Churches and sport for the preservation of Sunday: that is the commitment made at a meeting held in Frankfurt on 1st February between the German Olympic Sporting League (DOSB), the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) and the German Evangelical Church (EKD). “Sunday is a holiday that conduces to the well being of everyone and hence to society as a whole; it is therefore particularly worth defending”, says a joint statement issued at the end of the meeting. During the meeting between Thomas Bach (President of the DOSB), Cardinal Karl Lehmann (President of the DBK), and Evangelical Bishop Wolfgang Huber (Chairman of the EKD Council), it was stressed that the Churches and sport are united by shared values and objectives. The Churches and sport see eye to eye not as representatives of particular interests, but as bearers of public interests that actively contribute to social cohesion. Sport and religion can be well integrated, but without any wish to substitute each other”, says the communiqué. “A shared attitude in tackling tasks of social policy becomes particularly evident in the field of integration”, continues the communiqué. “The integration of immigrants, ethnic minorities and all those on the fringes of society is one of the most important tasks that Churches and sport have to face”. In this context the representatives of the Churches and sport praised the positive work performed by the Christian sporting associations. Lehmann, Huber and Bach further underlined the “irreplaceable” contribution of religious education and physical education in schools: “Both subjects promote the development of the personality of children and adolescents. Therefore “the sometimes considerable diminution of the hours dedicated to them in many schools is unacceptable”. At the end of the meeting, Bach invited the Churches each to send their own representative to the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 to contribute to the spiritual care of the German Olympic team.
