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News Agency’s Sweet Sistine missed Bergoglio

Amidst the American craze of “March Madness”, the Religion News Service (RNS) decided to put a twist on this year’s NCAA bracket.

During the selection of the pope, the RNS created a Sweet Sistine (playing on the tournaments Sweet 16) in which they polled which Cardinal was going to be selected as the 266th pope.

March Madness is American Division 1 Men’s College Basketball in which 68 teams enter a four-week tournament of single elimination in hopes of being the final champion.

Fans fill out a “bracket” predicting the winners of each round leading up into the final. The winner is chosen by earning the most points total after each round.

The RNS created a bracket of 16 Cardinals to battle it out, allowing for voters to choose who would win from each part of the world. Since there was no heavy favourite for pope, the RNS picked random Cardinals.

With nearly 40,000 votes, Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Nigeria was chosen as to most likely be the next Roman Catholic leader.

The “madness” of it all was the Jorge Mario Bergoglio was not even on the list. In America, he would be known as an underdog in a “heavy upset.”

Pope Francis was selected on 13 March and was officially admitted on 19 March.

Although that bracket was not correct, American college students will go head to head on 21 March at 4:15pm London time.