Pope Francis called for the Jubilee of Youth:

“I am calling together young people from all over the world for 2025 in Rome to celebrate the Youth Jubilee together.”

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“So, we were in Lisbon for World Youth Day and the Pope announced that there would be the Jubilee in Rome. So we thought at the time there would be something for young people or sport. And straight away we had that eye on it,” shares Adam Costello, Co-Founder of the Caritas Cup.

That moment of inspiration would lead them, months later, to Rome—where thousands of athletes from diverse sports and backgrounds gathered for the much-anticipated Jubilee of Sport.

Among the many events held across the city to celebrate the beauty and joy of sport was the Caritas Cup—founded five years ago by four Scottish high school students to help young Catholics grow in faith through athletics.

Costello adds, “It's to bring young people back to the Church and give them an avenue to stay in the Church. So, as soon as we finish secondary school in Scotland, people kind of leave. It's the last sort of chance they've got to stay, and I think the Caritas Cup is an avenue for that.”

In dioceses and schools across Scotland, the Caritas Cup organizes local tournaments that bring together young people from Catholic schools and parishes.

Daniel Timoney, Co-Founder of the Caritas Cup, highlights, “For us, most importantly, we are just trying to get young people involved in the church and for us, and especially in Scotland, in the community, football and sports, especially football and netball, it's sort of the way to do that.”

Inspired by the values and mission of Caritas – the Catholic Church’s global charity network, the Caritas Cup was founded to put faith into action through sport and service.

Since the beginning, the team has been working closely with SCIAF—the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund—to help support different projects on the local and international level.

Timoney explains, “SCIAF is ever present in the schools in Scotland and just with their campaigns and stuff like every school in Scotland knows about SCIAF, it's just such a big household name, really for Catholics across Scotland. So, we got in touch with them. And a lot of their projects, we were able to support.”

Beyond bringing together young Catholics to play football and netball tournaments in their diocese, the Caritas Cup also raises funds for vital Caritas projects around the world.

This year, the Caritas Cup is supporting emergency aid efforts in the Holy Land.

Rebecca Rathbone, Officer Promoting Youth Leadership, Caritas Internationalis, highlights:

“The way that they describe it is very beautiful, you know, putting their faith into action and using something that is fun as a way to raise awareness about the important work that SCIAF does. And I think that this is another real plus of including young people is that, while the work Caritas does is serious—that’s for sure—it doesn’t mean we can’t approach it with a joyful spirit.”

For the past 10 years, Rebecca explained, empowering young people has been included in the strategic framework of Caritas Internationalis.

Their goal is to work together to raise awareness about issues that are affecting the global community that might not be as obvious in Scotland.

Rathbone explains, “The challenges that the world is facing change every day and change quickly and something that young people are particularly good at are thinking creatively and being energetic and being hopeful and reminding us that we can, you know, work in new ways to address the challenges of today and meet people's needs today.”

Before the game, the players gathered to pray at the Pontifical Scot’s College in Rome.

The event highlighted how sport teaches important Christian values like teamwork, discipline, respect, and perseverance – and offers a way to grow together, in both friendship and faith.

This was what Pope Leo emphasizes in his homily for the Jubilee’s closing Mass on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity – that sport can “help us encounter the Triune God, because it challenges us to relate to others and with others”, both outwardly and inwardly:

“Sport – especially team sports – teaches the value of cooperating, working together and sharing. These, as we said, are at the very heart of God’s own life. Sport can thus become an important means of reconciliation and encounter.”

In our competitive society, where it seems that only the strong and winners deserve to live, Pope Leo also stressed that “sport also teaches us how to lose” and so open our hearts to hope:

“Athletes who never make mistakes, who never lose, do not exist. Champions are not perfectly functioning machines, but real men and women, who, when they fall, find the courage to get back on their feet.”

Pope Leo recalled the “straightforward and luminous life” of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who taught us that “just as no one is born a champion, no one is born a saint” and that “it is daily training in love that brings us closer to final victory.”

Costello notes, “I think that the virtues from sport can also continue into your faith. And I think for us as well, we've spoken about this previously as failures. We have failures in sport, but also failures in faith in times we need to get back up again.”

It’s also, the young men explained, a chance to grow in both human and Christian virtues, by learning to support one another and work together as a team.

Costello explains, “Especially in Scotland there is a real sort of camaraderie and this whole teamwork. And I think that's the beauty of the Caritas Cup. It's ‘you're not on your own’ and it's the same for faith. So it's not just in sport, you're not on your own. It's in faith. There's always people there. And we want to be that people, for anyone to come to.”

“There's people here that, myself included,” Timoney highlights, “have fallen away from the Church. But this has brought us back into it. And especially, it's just a sort of feeling community as well that you get. And everybody gets on. And we'll go to Mass and it's just fantastic sort of doing it together.”

From the way the day unfolds—with prayer, teamwork, and a shared spirit of joy—it’s clear that the goal is not merely to play.

“I think what's important for us is that we're not trying to make faith cool; I don't think that works, but it's accessible, and I think this is a way to do it. For us, we just have to show people that it's not something to be embarrassed about. And in Scotland that is probably the issue that people have. So this is a way for young men and young women to show their faith and it's not the end goal, so playing football, playing netball is not what we want. All we want is people actively involved in the church actively involved in Caritas and, in the end it's much bigger than just the game of football,” notes Costello. 

FIND THE POPE'S BIOGRAPHY HERE

 Adapted by Jacob Stein 

 Produced by Bénédicte Cedergren; Camera: Sergio Natoli ; Video Editor: Gianluca Gangemi