Milan’s Olympic spotlight may be on podiums and medals, but organizers are also working inside church buildings and oratories during the 2026 Winter Games. The Catholic Archdiocese of Milan is leading the Tour of Sports Values, a program that uses sports instruction and testimony to connect Olympic themes with everyday life for young people in the city.
The approach was on display Feb. 9 at the Church of Sant’Antonio near Milan’s Duomo, where dozens of children sat on benches in the Roman Catholic church to take part in the kickoff. After an introduction, they met Giordano Bortolani, a basketball player who came up through the Olimpia Milano youth system and later played in Italy’s top and second divisions.
Bortolani told the children that, since turning professional, he has often visited young people and that his work has also included activities for people with disabilities through programs connected to Milan’s Catholic Church. He said the Winter Olympics happening in Milan made the messages especially relevant, adding that the focus is on the values of sport and life rather than a narrow idea of winning.
Behind the meetings, the program also features work created by students. Banners displayed in the church showed graphic designs produced by students in their final year of high school, linking Olympic-inspired principles to the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics as a shared framework, and emphasizing ethics such as cooperation, respect, solidarity and inclusion, according to Matilde Napoli, the deputy head of the school involved.
The organizers said the Tour of Sports Values is built around the Italian concept of oratories—parish spaces where children and teenagers gather after school for sports and recreation. Napoli said oratories give young people a place to come together and offer opportunities for social interaction through sports, recreational and leisure activities, while FOM, the foundation that coordinates oratory programs across the Milan archdiocese, helps support the effort.
Local Catholic leaders and partners use organizations such as CSI and sports clubs to bring faith-linked community programs together with youth sports. Massimo Aquino, president of CSI, said the archdiocese oversees almost 1,000 oratories, and he described oratories as a place where Italians have grown up learning values of life by “chasing after a ball,” adding that many champions emerged from that experience.
The Tour of Sports Values is also anchored by a series of letters written by Archbishop Mario Delpini, which the archdiocese has drawn on in preparing the initiative for the Games. The tour runs through Feb. 20 and is intended to involve about 13,000 young people from schools, parish youth centers and sports clubs across the archdiocese.
As part of that effort, Bortolani spoke about his own path into sport, saying his first encounter with athletics came when he was five at an oratory, where church was part of the experience and training sessions were sometimes followed by time to pray.