Rugby (the religion of Wales) and its influence on the Catholic church: should Pope Benedict XVI be worried?
retrospective_cohort · Level III
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 19091757.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1136/bmj.a2768 and PMC identifier 2605615.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
To explore the perceived wisdom that papal mortality is related to the success of the Welsh rugby union team. Retrospective observational study of historical Vatican and sporting data. Papal deaths between 1883 and the present day. There is no evidence of a link between papal deaths and any home nation grand slams (when one nation succeeds in beating all other competing teams in every match). There was, however, weak statistical evidence to support an association between Welsh performance and the number of papal deaths. Given the dominant Welsh performances of 2008, the Vatican medical team should take special care of the pontiff this Christmas.
Medical subject headings
- Catholicism
- Clergy
- Football
- Mortality