Temporary peace for a divided world

ALL SET FOR THE ROME OLYMPICS
By TERENCE McQUEEN
ROME — centre of Christendom, seat of the ROME
of Christ — is about to stage the biggest international athletic attraction of all time: the 17th modern Olympiad.
That is no overstatement. The Rome Olympics, beginning on Thursday, will be the greatest ever. Over 7.000 athletes, from more than 80 countries, will be competing. The previous biggest-ever Olympics were at Helsinki in 1952, when 5,867 athletes from 69 countries competed.
Pope John is to receive Olympic contestants, officials and journalists in two audiences.
The first will take place in St. Peter's Square on Wednesday—the day before the Games commence— and for this the Holy Father will be travelling from Castel Gandolfo. His address will be heard in Italian, English, Spanish, Polish, German, French, Rumanian, Arabic, Hungarian, Japanese, Chinese and Russian. The band of the Palatine Guards will play the Olympic anthem.
The second papal audience will he on August .29 at Castel Gandolfo.
Anita Lonsbrough—top swimmer Souvenir medals which Pope John will give the Olympic athletes have been designed by the well known Bergamo sculptor Manzu who is working on a lifesize statue of the Pope and also a pair of bronze doors for St. Peter's which he has to finish by 1961.
A special office " to co-ordinate religious assistance for Olympic
contestants of all creeds" is being opened by the Olympic organising committee. In charge of this office is Mgr. Nicola Pavoni, ecclesiastical adviser to the Italian Sports Centre.
Two large religious centres, Domus Maria and Domus Pacis, have been turned into communication centres for journalists and news agencies representing the world press.
The Better World Movement's centre near Lake Albano is to accommodate athletes taking part in the boating events.
A special concession in honour of the athletes visiting Rome is that the Vatican Museums will be open to the public without the usual entrance fee on Sunday, August 28, and Sunday, September 4.
At this moment, the Olympic Torch, kindled in Greece (Olympia) last Friday, is travelling towards Rome for the big day. Yesterday (Thursday) it arrived at Syracuse. It is being carried from there by a relay of runners.
When it is carried into the huge stadium in Rome on Thursday, a fanfare of trumpets will sound, the Olympic flag with its five interlaced rings will be hoisted, and 5,000 pigeons will be released with the symbolic task of carrying to the four corners of the earth the tidings that a divided world has met for the 17th modern Olympiad.
The unofficial Vatican weekly, Osservatore Della Domenica, recently echoed the words of the late Pope Pius XII in saying that the Games could well receive " a particular character from Rome ". being " purified or rather ennobled by the Christian and universal spirit emmanating from this city— the centre of Christianity ".
St. Peter's Basilica and its great dome will be illuminated every night during the Olympic Games.
The Games will he linked with many of Rome's ancient monuments. Wrestling contests will be seen in the towering ruins of the third-century Basilica of Maxentius. Gymnastic events will be held at the Baths of Caracella.
Racers in the 26-mile marathon event will assemble in a piazza designed by Michelangelo; the race itself will cover the Appian Way
Continued on page (laid 312 years before the birth of Christ), and it will finish by torchlight at the Arch of Constantine, close to the Colosseum.
Equestrian events will be held in the Borghese Gardens near the Via Veneto.
Rowing and canoeing contests will take place on Lake Albano, in the shadow of Castel Gandolfo where the Pope will be residing during much of the Games.
ROWING for America in the double sculls event will be Jack Kelly, 33-year-old brother of Princess Grace of Monaco, whose father won the single and double sculls in the 1920 Olympics.
Two more Catholic champions, Australia's Herb Elliott (22) and Ireland's Ronnie Delany (25), will be running against each other in the 800 and 1,500 metres race.
Delany, educated in Ireland by the Marist Fathers, won the 1,500 metres at the last Olympics (Melbourne) in a time of 3min. 41sec.
Elliott, a former student of the Christian Brothers' College, Perth, smashed that record two years ago with a time of 3min. 36sec. a world record, yet to be beaten.
HAT about the Catholic competitors who will be representing Britain in Rome?
A firm favourite in the women's 200 metres breaststroke event is 18-year-old Huddersfield swimming star Anita Lonsbrough, a former pupil of St. Joseph's College, Bradford. Anita lost her world record title two months ago, but she lost it at a time when she was barely recovered from an attack of 'flu, and she lost it by only a tenth of a second! Now reported to be in sparkling form, she is being widely tipped for an Olympic gold.
In the men's 200 metres breaststroke event is Gerard Rowlinson, who attends Holy Infants, Bolton. The best time Gerard has recorded so far this year in the 200 metres is only five seconds behind the world record.
An Olympic swimmer for the third time is Bob Sreenan (25), a parishioner of St. Mary's, Fore Bank, Dundee. He is competing in the men's 1,500 metres freestyle event. He first swam for Britain as an Olympic star when he was 17. The following year he became the Amateur Swimming Association's mile champion; he held this title for five years. He was educated at St. Patrick's, Glasgow, St. Mary's, Dundee, and Mosside Academy. He is one of a family of five children all swimmers, mother and father, too !
Going to represent Britain at the Olympics for the first time is 20year-old amateur flyweight boxing champion Danny Lee, who is a parishioner of Holy Family Church, Port Glasgow. One of a family of seven boys and four girls, Danny has received much of his boxing training from Fr. Patrick Burke, now at St. Charles, Paisley, who until recently was assistant priest of the Port Glasgow church which runs the Woodhall Boys' Club where Danny boxes.
Fr. Burke took Danny in hand when he was 12, saying " You'll be the top amateur flyweight in Britain before you're 21 ". Friends recalled those prophetic words proudly when Danny scored a victory at 19 over a boxer who had been five times champion of Poland. And Fr. Burke was able to share their pride because it was he who had put Danny through his paces in training bouts three weeks before the Polish fight.
Danny is serving an apprenticeship as a plater with a shipbuilding firm.
Three other Catholics among the boxers representing Britain are lightweight champion Dick MeTaggart (24). who boxed his Bob Sreenan-his 3rd Olympics way to a gold medal at the last Olympics; Bermondsey boy Johnny Ould, who is the A.B.A. lightheavyweight champion, and lightmiddleweight A.B.A. champion Bill Fisher. Bill. a parishioner of St. Patrick's, Shieldmuir, Wishaw. is one of a family of seven sons and two daughters. His elder brother, Robert, in the Forces, was featherweight champion of Cyprus for two years. Another brother, Dave, has boxed as a professional welterweight. Bill was educated at St. Patrick's R.C. School, Craigneuk, and St. Joseph's secondary school, Motherwell.
Selected to represent Great Britain in one of the Olympic weight-lifting events is Philip Cairo, from Kirkaldy, Fife. He was one of the few Catholics representing Great Britain at the last Olympics (1956), when he was placed fifth in the final.
A cyclist who will be under scrutiny at the Olympics is 27-yearold Bill Bradley, winner of the Tour of Britain for the past two years. who is a parishioner of Holy Family Church, Southport. Bill first made a hit in Southport cycling circles at the age of 18 when. as a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Youth Club, he won the All-Southport Youth Clubs mile event.
Of the three athletes representing Great Britain in the Olympic 26mile marathon race, two are Catholics.
Arthur Patrick Keily, first man in the trio, won the schoolboy walking championship of England when he was a pupil at St. Mary's Catholic School, Derby, in 1935. Aged 39, he recently won the Polytechnic marathon in record time, prompting one leading sports columnist to write " I have never seen a runner finishing that distance of 26 miles less distressed ". Arthur told me this week that he and two of his brothers formed a winning trio in the 1955 Waltonon-Thames I5-mile team race and the Liverpool marathon team race of 1956; the brothers beat the top team in the country. Arthur is the eldest of his five brothers and three sisters. A Youth Leader for Derby Education Committee, he is married, with one son who is a pupil at St. Alban's Catholic School. Derby. His parish church is St. Mary's. Derby.
Supporting Kelly in the Rome marathon will be 32-year-old Denis O'Gorman, a parishioner of SS. Alban and Stephen Church, St. Albans, Herts., who notched up the world's fastest time of the year in the Road Runners' Club marathon at Huyton, near Liverpool, last month.
Rather than suggest which of these sporting personalities will win the Olympic golds, we might recall the words of Baron Pierre de Coubertin who revived the Games in 1896: " The important thing in the Olympics is not to win but to take part . .