{"id":2063062,"date":"2025-10-01T22:15:54","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T22:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2063062"},"modified":"2025-10-01T22:15:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T22:15:54","slug":"former-royals-star-mike-sweeney-presents-special-jersey-to-pope-leo-xiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/former-royals-star-mike-sweeney-presents-special-jersey-to-pope-leo-xiv\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Royals Star Mike Sweeney Presents Special Jersey to Pope Leo XIV"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n \u00a0 About 2 minutes reading time.<\/em><\/small>
\n \u00a0Chris R. Vaccaro – World Baseball Network<\/a>\u00a0 | \u00a0\u00a0 Oct 1st, 2025 4:59pm EDT<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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The baseball gifts and visitors continue for Pope Leo<\/a>. Former Kansas City Royals first baseman Mike Sweeney and his wife, Shara, had the extraordinary honor of presenting Pope Leo XIV with a customized jersey and baseball bat inside Vatican City.<\/p>\n

The gift carried deep symbolism: the number on the back represented Pope Leo XIV\u2019s place as the 267th successor of St. Peter, underscoring his role as the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

Sweeney, a five-time MLB All-Star who spent 16 seasons in the majors, has long been outspoken about his Catholic faith. His meeting with Pope Leo XIV highlighted the intersection of sports, faith, and global unity.<\/p>\n

The event drew international attention not only because of Sweeney\u2019s celebrated baseball career, but also for the unique connection it built between America\u2019s pastime and the universal church. These moments are becoming more frequent as athletes from around the world are spending time with His Holiness.<\/p>\n

Pope Leo, who was elevated to the papacy in 2025, graciously accepted the gift, thanking the Sweeneys for their gesture. Vatican officials noted that the jersey will become part of the papal collection of symbolic gifts presented by world leaders, athletes, and dignitaries.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy Vatican Media<\/em><\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\"author\n\t\t<\/div>\n
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\t\t\tChris R. Vaccaro is the Senior Editorial Advisor of World Baseball Network. He is from Long Island.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source worldbaseball.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 About 2 minutes reading time. \u00a0Chris R. Vaccaro – World Baseball Network\u00a0 | \u00a0\u00a0 Oct 1st, 2025 4:59pm EDT The baseball gifts and visitors continue for Pope Leo. Former Kansas City Royals first baseman Mike Sweeney and his wife, Shara, had the extraordinary honor of presenting Pope Leo XIV with a customized jersey and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2063063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2063062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Former-Royals-Star-Mike-Sweeney-Presents-Special-Jersey-to-Pope.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2063062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2063064,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063062\/revisions\/2063064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2063063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2063062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2063062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2063062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}