Hello sports fans.  I'm sitting out on the balcony of the Vatican, having my morning espresso, going over the sports page of L'Osservatore Romano.  Let me tell you, I don't like what I see.

The Catholic Church started out with ten--ten!--schools out of 64 on the Road to the Final Four.  So far, 8 have been knocked on their donkeys like St. Paul and are lying in a ditch next to the breakdown lane.  We have only two teams in the Sweet 16.  This is not good.

"Nothing but net!"

Let me tell you, Villanova or Xavier better make it at least to the Final Four, or there will be hell to pay.  Literally.

Mark Few

I'm thinking, for example, of Gonzaga.   Every year, the Zags are the darlings of March Madness.  This year--eliminated in the first round!  I've got a call into the Archdiocese of Spokane.  This guy Mark Few--the head coach--as far as I'm concerned he's leftover tuna noodle casserole about to be scraped into the cafeteria garbage bin of college basketball history.  And there won't be any nun standing by to tell me to take my tray back to my seat and clean my plate because there are point guards starving in Bosnia-Herzogovinia.

Emeka Okafor

Here comes Francis Arinze, the Cardinal from Nigeria.  He's been completely insufferable since he picked UConn to go all the way in 2004.  Big deal, he knew Omeka Ekafor, or Emeka Okafor, or however you spell it.  Wants to be called "the patron saint of Hoops".  Puh-lease.  Makes me want to gag.  Thank God we have St. Blaise, the patron saint of people who get things stuck in their throats.  How ya doing, Frank--nice to see you too.  Yeah, see you in the gym later.

St. Blaise: "Try a throat lozenge."

Blow it out your shorts you overgrown ball boy.

I'm looking at my sheets and wondering where I went wrong.  Davidson beat Georgetown in the second round--I sure as hell didn't see that one coming.  Screwed up my whole Midwest bracket, and the entire game I was throwing everything I had at the TV.  Leaning into the low-post to help the Hoyas get better position, setting invisible moving picks to get G-town open looks.  Then Arinze walks in and says "It won't do you any good--the game's on tape delay."  What a wise-guy.  All because he figured out how to work the DVD player in the Vatican rec room first.

I'm pretty sure I'm still the Pope, the direct descendant and living embodiment of St. Peter.  They were eliminated in the first round, too.  No wait--that was St. Joseph's.  And St. Mary's.

If Kansas beats Villanova, and West Virginia beats Xavier, I'll have nothing to watch but boring half-court NBA basketball until next fall.

Remember to check Baltimore Catechism and see if suicide is still a mortal sin.