Sport and christian values in croatian society at the beginning of 20th century

Abstract

The article presents forms and ways of promoting the Christian
values that Hrvatski Orlovski Savez (Croatian Aquiline Alliance)
built into its postulates and promoted by its programme activities,
in accordance with the thoughts of Ivan Merz. With his idea of
“spiritualizing” the man and creating a society and sport based on
Christian values, Merz opposed, in an original manner, the powerful
penetration of liberalism in 1920s, particularly in the sphere of
public life. Merz sees the problem in one-sided perception of sport
as a means of creating the cult of body, which jeopardizes human
moral and ethical values. He places emphasis on the interrelationship
between body and soul and introduces physical exercise in
order of asceticism, viewing it as a formative element in the process
of creating Christian perfection. In this way, as a result of physical
exercise and sport as the most popular form and backbone of Croatian
Aquilinty, the implementation of Christian value in that-time
Croatian society was successfully realized.