Pope Leo XIV met members of the University of Notre Dame and Villanova University at the Vatican on Saturday and used the occasion to cast sports as a force that can bring people together. The audience came just before the schools’ basketball games in Rome on Sunday, when the Eternal City Tip-Off was scheduled to put one men’s game and one women’s game on the floor.
About 7,000 people filled the Paul VI Audience Hall for the meeting, where Father Peter Donohue represented Villanova and Father Robert Dowd was there for Notre Dame. The pope told the gathering that athletics can teach cooperation and mutual sharing, especially in a time when technology can push people apart, and he said sport can promote fraternity, solidarity and peace.
He also made clear he was not there to choose a winner. Joking that he does not take sides, Leo noted the Notre Dame cheer from his years in Chicago and then pointed to his own Villanova background, a reminder that the room held two proud Catholic communities with a competitive rivalry and a shared faith. Even so, he said the teams are not enemies, and he expressed hope that fans and players would use their time in Rome to get to know one another.
The pope framed the games as more than a stop on a basketball trip. He said the Catholic Church has long promoted a vision of sport centered on the dignity of the human person, education and relationships, and he linked that idea to the Solemnity of All Saints, saying God calls everyone to be a saint and that no one is born a champion or a saint. In his telling, holiness takes daily training in love, the same discipline that shapes an athlete.
He recalled Pier Giorgio Frassati as a saint for whom sports mattered and closed by asking those present to let every part of life, including athletic pursuits, help them love God and neighbor. He said Christians run the race of life for an imperishable crown of glory, but the real prize is everlasting life. What happens next is simple enough: on Sunday, the two universities take their place in Rome for the Eternal City Tip-Off, carrying the pope’s message with them as the games begin.
