Next time you feel guilty about spending a whole day skiing, don’t. The Pope himself has signed off on skiing as a sport that can help you contemplate your Creator.

I have to admit that when I read the Pope’s speech to Italian Ski Instructors, I kept thinking it was the wrong Pope talking. John Paul was the skier, not Benedict.

While John Paul was a hiker, skier, and soccer player, Benedict admitted in one of his books that he was always the last guy picked for the team when he was a kid.

But he does like nature, and that’s why he seems to appreciate people being able to get out and spend a day in the mountains.

Benedict told the ski instructors that while sport in general helps people develop virtues, by learning “constancy in reaching objectives, respecting the rules, and tenacity in facing up to and overcoming difficulties,” he said skiing offers something special.

“Skiing is practiced in a mountain environment, an environment which in a special way makes us feel small, giving back to us the right dimension of our being creatures,” he said. “It makes us capable of asking ourselves about the meaning of creation, of looking above, of opening ourselves to the Creator.”

By contemplating creation, Benedict said, “man recognizes the greatness of God.”