Updates on the story itself can be found here as well as at other news outlets.

I'm making a thread about this because I know there are several Catholic colleges and universities that play sports, most notably, Notre Dame, Boston College, and the Catholic 7 of the Big East. (Okay, at least off the top of my head.) (Also, I'm a Southern Baptist, but I happen to be a big fan of a Catholic school, as mentioned in my "I Root For:" section so I find this somewhat relevant to me as well.)

This is meant to open discussion into what sort of impact the Roman Catholic Church has on collegiate athletics here in America. Please keep all negative comments (religion-bashing or even political) out. Thanks.

Praying for all those affected

I think DavidSt had him as a D1 candidate. A shame.

(04-21-2025 10:05 AM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  I think DavidSt had him as a D1 candidate. A shame.

That is awful. (And yet, I can't help but laugh.)

(04-21-2025 09:06 AM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  Updates on the story itself can be found here as well as at other news outlets.

I'm making a thread about this because I know there are several Catholic colleges and universities that play sports, most notably, Notre Dame, Boston College, and the Catholic 7 of the Big East. (Okay, at least off the top of my head.) (Also, I'm a Southern Baptist, but I happen to be a big fan of a Catholic school, as mentioned in my "I Root For:" section so I find this somewhat relevant to me as well.)

This is meant to open discussion into what sort of impact the Roman Catholic Church has on collegiate athletics here in America. Please keep all negative comments (religion-bashing or even political) out. Thanks.

I'd say that it has nearly zero impact directly. Indirectly, whatever influence it exerts is due to ND in FB, the C7 in MBB, and whatever small impact BC has.

His namesake’s namesake university just dropped to D3. Coincidence?

(04-21-2025 09:06 AM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  This is meant to open discussion into what sort of impact the Roman Catholic Church has on collegiate athletics here in America. Please keep all negative comments (religion-bashing or even political) out. Thanks.

I find it interesting the D1 schools w/ religious affiliation tend to be Catholic.

The death of Pope Francis is even more relevant given last year's release of Conclave (a great movie if you have not seen).

I admired Pope Francis. He was a good, decent man and a strong servant to world humanity.

As to how the Roman Catholic Church impacts U.S. schools participating in D-I athletics ... it's an interesting question. No easy answer. I'm Catholic (though not in a conventional sense) and have long found fascinating the dynamic between the Roman Catholic Church and higher education in the U.S.

Another quality movie on this theme: Cabrini.

In honor of the late Pope Francis, perhaps the Orange Bowl can invite Catholic University, a pontifical university, to play the Orange Bowl again.

In 1936, the Catholic University Cardinals played in the second Orange Bowl game and defeated Ole Miss 20-19.

(04-21-2025 10:15 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(04-21-2025 09:06 AM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  Updates on the story itself can be found here as well as at other news outlets.

I'm making a thread about this because I know there are several Catholic colleges and universities that play sports, most notably, Notre Dame, Boston College, and the Catholic 7 of the Big East. (Okay, at least off the top of my head.) (Also, I'm a Southern Baptist, but I happen to be a big fan of a Catholic school, as mentioned in my "I Root For:" section so I find this somewhat relevant to me as well.)

This is meant to open discussion into what sort of impact the Roman Catholic Church has on collegiate athletics here in America. Please keep all negative comments (religion-bashing or even political) out. Thanks.

I'd say that it has nearly zero impact directly. Indirectly, whatever influence it exerts is due to ND in FB, the C7 in MBB, and whatever small impact BC has.

You're probably right. This was merely something I thought was worth exploring. That's all.

(04-21-2025 11:34 AM)bill dazzle Wrote:  The death of Pope Francis is even more relevant given last year's release of Conclave (a great movie if you have not seen).

I admired Pope Francis. He was a good, decent man and a strong servant to world humanity.

As to how the Roman Catholic Church impacts U.S. schools participating in D-I athletics ... it's an interesting question. No easy answer. I'm Catholic (though not in a conventional sense) and have long found fascinating the dynamic between the Roman Catholic Church and higher education in the U.S.

Another quality movie on this theme: Cabrini.

I got up early this am then went right back to sleep, but not before reading about the pope. Thus, I spent a couple of hours in a weird half-sleep/dream state, which somehow brought me to the conclusion that it's interesting that the Romans still have such an enormous influence on the Western World nearly 1600 years after the fall of Rome itself.

I still think that the church has negligible influence on College Athletics though, as I can't imagine that the Rev Dowd spends much time consulting with Rome about which Defensive tackle should start on Saturday or whatnot, and no other Catholic institution has much influence at all on CFB.

(04-21-2025 12:27 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(04-21-2025 11:34 AM)bill dazzle Wrote:  The death of Pope Francis is even more relevant given last year's release of Conclave (a great movie if you have not seen).

I admired Pope Francis. He was a good, decent man and a strong servant to world humanity.

As to how the Roman Catholic Church impacts U.S. schools participating in D-I athletics ... it's an interesting question. No easy answer. I'm Catholic (though not in a conventional sense) and have long found fascinating the dynamic between the Roman Catholic Church and higher education in the U.S.

Another quality movie on this theme: Cabrini.

I got up early this am then went right back to sleep, but not before reading about the pope. Thus, I spent a couple of hours in a weird half-sleep/dream state, which somehow brought me to the conclusion that it's interesting that the Romans still have such an enormous influence on the Western World nearly 1600 years after the fall of Rome itself.

I still think that the church has negligible influence on College Athletics though, as I can't imagine that the Rev Dowd spends much time consulting with Rome about which Defensive tackle should start on Saturday or whatnot, and no other Catholic institution has much influence at all on CFB.

That's not exactly what I meant by starting this thread, but okay.

(04-21-2025 11:34 AM)bill dazzle Wrote:  The death of Pope Francis is even more relevant given last year's release of Conclave (a great movie if you have not seen).

I admired Pope Francis. He was a good, decent man and a strong servant to world humanity.

As to how the Roman Catholic Church impacts U.S. schools participating in D-I athletics ... it's an interesting question. No easy answer. I'm Catholic (though not in a conventional sense) and have long found fascinating the dynamic between the Roman Catholic Church and higher education in the U.S.

Another quality movie on this theme: Cabrini.

Agree 100% with the bolded part.

(04-21-2025 11:01 AM)Bronco14 Wrote:  

(04-21-2025 09:06 AM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  This is meant to open discussion into what sort of impact the Roman Catholic Church has on collegiate athletics here in America. Please keep all negative comments (religion-bashing or even political) out. Thanks.

I find it interesting the D1 schools w/ religious affiliation tend to be Catholic.

We can point to a lot of historical reasons for the prevalence of Catholic universities generally (not just Division I). At a base level, the Catholic Church has a more hierarchical and centralized structure (hence the Pope as the leader) while still having a massive scale in terms of size. There are a lot of denominations and religions that that are centralized but have a smaller number of members or, alternatively, decentralized but has very large numbers of members (e.g. the umbrella of evangelical Christians that collectively have large numbers but have largely decentralized separate church leadership structures), but very few (and maybe no one) with the combination of centralization and size of the Catholic Church.

So, in countries where Catholicism is the dominant religion, the Catholic Church would often drive a lot of educational systems in society. In places where Catholicism wasn’t in the dominant position and/or faced a lot of discrimination (such as late-19th century and early-20th century America), the Church created parallel education systems with a lot of them that live on to this day. Now, plenty of religions and denominations have their own education systems, as well, but the Catholic Church could do it at scale with its combo of centralized leadership that has always focused heavily on education for centuries and the scale of the number of members that could support much larger and comprehensive educational systems.

(04-21-2025 01:19 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(04-21-2025 11:01 AM)Bronco14 Wrote:  

(04-21-2025 09:06 AM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  This is meant to open discussion into what sort of impact the Roman Catholic Church has on collegiate athletics here in America. Please keep all negative comments (religion-bashing or even political) out. Thanks.

I find it interesting the D1 schools w/ religious affiliation tend to be Catholic.

We can point to a lot of historical reasons for the prevalence of Catholic universities generally (not just Division I). At a base level, the Catholic Church has a more hierarchical and centralized structure (hence the Pope as the leader) while still having a massive scale in terms of size. There are a lot of denominations and religions that that are centralized but have a smaller number of members or, alternatively, decentralized but has very large numbers of members (e.g. the umbrella of evangelical Christians that collectively have large numbers but have largely decentralized separate church leadership structures), but very few (and maybe no one) with the combination of centralization and size of the Catholic Church.

So, in countries where Catholicism is the dominant religion, the Catholic Church would often drive a lot of educational systems in society. In places where Catholicism wasn’t in the dominant position and/or faced a lot of discrimination (such as late-19th century and early-20th century America), the Church created parallel education systems with a lot of them that live on to this day. Now, plenty of religions and denominations have their own education systems, as well, but the Catholic Church could do it at scale with its combo of centralized leadership that has always focused heavily on education for centuries and the scale of the number of members that could support much larger and comprehensive educational systems.

I think this is a big reason. I'm sure a lot of those East schools were set up in response to Harvard for example. I also think there's more going on than 'the Catholic Church is big & cares about education.'

(04-21-2025 11:58 AM)Schadenfreude Wrote:  In honor of the late Pope Francis, perhaps the Orange Bowl can invite Catholic University, a pontifical university, to play the Orange Bowl again.

In 1936, the Catholic University Cardinals played in the second Orange Bowl game and defeated Ole Miss 20-19.

I'm all for it if they beat Ole Miss again.

(04-21-2025 12:33 PM)tf8693 Wrote:  

(04-21-2025 11:34 AM)bill dazzle Wrote:  The death of Pope Francis is even more relevant given last year's release of Conclave (a great movie if you have not seen).

I admired Pope Francis. He was a good, decent man and a strong servant to world humanity.

As to how the Roman Catholic Church impacts U.S. schools participating in D-I athletics ... it's an interesting question. No easy answer. I'm Catholic (though not in a conventional sense) and have long found fascinating the dynamic between the Roman Catholic Church and higher education in the U.S.

Another quality movie on this theme: Cabrini.

Agree 100% with the bolded part.

RIP. I know some conservative Catholics didn't like him but I liked the direction he was taking the church. Very curious to see who our next pope will be and hoping he will be similar.

That said I don't see any impact that the church has on College athletics other than people being dumb and getting married on Fall Saturdays and making me miss football games, but that's not really a Catholic problem.

First, my condolences to our Catholic friends here. It appears the world has lost a Godly man.

Second...its funny, I was talking with a DIII commissioner about this about a week ago. While I wouldn't say there's an obvious, direct, 1:1 relationship between the Vatican and college sports, I'm coming away thinking that there really IS a relationship. Walk with me here for a second.

Many moons ago, the parochial K12 system was a MAJOR pipeline for American students, even for kids who weren't Catholic. In the 1960s, north of five million children were enrolled in Catholic schools across the United States. This huge pipeline created enough Catholic school graduates to support not just the Notre Dames and Boston Colleges of the world, but smaller Jesuit Liberal Arts colleges all over the country..but especially in the Midwest and Northeast.

Now, I believe parochial enrollment is closer to 2 million people. I've had school administrators tell me that part of the reason is that Catholic schools have largely retreated from educating poor urban areas, instead focusing more on affluent families...since nobody has enough priests and nuns to run schools on the cheap. I'm sure that American frustration with numerous church scandals, as well as good ol' demographic change, have also played significant roles.

But without as many kids graduating from your local St. Patrick High School, you don't have as many kids deciding to go to Saint Francis or Le Moyne or Canisius. Even the Notre Dames of the world have had to change how they recruit students. This stuff DOES change college sports.

I'm not a Catholic, and I couldn't begin to speculate how the papal election could change parochial K12 education enrollment in the US. But anything that happens in the Vatican that results in more empty pews in the United States, eventually, will have a college sports impact.

(04-21-2025 03:43 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  First, my condolences to our Catholic friends here. It appears the world has lost a Godly man.

Second...its funny, I was talking with a DIII commissioner about this about a week ago. While I wouldn't say there's an obvious, direct, 1:1 relationship between the Vatican and college sports, I'm coming away thinking that there really IS a relationship. Walk with me here for a second.

Many moons ago, the parochial K12 system was a MAJOR pipeline for American students, even for kids who weren't Catholic. In the 1960s, north of five million children were enrolled in Catholic schools across the United States. This huge pipeline created enough Catholic school graduates to support not just the Notre Dames and Boston Colleges of the world, but smaller Jesuit Liberal Arts colleges all over the country..but especially in the Midwest and Northeast.

Now, I believe parochial enrollment is closer to 2 million people. I've had school administrators tell me that part of the reason is that Catholic schools have largely retreated from educating poor urban areas, instead focusing more on affluent families...since nobody has enough priests and nuns to run schools on the cheap. I'm sure that American frustration with numerous church scandals, as well as good ol' demographic change, have also played significant roles.

But without as many kids graduating from your local St. Patrick High School, you don't have as many kids deciding to go to Saint Francis or Le Moyne or Canisius. Even the Notre Dames of the world have had to change how they recruit students. This stuff DOES change college sports.

I'm not a Catholic, and I couldn't begin to speculate how the papal election could change parochial K12 education enrollment in the US. But anything that happens in the Vatican that results in more empty pews in the United States, eventually, will have a college sports impact.

And in comes Matt Brown with what I was looking for. Thanks, Matt!