Pope Leo XIV met with the Villanova and Notre Dame basketball teams on Saturday, as well as thousands of American fans in Italy, ahead of the two Catholic universities’ season openers later this weekend.
About 7,000 people entered the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican on Saturday after a special private mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Leo, who is a tennis enthusiast and sports fansaid sport brings people together and can promote values such as fraternity, solidarity and peace.
“By acting as a concrete way to bring people together, athletics can teach the values of cooperation and mutual sharing. This is increasingly necessary in an era marked by the distance that technology can create,” he said, according to Vatican News.
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The teams are in Rome for the U.S. college basketball season opener on Sunday — an event dubbed the Eternal City Tip-Off and created to honor the U.S.-born pope. The men’s and women’s college teams will play a doubleheader at Palazzo Dello Sport, an 11,000-seat arena located about a half-hour drive from the Vatican.
Leo, who is currently recovering from lung cancer surgerygraduated from Villanova in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics.
“Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, we often heard “Go Irish.” But as you all know, Prévost graduated from Villanova! The Pope therefore does not take sides. Prévost has another opinion, but we won’t do it now,” Léo joked during the hearing, according to Vatican News.
Leo urged teams and their families to embrace sports as a way to grow in holiness.
“No one is born a champion, just like no one is born a saint,” he said.
He warned against letting sporting rivalries spiral out of control and said he hoped fans in Rome this weekend would get to know each other by applauding, “even passionately”.
“In any competition, members of two teams, even when they have a competitive rivalry, are certainly not enemies,” he said. “So I hope that despite the competitive nature of college basketball, players and fans from both teams will have the opportunity to get to know each other during your days here in Rome.”
Before the audience, the Rev. Robert Dowd, president of Notre Dame, acknowledged that Villanova had some advantage given that it counts Pope as an alumni. But in an interview Saturday, he said the opportunity to bring the two teams together with all their fans in Rome for a papal audience and season opener was “incredible.”
“It might be a little difficult, but I know that the pope is a pope to all of us, and so I am grateful to him,” he said. “I know the pope speaks in a particular way about the importance of building bridges, and I am sure he will be a bridge builder when we face each other.”
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Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson Perez celebrated a private mass for traveling fans in St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday morning and asked the thousands in the pews to applaud the players. The English-language liturgy was unusual in that it had all the trappings of a papal mass celebrated at the high altar and broadcast live by Vatican media.
Asked about upcoming games on the papal plane during a recent trip to France, Leo said, “They tell me the people who will come to the game are 90 percent Villanova and 10 percent Notre Dame, so the voice of God’s people will be very strong on the Villanova side.”
Leo is passionate Chicago White Sox fan and is also known for following basketball.
“He’ll know who they (the players) are. He’s a true blue Villanovan,” said the Rev. Rob Hagan, Villanova’s longtime team chaplain. He said Leo used to attend Villanova games at the Palestra, the Philadelphia arena known as “the cathedral of college basketball.”
Sunday’s matches coincide with All Saints’ Day, a major Catholic holiday.
“Our true goal, beyond winning any given event, is to win the prize of eternal life,” Leo said.
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