Pope Leo XIV Tells Villanova and Notre Dame Basketball Teams He Is Neutral as 7000 Cheer in Vatican

The roar in the Paul VI Audience Hall on Saturday was not the sound of a quiet papal audiance. About 7,000 players, coaches, fans and families from Villanova University and the University of Notre Dame filled the hall, cheering and whooping, and the Pope answered them with a joke about himself.

“Prevost has another opinion, but we won’t do that now,” Pope Leo XIV said, to laughs, according to the Inquirer’s report of the Associated Press account. The Pope, born Robert Prevost, was drawing a line between the man he was before his election and the office he now holds.

“But as you all know, Prevost graduated from Villanova,” he told the crowd. “So the pope doesn’t take sides,” he said, before revealing that “Prevost has another opinion.” The National Catholic Register reported the same exchange, with cheers from Villanova supporters in the hall.

The audience took place on Saturday, October 31, 2026, the day before the men’s and women’s teams from both schools were due to open the United States college basketball season in Rome. The event, dubbed the Eternal City Tip-Off, is a doubleheader at the 11,000-seat Palazzo dello Sport, about a half-hour drive from the Vatican.

Pope Leo Dribbles Golden Basketball From Villanova

The most talked-about moment came when the Pope took a basketball in his hands. Leo, described by the Inquirer as an avid sports fan and tennis player, dribbled a golden basketball presented to him by the Villanova women’s team.

Villanova basketball player Jasmine Bascoe, along with Villanova University President Peter M. Donohue, presented the Pope with the basketball in the Paul VI Hall, the Inquirer’s photo caption reported. When the towering players from Notre Dame presented him with a jersey and another golden ball, Leo stepped up to the podium where his chair sits to gain a few inches on them.

“He is a true Villanovan,” said Villanova women’s coach Denise Dillon, according to the Inquirer. “I said, ‘OK everyone: V’s up.’ And he immediately was in with it.” The room, for an afternoon, held two rival fan bases and one Pope who refused to be claimed by either.

No One Is Born a Champion, No One Is Born a Saint

After mistakenly starting out in Italian, Leo switched to his mother-tongue English and spoke off the cuff, the Inquirer reported. Growing up on the south side of Chicago, he said, he often heard “Go Irish!”, the Notre Dame chant. Chicago is not far from Notre Dame, in South Bend, Indiana, but his own degree came from Villanova.

Leo graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Villanova, the Augustinian school near Philadelphia, the Inquirer reported. That history hung over every cheer in the hall, and the Pope named it plainly before setting it aside for the sake of his office.

In his prepared remarks, Leo urged the teams and their families to embrace sport as a way to grow in saintliness. “No one is born a champion, just as no one is born a saint,” he said, according to the Inquirer. The games fall on All Saints Day, and Leo said the Church teaches Christians to pursue saintliness in every aspect of life, including sport.

He warned against letting sporting rivalries get out of hand. “In any competition, the members of two teams, even when they have a competitive rivalry, are certainly not enemies,” he said. He hoped fans in Rome would get to know one another as they cheered, “even passionately.”

The National Catholic Register reported that Leo spoke of a vision of sport centred on the dignity of the human person, integral development, education and relationships with others. He said the occasion was a reminder that God calls everyone to be a saint, and that every part of life, including athletic endeavours, should help people love God and their neighbour.

“Our true goal, beyond emerging victorious in any one event, is to win the prize of everlasting life,” Leo said, according to the Inquirer. Sport, he added in the Register’s account, is “a medicine for both body and spirit when it is practiced well,” and a concrete means of bringing people together in an age marked by distance created by technology.

Pope Leo Kept the Appointment After Lung Surgery

The audience had been uncertain. The Inquirer reported that the audience had been up in the air after the 71-year-old Pope underwent lung cancer surgery on October 13, and that he is still recovering. Leo kept the appointment ahead of Sunday’s opener.

Readers following Pope Leo XIV can see related coverage in his meeting with earthquake survivors in Italy, in his Vatican address on machines as tools, not persons, and in a Church of Scotland day of prayer.

The men’s game was scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. Central European Time on Sunday, with the women’s game following at 6 p.m., according to the National Catholic Register. By Sunday night in Rome, one school will have won each game, and the other will have lost. The question the Pope left hanging in the hall was simpler than any scoreline: after the cheering stops, will the two fan bases still know each other as neighbours, not enemies, and will a season that began in the Vatican be remembered for more than who won?

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.