Pope Leo to receive Villanova and Notre Dame teams before Rome season opener
Pope Leo XIV will hold a private audience with the Villanova and Notre Dame basketball teams and thousands of American fans ahead of a college basketball season opener in Rome, an event that honors the first American pope.
Pope Leo XIV will hold a private audience on Saturday with the men's and women's basketball teams from his alma mater, Villanova, and from fellow Catholic university Notre Dame, along with thousands of American fans travelling to Rome for the season opener. About 7,000 people are expected in the Paul VI audience hall inside the Vatican.
The audience comes ahead of a doubleheader on Sunday at the 11,000-seat Palazzo dello Sport, located about a half-hour drive from the Vatican, where the Villanova and Notre Dame men's and women's teams will play. The event has been dubbed the Eternal City Tip-Off and was created to honor the first American pope.
Leo graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Villanova, the Augustinian school near Philadelphia. He was born in Chicago, not far from Notre Dame, which is located in South Bend, Indiana. Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson Perez is scheduled to celebrate a private Mass for travelling fans in St. Peter's Basilica shortly before the audience with the pope.
Like his predecessors, Leo has praised the value of sport for physical and spiritual development. He has also warned that a win-at-all-cost mentality has contributed to doping, match-fixing and other forms of corruption in sport.
Asked about the games on the papal plane during a recent trip to France, Leo said that he had been told 90 percent of the people coming to the match would be Villanova supporters and 10 percent Notre Dame supporters, adding that the voice of the people of God would be very strong on the Villanova side.
Leo is an avid tennis player and a Chicago White Sox fan, and has been known to follow basketball. The Rev. Rob Hagan, Villanova's longtime team chaplain, said the pope will know the players and called him a true, blue Villanovan. Hagan said Leo used to attend Villanova games at the Palestra, the Philadelphia arena known as The Cathedral of College Basketball.
The games fall on All Saints' Day, a major Catholic holiday.
12
