Basketball rivals face off at Vatican as Pope Leo tries to be neutral

VATICAN CITY- Popes have received heads of state, royalty and pilgrims by the busload in the Vatican's Paul VI Audience Hall. On Saturday, Pope Leo received his old college basketball team and, in a show of sportsmanship that went only so far, their opponents.

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 has strong support in the part of Chicago where the pope, born Robert Prevost, was raised.

"Growing up on the south side of Chicago, we oftentimes 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 US college basketball season.

Turning more serious, Leo acknowledged the natural urge to cheer, often passionately, for one's own side but reminded the crowd that rival teams "are certainly not enemies".

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.

Reporting by Gavin Jones and Yesim Dikmen; Editing by Alex Richardson/Reuters