Bishop John Keenan has praised Br Walfrid, the founder of Celtic Football, saying that the Church needs more people like him who make ‘a better world.’
The bishop was writing in Celtic Minded 5, a collection of essays on the football club’s history and identity.
Br Walfrid founded the club in 1887 in order to alleviate poverty in Glasgow’s Irish community.
“No more than ‘knowing novices’ with ‘no football knowledge,’ they proved themselves able for the strategic, as well as the social, task at hand,” Bishop Keenan said.
For his ‘visceral anger at injustice and raw ability merits’, he said that Catholics have to hope ‘that the Church today will find personalities like Brother Walfrid.’
He also said the Marist Brother ‘stands as a challenge and witness to what can be done when men of good heart and Faith are allowed the kind of trust and responsibility in the Church that their visceral anger at injustice and raw ability merits.’
“What could the Church achieve were it to create some space for men in green and white – and women! – on the same team as those in black and white!” he said.