The sports historian, Angela Teja, published a book, entitled, Padre Henri Didon: Un domenicano alle radici dell'olimpismo (Edizioni AVE, 2024) , which revisits the most important moments in the life of the French Dominican, Henri Didon (1840-1900), especially those that led him to come up with the famous Olympic motto Citius, Altius, Fortius (faster, higher, stronger).
As a well-known preacher in Paris towards the last quarter of the 19th century, Didon was also rector in several educational institutes. As rector and chaplain of Saint Albert the Great College in Arcueil, since 1880, P. Didon founded a sports association, where he introduced innovative teaching methods, including physical education, which he had learned about in Great Britain.
In January 1891, he met for the first time baron Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937), the founder of the modern Olympic games. His friendship with de Coubertin is one of the most important phases explored in this book because it was through Coubertin that Didon developed his educational method, inspired by his friend's sporting ideas. He actually invited him to take part as game director, in a sporting event in the spring of the same year, right at the Dominican college and it was precisely on that occasion that Pierre de Coubertin met the motto Citius, altius, fortius, sewn on the college flags.
The baron liked this motto so much that, three years later, he chose it as the motto for the International Olympic Committee that had just been founded and for the Olympic Games themselves. This motto has been used since the first edition of the games in Athens in 1896. For that edition Didon had celebrated the official mass in the church of San Dionigi in Athens and made a learned homily during which he spoke about the virtues that could emerge from the practice of physical exercises.
In fact this reflects the philosophy behind Didon's educational method which focuses solely on the moral and physical development of his students. In particular, this method looks at the spiritual development that leads the student to the development of virtues in his life.
Most of Didon's views are expressed in his last work, 'L'éducation présente' (1898), a collection of speeches he gave at the end of the school year to students, parents, and the local authorities. In these speeches we find the traces of this educational journey, designed by him, which relates sport to education.
It is such writings that shape the argument of this book. In Didon's reflections there is a constant connection between the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Olympism that was being born during that time. Didon was convinced that sport could be a true school of virtue for young people in the maturity of the life of virtue. This correlation, forged by Didon's innovative method, ties in well with what Pope Leo XIII was asking at that time, namely, that the Church, at the end of the 19th century, would return to Thomistic studies. Didon does this but with a careful look at the factor of modern sport.