The Pope has just 12 days to live … possibly

IT’S a commonly held belief in the UK that “every time Wales win the rugby grand slam, a Pope dies, except for 1978 when Wales were really good, and two Popes died.”

Fact? Or urban myth? Well, according to a study published yesterday in the BMJ:

Given the dominant Welsh performances of 2008, the Vatican medical team should take special care of the pontiff this Christmas.

The objective of the study, carried out by Gareth C Payne, specialist registrar in clinical neurophysiology, Rebecca E Payne, general practitioner, and Daniel M Farewell, MRC/WAG training fellow in health services research/health of the public, was:

To explore the perceived wisdom that papal mortality is related to the success of the Welsh rugby union team.

The study is titled Rugby (the religion of Wales) and its influence on the Catholic church: should Pope Benedict XVI be worried?

Will rugby be the death of Ratzinger?

The researchers found that:

When Wales win a grand slam, the chance of a papal death in that year increases. The general theory suggests a dose-response relation: when Wales perform particularly well, the expected number of papal deaths increases.

They added:

Since 1883, eight pontiffs have died, five of whom did so in grand slam years: Leo XIII (1903) when Scotland won, Pius X (1914) when England won, and Paul VI (1978), John Paul I (1978), and John Paul II (2005) when Wales won. The deaths of Pius IX (1922) and Benedict XV (1939) coincided with Wales winning the tournament, though without achieving the grand slam. Each papal death in this period coincided with victory for a predominantly Protestant nation (England, Scotland, or Wales) rather than a predominantly Roman Catholic nation (France, Ireland, or Italy).

A grand slam is achieved when, in a given season, one nation succeeds in beating all other competing teams in every match. We discard results from the six years in which not all scheduled matches were played (1885, 1888-9, 1897-8, 1972).

The team concluded:

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.

To our knowledge, every pope from St Peter to Pius IX (pope from 1792 to 1878) died without a rugby union grand slam being contested or won. Although rugby union was invented in 1823, the year 1883 offered the first opportunity for a rugby grand slam, when England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales completed their first annual international rugby union tournament. France entered the competition in 1910 (though did not compete during the years 1932-9). In 2000, Italy began to compete in the event, which is now known as the Six Nations Championship. Under our working definition, 53 grand slams have been achieved to date.

The special theory of papal rugby is nothing more than an urban myth, based largely on two Welsh grand slam wins in recent memory. This comes as something of a relief, as we are at a loss to see how the events could be linked, especially given the continuing rapprochement between Catholic and Protestant churches.

Nevertheless, using the Six Nations data from 2008, our model for the general theory of papal rugby predicts that 0.62 (about 3/5) of a Pope will die this year. It could be argued that Wales’ strong win over Italy artificially inflates their measure of performance; however, based on the historical evidence, we do not believe the Vatican medical staff can fully relax until the new year arrives.