Pope Madness!

So Ken loves him some sports.  In fact, back in the days that we had cable, I swear the time/space continuum would collapse whenever Ken put golf on the TV.

Clearly, I do not share my husband's enthusiasm for athletic spectacle.

But a few weeks ago, when he realized that the Papal Conclave would be in March, Sportyspice Ken came up with a brilliant mashup:

Pope Madness!

The concept was simple- we would pick 64 interesting Popes from history.  We would create four divisions, and through a series of match ups, we'd see who was the winner.

A perfect combination of homeschool history lessons and brackets!

You can see the introduction of our "Papal 64" here.

Round One results are here.

You guys, I expected this to be sort of boring.  Sixty-four old dudes?  History + Brackets?  Blah.  But in doing the research for these articles, I've been having a blast.

Example:  All you reverts out there?  All you once-lukewarm Catholics-now-practicing-Catholics?  It's because of Pope Cornelius that you don't have to get re-baptized before receiving the Sacraments again.    Good Pope Cornelius supported the thought that one could receive Confession then Communion after a lapse in faith, which was in strong opposition to other bishops' thought at the time that re-baptism should be the only way to welcome a wayward son back into the Church.

Anyway, here's where we're at now:

(click on it in case you can't read microscopic lettering)

The results for the next round are by no means determined yet.  Head over to Aleteia to share your thoughts on who should advance to the next round and why.