Pope Leo meets with Villanova, Notre Dame teams ahead of US NCAA season

On Saturday, Pope Leo received his old college basketball team and, in a show of sportsmanship that went only so far, their opponent.

Leo, the first American pope, greeted the men’s and women’s teams from his alma mater Villanova, where he graduated in 1977, and from their rival Notre Dame before roughly 7,000 players, guests and supporters.

Villanova, home of the Wildcats, is in Pennsylvania, while Notre Dame, whose teams are known as the Fighting Irish, is in Indiana but have strong support in Chicago where the pope, whose secular name is Robert Prevost, was born and raised.

“Growing up on the south side of Chicago, we often heard, ‘Go Irish.’ But as you all know, Prevost graduated from Villanova,” Leo said. “So the Pope doesn’t take sides. Prevost has another opinion, but we won’t do that now,” he added, to cheers and laughter from the audience.

The two Catholic universities will settle matters on the court on Sunday, when their men’s and women’s teams face off at Rome’s Palazzo dello Sport in the Eternal City Tip-Off, opening the U.S. college basketball season.

For Notre Dame, the challenge on Sunday is obvious: beating a team whose most famous alumnus has a direct line to heaven. 

Villanova, meanwhile, may have found the ultimate sixth man.