Catholic Culture, Phil Lawler:
In talk yesterday to a Spanish tennis club, Pope Francis made the remarkable assertion that the game is “not just a battle, but also a dialogue.”
Having been a competitive tennis player in my youth, I was flattened by that observation. Still more stunning was the Pope’s attempt to dismiss the idea that tennis “has to do primarily with the desire to prevail over the adversary.” Let me assure you that when I played a match, my goal was to win—which necessarily meant that my opponent would lose. I assumed that he had the same goal, and if he did not, I would have considered it an insult, to me and to the game. When the Pope said that tennis “is not a battle,” he was describing a game with which I am not familiar. Continue reading here.
