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ROME – Reviving a tradition that reaches back to the 1600s, Pope Leo will spend most of July and at least part of August at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, located about an hour’s drive south of the Vatican in the hills above Lake Albano.

The Prefecture of the Papal Household issued an announcement Tuesday that Pope Leo will begin his stay at Castel Gandolfo on Sunday, July 6. The next Sunday, July 13, he will celebrate Mass at the pontifical parish of St. Thomas of Villanova in Castel Gandolfo and then deliver the noontime Angelus address in the Piazza della Libertà, located in front of the Apostolic Palace.

As it happens, St. Thomas of Villanova was a 16th century Spanish Augustinian, a member of the pope’s own religious order, and is also the namesake of Villanova University, where the young Robert Prevost earned a degree in mathematics in 1977.

On Sunday, July 20, Leo will say Mass at the cathedral church of Albano, then deliver the Angelus once again in the Piazza della Libertà. He’ll then return to the Vatican in the afternoon.

At some point in August he’ll return to Castel Gandolofo, as the announcement indicated that on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, which for Italians is also the national holiday of Ferragosto, he’ll once again celebrate Mass in the Parish of St. Thomas of Villanova followed by an Angelus in the piazza. He’ll also deliver the Sunday Angelus from the same location before returning to the Vatican.

During the month of July, all audiences, both public and private, will be suspended to accommodate the pope’s vacation schedule.

Although popes had opted to take their summer vacations at Castel Gandolfo since the early 1600s, Pope Francis famously opted not to do, preferring to remain instead in his residence at the Casa Santa Marta on Vatican grounds during his July breaks. Pope Francis visited Castel Gandolfo three times, including once to see his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who used the residence for a short time after his resignation in 2013, but Francis never spent the night.

As a result, the traditional papal residence was converted into a museum in October 2016, allowing visitors access to both the sprawling gardens and also the apostolic palace. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni told Crux that Pope Leo will be staying in a villa that’s not part of the scheduled tours, and that the museum will continue to operate as normal during his residence.

Castel Gandolf is also now home to Borgo Laudato Si’, a project launched under Francis to promote integral ecology in keeping with the teachings of his 2015 encyclical letter on the environment. Bruni said the villa where Leo will be staying is on the grounds of the project, which will allow him to take stock of its progress and to encourage its work.

Though no one in the Vatican will confirm or deny, it may be that another attraction for Pope Leo of the summer residence is the proximity of the Tennis Club Castel Gandolfo, located next to the papal residence, which features red clay courts. Leo is an avid tennis buff, and it’s not difficult to imagine that the club would put its facilities at his disposition should he want to get in a few sets.

What sports facilities will Leo XIV, the 267th pope — a tennis player, baseball fan, (possible) Roma fan, and gym regular — find at the Vatican?

In his first month as pontiff, Leo XIV has already granted various audiences to athletes, such as Italian soccer champions SSC Napoli and tennis star Jannik Sinner. When he received a racket from Sinner, the Pontiff joked that he could play at Wimbledon.

But before the famous London tournament, will he be able to practice the sport on the Vatican’s 109 acres near the Tiber?

“No, there are no longer any tennis courts in the Vatican,” replies Giampaolo Mattei, president of Athletica Vaticana, the first Vatican foundation dedicated to sport.

According to the Italian, there used to be a court, but it was dismantled because it had fallen into disrepair. Satellite images on Google Maps still show traces of the clay court.

However, Leo XIV can always enjoy another popular racket sport in Italy: “padel,” a sort of mix of squash and tennis, which now has its own court in the Vatican.

Within the Leonine Walls, sports facilities are actually rather limited. The Swiss Guards have a small gym for their private use. For training, the pope’s soldiers can also run in the sublime setting of the Vatican Gardens. But nothing more is done for team sports, for example.

As part of the small state’s soccer championship, the 13 Vatican teams have to play on the Petriana field, which is not on Vatican territory but has the advantage of a view of St. Peter’s dome. The sports complex belonging to the Knights of Columbus, located on Gelsomino Hill, also has a swimming pool and a basketball court that are used by Vatican residents.

The Vatican, a multi-sport venue

In Vatican City, the sports complex once used by John Paul II is now mainly used for a summer camp for employees’ children (Estate ragazzi). Every year, the summer camp uses the swimming pool and other facilities in the St. Joseph Sports Center and the Paul VI Hall is converted into a huge playground.

Giampaolo Mattei is amused by the Vatican’s ability to transform itself. “The Giro d’Italia has passed, so you could say that there is now a cycling track in the gardens,” he jokes.

Behind the museums, a street called “viale dello sport” recalls a major sporting event in the early 20th century. In 1905, 1908, and 1913, Pope Pius X attended three events — running, jumping, and athletics — in which blind and amputee athletes participated. The Cortile del Belvedere was transformed into an athletics track for the occasion.

And what about Castel Gandolfo, the papal estate south of Rome, immersed in the greenery of the Castelli Romani? We know that John Paul II used to enjoy a swimming pool there. Today, we don’t know if it’s still in use, as Pope Francis turned the summer residence into a museum. And there are no specific sports facilities on site.

An opportunity to break out of the bubble

The lack of infrastructure does not prevent the small state from actively promoting sports. The word has even been included – for the first time – in the new constitution of the Roman Curia promulgated by Pope Francis in 2022.

The Dicastery for Culture and Education acts as the Ministry of Sports, and Athletica Vaticana, with its 500 members, is the equivalent of the Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Within this entity, various disciplines are recognized by world federations, such as athletics, cycling, taekwondo, padel, and cricket.

For Giampaolo Mattei, the lack of a sports center worthy of the name can also be an opportunity.

“We want to get out, not shut ourselves away between four walls,” says the Vatican’s sports organization’s president.

So joggers in yellow and white jerseys train in parks and on official tracks, forming partnerships with Roman organizations. Cricket players practice at Roma Capannelle or Villa Pamphili. It’s an opportunity to forge bonds and foster brotherhood, a mission that is close to the hearts of Vatican athletes.

LIFE inevitably has its sadnesses, which are part of every path of hope and every path towards conversion. But it is important to avoid wallowing in melancholy at all costs, not to let it embitter the heart.

These are temptations from which not even clerics are immune. And sometimes we unfortunately come across as bitter, sad priests who are more authoritarian than authoritative, more like old bachelors than wedded to the church, more like officials than pastors, more supercilious than joyful, and this, too, is certainly not good. But generally, we priests tend to enjoy humour and even have a fair stock of jokes and amusing stories, which we are often quite good at telling, as well as being the object of them.

Photo: AP

Popes, too. John XXIII, who was well known for his humour, during one discourse said, more or less: “It often happens at night that I start thinking about a number of serious problems. I then make a brave and determined decision to go in the morning to speak with the pope. Then I wake up all in a sweat … and remember that the pope is me.”

How well I understand him. And John Paul II was much the same. In the preliminary sessions of a conclave, when he was still Cardinal Wojtyła, an older and rather severe cardinal went to rebuke him because he skied, climbed mountains, and went cycling and swimming.

The story goes something like this: “I don’t think these are activities fitting to your role,” the cardinal said. To which the future pope replied, “But do you know that in Poland these are activities practiced by at least 50% of cardinals?” In Poland at the time, there were only two cardinals.

Irony is a medicine, not only to lift and brighten others, but also ourselves, because self-mockery is a powerful instrument in overcoming the temptation toward narcissism.

Narcissists are continually looking into the mirror, painting themselves, gazing at themselves, but the best advice in front of a mirror is to laugh at ourselves. It is good for us. It will prove the truth of the proverb that there are only two kinds of perfect people: the dead, and those yet to be born.

Jokes about and told by Jesuits are in a class of their own, comparable maybe only to those about the carabinieri in Italy, or about Jewish mothers in Yiddish humour.

As for the danger of narcissism, to be avoided with appropriate doses of self-irony, I remember the one about the rather vain Jesuit who had a heart problem and had to be treated in a hospital. Before going into the operating room, he asks God, “Lord, has my hour come?”

“No, you will live at least another 40 years,” God says. After the operation, he decides to make the most of it and has a hair transplant, a face-lift, liposuction, eyebrows, teeth … in short, he comes out a changed man. Right outside the hospital, he is knocked down by a car and dies. As soon as he appears in the presence of God, he protests, “Lord, but you told me I would live for another 40 years!” “Oops, sorry!” God replies. “I didn’t recognise you.”

And I’ve been told one that concerns me directly, the one about Pope Francis in America. It goes something like this: As soon as he arrives at the airport in New York for his apostolic journey in the United States, Pope Francis finds an enormous limousine waiting for him. He is rather embarrassed by that magnificent splendour, but then thinks that it has been ages since he last drove, and never a vehicle of that kind, and he thinks to himself: OK, when will I get another chance? He looks at the limousine and says to the driver, “You couldn’t let me try it out, could you?” “Look, I’m really sorry, Your Holiness,” replies the driver, “but I really can’t, you know, there are rules and regulations.”

But you know what they say, how the pope is when he gets something into his head – in short, he insists and insists, until the driver gives in. So Pope Francis gets behind the steering wheel, on one of those enormous highways, and he begins to enjoy it, presses down on the accelerator, going 50 miles per hour, 80, 120 … until he hears a siren, and a police car pulls up beside him and stops him. A young policeman comes up to the darkened window. The pope rather nervously lowers it and the policeman turns white. “Excuse me a moment,” he says, and goes back to his vehicle to call headquarters. “Boss, I think I have a problem.”

“What problem?” asks the chief.

“Well, I’ve stopped a car for speeding, but there’s a guy in there who’s really important.”

“How important? Is he the mayor?”

“No, no, boss … more than the mayor.”

“And more than the mayor, who is there? The governor?”

“No, no, more.”

“But he can’t be the president?”

“More, I reckon.”

“And who can be more important than the president?”

“Look, boss, I don’t know exactly who he is, all I can tell you is that it’s the pope who is driving him!”

The Gospel, which urges us to become like little children for our own salvation (Matthew 18:3), reminds us to regain their ability to smile.

Today, nothing cheers me as much as meeting children. When I was a child, I had those who taught me to smile, but now that I am old, children are often my mentors. The meetings with them are the ones that thrill me the most, that make me feel best.

And then those meetings with old people: Those elderly who bless life, who put aside all resentment, who take pleasure in the wine that has turned out well over the years, are irresistible. They have the gift of laughter and tears, like children. When I take children in my arms during the audiences in St Peter’s Square, they mostly smile; but others, when they see me dressed all in white, think I’m the doctor who has come to give them a shot, and then they cry.

They are examples of spontaneity, of humanity, and they remind us that those who give up their own humanity give up everything, and that when it becomes hard to cry seriously or to laugh passionately, then we really are on the downhill slope. We become anaesthetised, and anesthetised adults do nothing good for themselves, nor for society, nor for the church. — ©2024 New York Times Company

Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio) is the head of the Catholic Church and the bishop of Rome. This essay is adapted from his forthcoming book Hope: The Autobiography, written with Carlo Musso.