Vatican City (Vatican), 9 Apr. (LaPresse) – "In today's time, so marked by polarization, rivalry, and conflict that erupts into devastating wars, your commitment takes on even greater value: sport can and must truly become a space for encounter! Not a display of strength, but an exercise in relationship. I wanted to remember, on the occasion of these Games, the value of the Olympic truce. You, with your presence, have made this possibility of peace visible as a prophecy that is not at all rhetorical: to break the logic of violence to promote that of encounter." Thus Pope Leo XIV receiving in audience the athletes participating in the Milan-Cortina Olympics and Paralympics.