians in the contemporary context is to safeguard the play element in sport and particularly in youth sport”.
He also picks up Thomas Aquinas’s message of moderation, saying that many of the problems in modern American sport arise from the “lack of moderation around the desire to win” – scandals in recruitment, violations of NCAA rules, drugs etc are among the examples.
There was much in this book that I had not come across before. The author documents the past painstakingly but more importantly draws from it lessons for the modern age. It is a very significant book which makes a great contribution to out quest for a theology of sport.