Meet the priest serving ‘even nonbelievers’ at the Milan Winter Olympics

The role of chaplains at the Olympic Games is not just for Catholics and other believers, according to a priest currently serving at the Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.

“My service is much more individual and open to everyone, even nonbelievers,” Father Oldřich Chocholáč, chaplain of the Czech Olympic team, told EWTN News. “It is a service of presence, prayer, and blessing.”

The Czech priest, who serves as parish priest in Telnice in the Diocese of Brno, has accompanied his country’s athletes to every Games since Rio de Janeiro in 2016. This year, the Czech Republic sent 114 athletes — the largest delegation in the country’s Olympic history.

Chocholáč told EWTN News his program is quite simple. He comes daily to the Olympic village in Milan to the space reserved for Czech team accommodation and meetings, and can travel to some of the sports venues using athlete transport. It is up to the team members whether they make use of his presence, he said.

A chaplaincy spread across the Alps

But the multisite format of these Winter Games presents challenges. Part of the Czech team is scattered across smaller Olympic villages in the Alps northeast of Milan, meaning Chocholáč relies on electronic communication to stay in touch with athletes at distant venues.

“They know they can contact me at any time,” he said.

The pastoral work was easier during the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, he observed. With the Games now spread across multiple locations, chaplains of individual national teams do not meet as they did in France.

Spiritual service among Czech athletes differs from that of more religious countries, where team members come in large numbers to church services, Chocholáč noted.

“I am glad that I remain in friendly contact with some of them even long after the Olympics,” he said.

Prayer at the Games

Besides national team chaplaincies — a practice established at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 — the Olympic Village in Milan offers a modest prayer room and various religious services for participants. The Basilica of San Babila in central Milan has been nicknamed the “church of athletes” for the Games.

The Olympics press office did not respond to an EWTN News inquiry about how many national teams have chaplains this year.