Pope Leo XIV leads the Catholic Church from the Vatican City – where a secret tennis court is waiting

ROM – If you go to the corner of the Via Leone IV in Rome and to the Viale Vaticano and turn around 50 meters to the west to build the line for entering the Vatican Museum.

Crane your neck up to the top of the 39-foot Vatican city wall, and there is one of the few things next to trees and buildings that look over the fortifications to be visible from the street.

A high, mesh fence above the wall that stretches a few meters. It would not scare anyone who had overcome vertical masonry, but it is not there to protect the Pope, the cardinals, the Swiss Guard and the Vatican staff. It is there for the benefit of the people who go underneath: to stop a bad shaft, a surviving praise or a spiked stroke that sent a tennis ball that falls onto the earth and heads of Passing footballs.

This fence surrounds the Campo Centrale of the Catholic Church: the Vatican City -now under the rule of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost or rather Pope Leo XIV. After white smoke on May 8, the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Roms foro Italico was showered, where Humans in the Italians made their attention to tennis attention to cheer.

Then the questions rolled up.

Can Pope Leo XIV combine the progressive and conservative wings of the church and its 1.3 billion souls? Can the first Pope from the United States manage the luggage that comes with the strong superpower?

And does this type need tickets for the Italian Open final next weekend, only two miles north of his new domain?

To the extent that he had a great reputation in the Vatican and his Coterie of long -time friends in Chicago and Villanova University, Penns, Pope Leo XIV had already announced that tennis was his sport.

“I see myself as a pretty amateur tennis player,” said the future Pope Leo in an interview with the Augustinian Order website in 2023 when his predecessor, Pope Francis, gave him his red cardinal hat on his arrival in Rome. (No, not the St. Louis Cardinals. When it comes to baseball, Pope Leo is a Chicago White Sox -fan, which means that moderate and endurance are in adversity in his steering house.)

“Since I left Peru (where he has been working in the past nine years), I only had a few opportunities to practice, so I’m looking forward to getting back on the pitch,” he said.

At first he seemed to have said that he was a Carlos Alcaraz fan who could have disturbed the local residents of his new home in the face of Jannik Sünders when Italy’s Sportpontiff. You don’t have to worry: the claim was wrong.

The new Pope appeared on screens of the Italian Open when he dealt with the Vatican city. (Alfredo Falcone / La Presse about Imagn pictures)

Unknown for a few long-time narrow Vatican observers, pious Catholics and even some of the higher kick-off in Italy’s tennis federation, The Fitp, there has long been the satellite images that are a beautiful red dish that is integrated into the northern corner of Vatican City.

A compulsory worker outside the museum on the morning of May 8 said that most people don’t know about it because it is not easy to find. People either know that it is there compared to the building that surrounds the cortle Ottagono Courtyard or not. The gardens and the area around the tennis court have been closed to the public since April 28 so that the conclave selects a new Pope. Having a hit was not high on the cardinal’s priority list.

A tennis court may not be high in the Vatican city of Apocrypha, but what information it has received is a portrait of a lively tennis scene, whereby cardinals took part in a tournament, which also included members of the Swiss security guard and finally opened the employees of the Vatican and their children.

On May 9, a spokesman for the Swiss Guard, Cpl. As far as he knew, Cinotti Eliah wrote, none of the guards now play tennis, which could be both good and bad news for Pope Leo. It could make an easier way to victory in any tournament that he could organize, although it may be a little more difficult to find a high-quality young partner who joins him in a last minute goal.

Every layperson that was exposed to the Pope in court would be exposed to several moral dilemmata. Is it cool to hit a winner past him when he gets into the net? The leader of the holy chair during a network duel also sounds like a disposable ticket for excommunication.

News that contained questions about the tennis court were not returned.

The golden era of Vatican tennis was at the end of the 1970s after the court was renovated. Even the cardinals were involved in this first tennis boom of the modern era, according to the archive research of the Pontifical Council for the laypersons.

A “Friendship tournament” began in 1978. Giovanni Battista Re, the Vice Dean of the College of Cardinale, took the title. At that time he was a priest who worked for the secretariat of the state that fulfilled the political and diplomatic functions for the Pope.

In the final, Battista Re Roberto Tucci, an Italian Jesuit and general director of the Vatican radio. He also became a cardinal. There was a game in third place. Peter Hasler, a Swiss guard, defeated Faustino Sainz Munoz from Spain, who became archbishop.

Priestly tennis benevolence turned out to be her decline. They stopped winning when they opened the tournament to the employees of the ownership management of the Holy Chair and then the employees – a bad idea for older people who are interested in winning championships. Finally, the participation ended and the tournament ended before the employees of the Vatican Museum started again in 2008.

Pope Leo does not have to work hard to find support among the current professionals of sport if he wants to make tennis to a larger part of his reign.

Iga świątek said in a press conference that she would like to spend some time on the St. Peter Square and wait for the white smoke from the Sistine Chapel to be found if it could work out in her schedule. Emma Raducanu predicted a long complaint on Wednesday evening, a call that could not be well older – Pope Leo was chosen after a little more than 24 hours.

Madison Keys said on Thursday evening that her good friend Desirae Krawczyk, a double player, had pushed to St. Peter’s Square to join the excitement.

All of this has created this opening week that the Italian Open will never forget, especially in the announcement of his choice, which will appear on stadium screens during the games on Thursday evening.

It turned out that it was suitable. All of these years later, Robert Francis Prevost finally made it in a professional tennis.

(Top photos: Andrej Isakovic, Alberto Pizzoli / Getty Images; Figure: Will Tullos / The athlete; Graphics: John Bradford / The athlete)))