Tom Rauen treats the papal election no differently than he would a sport.
As a Roman Catholic and the owner of Envision Sports Designs, a sports paraphernalia company in Dubuque, Iowa, he noticed right away that the conclave would coincide with college basketball's NCAA tournament. Instead of cranking out commemorative T-shirts, he and his company's "bracketologist" designed a bracket for office and parish pools.
Based on the bookmakers' favorites ? along with a few famous churchmen from Dubuque, dead and alive, thrown in for good measure ? they charted out the Sweet Sistine (16 contenders), divided them into regions (including the Archdiocese of Dubuque), and invented a mock March Madness showdown on Twitter. The bracket got 15,000 views in its first 24 hours online, Rauen said.
"If he had announced it in July or something like that, it might not have caught on," Rauen said. "But being so close to the NCAA tournaments and all these college tournaments, it's something that people are getting excited about."
Participants can narrow down the Sweet Sistine to the Ecumenical Eight, the Flagellant Four and the Diocese Duo. Those two finalists must duke it out for Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church.
Rauen is hoping for a Cinderella story. At the center of his bracket he put New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
"Having an American in the top seat as pope would really build and strengthen the connections American Catholics have toward the religion as a whole," he said.
? Manya A. Brachear
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