Abstract - Stanislaw Kowalczyk - Reflections on Society and Sport
Recommended by Professor Kowalczyk individual, social and cultural assumptions and values of personalistic provenience do not postulate any substantial conceptions – ideals of man, social structures and cultural patterns, political-state models. He aims only at displaying these ontological and axiological assumptions and properties, the care for which will favor not only protection of social life against deformation of family, nation, state, mankind or also individuals’ life, against dehumanization and depersonalization, but first of all it will favor the development and improvement of persons and societies.
The Catholic philosopher also notices that the contemporary Catholic Church appreciates human body, referring to adequate early-Christian, mediaeval, modern anthropological currents. The consequence of this is approval of the role and significance of sport in the contemporary teaching of the Church.
In this regards he quotes Pius X who even promised founding prizes for the competitors of the Fourth Olympics in 1908 and advocated that “The youth should love sport because it is good for the soul and its body”. He also quotes Pius XI who, among others, wrote: “Train yourselves in gospel, train yourselves in sport – Neglect neither the soul nor the body”. He assumed a wider attitude towards this matter, similarly to Pius XII in respective encyclicals. Appreciation of the body and sport appears also in enunciations of Paul VI and John Paul II. Episcopate of Poland and Episcopate of Italy in appropriate letters (“On Threats towards Health and Sport” 1991, “On Christian Values of Tourism” 1995, “Sport and Christian Life” 1995) expressed opinions twice on this subject.
Considerations of Professor Kowalczyk are the evidence of sill increasing importance which the Catholic Church (its congregation and intellectual environments connected with it) attaches to physical culture and sport. It not only recommends and propagates physical activity, but also inspiring the humanistic thought – personalistic studies of a given field of life – it complements and enriches, among others, social philosophy and philosophy of culture.