Vatican hosted its own mini Paralympics half a century before Games' official start

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- More than 50 years before the first Paralympic Games were held in 1960 in Rome, the Vatican had already hosted what might have been the very first international sporting and gymnastics event with athletes living with disabilities.

With the Winter Paralympic Games starting in Milan-Cortina March 6 and running until March 15, the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, highlighted that among the series of gymnastics and sporting events held inside the Vatican at the beginning of the last century, the "games" it held Sept. 23-27, 1908, included athletes who were hearing- and vision-impaired and amputees.

For that reason, "perhaps the Paralympics were born right in the Vatican courtyard of San Belvedere, which was transformed into an extraordinary athletics field" and stadium before a large crowd that included St. Pope Pius X, the Vatican newspaper said March 2. 

Athletes from Italy, France, Belgium, Austria, Ireland and Canada competed in the first international Catholic gymnastics and athletics competition in late September 1908, which was opened with two blasts of a trumpet.

Out of the nine vision-impaired young people competing in the high jump, the winner, known only by his last name, Cittadini, won with a leap of 1.10 meters (3-foot-6). In a short-distance race for athletes missing a limb, an unnamed Irishman won, it added, according to the newspapers' archives.

In an article dated Sept. 26, 1908, a reporter for the Vatican newspaper asked the high jump winner if he was happy with how much applause he received after his win. "I would be even happier if I could (jump as high as) sighted people," he said.

The events were "truly superb," the historic article said, conjuring up memories of "a time long ago when the Belvedere Courtyard was the stage for equestrian tournaments."

The Italian magazine "L'Illustrazione Italiana" also described the events in 1908, reporting that the hearing-impaired gymnasts watched for the nods of the director of their Catholic boarding school's club to guide them in their routine, noting the young athletes couldn't hear the enthusiastic applause from the pope and the crowd.

The international gathering ended with the athletes parading through nearby streets in Rome and an audience with St. Pius, who praised the young people for their skills and deep faith; he awarded honorary certificates to the different associations in attendance. 

According to Antonella Stelitano, an expert in the history of the popes and sports, gymnastics events inviting local oratories and parishes were held every Sunday in the Vatican's courtyards of San Damaso or Belvedere starting in 1903, and the first Italian Catholic sports conference was held in 1905 and was organized by Catholic Action.

The pope used the Sunday gatherings to catechize the young people, she wrote in 2021 in RivistaDirittoSportivo.it.

The Vatican newspaper gave ample coverage of the weekly exhibitions with rankings, commentaries, interviews and even notes from medical teams, complete with details of injuries sustained by competitors. Notices of rainouts were published as well as the schedules of the Swiss guards and Vatican gendarmes who took turns welcoming the athletes every week, including with musical fanfare from their respective bands, L'Osservatore Romano wrote.

The pope's speeches to the athletes were always on the front page, it added.

St. Pius saw the Church should encourage games, exercise and play as a wholesome and healthy outlet for adults and young people, not only to practice the virtues of fair play but also as an alternative to pressures to spend one's free time drinking or gambling, according to Stelitano.

The Vatican's special gatherings came right after Pope Pius' election in 1903. The first modern Olympic Games had just been revived in Athens in 1896 after French Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894.

According to Stelitano, de Coubertin was disappointed by the low turnout for the second and third editions of the modern Games in Paris in 1900 and St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904.

He wanted the 1908 games to be held in Rome and thought attendance would be boosted by public support from the pope, she wrote. So, the French baron went to Rome in 1905 and met with the pope's secretary of state, Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, who also loved sports stemming from his time growing up in England and attending Eton College. 

While the Vatican was supportive of the idea, no public papal promotion would come because of the so-called "Roman question," a lengthy dispute with the Italian government over the sovereignty of the Holy See that kept popes essentially confined inside the walls of the Vatican from 1870 to 1929 after revolutionaries fought against papal control in their struggle to unify Italy.

The Games ended up being held in London in 1908 after the Italian government said it did not have enough money to host the global event and preferred to spend its resources on investing in the nation.

The pope, nonetheless, attended the Vatican's own sporting celebration in 1908, which included those living with disabilities.

It seems fitting that the first-ever Paralympic Games were held in Rome Sept. 18-25, 1960.

Today, the Vatican's own official sports association, Athletica Vaticana, includes athletes with disabilities and migrants, and it is affiliated with the Italian Federation of Paralympic and Experimental Sports and the Italian Athletics Federation.