Does God Support Celtic or Rangers?

One of my favorite quotes rom St. Paul is when he says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me..” (2. Timothy 4) This is one of the few references to sports in the Bible as far as I know and highlights how sport is seen as a struggle that requires great effort before the winner receives a well deserved prize. Paul´s comment may just be a metaphor but sport and religion can come together in real life.

Many sports originated from religious festivals in ancient times and prayers are said today at some events, particularly in the United States. It is common to see sportsmen and women making the sign of the cross or prostrating themselves on the field. Sports fans often display a religious fervor in their devotion to their teams.

It is well known that Pope Leo is a sports fan and supports the Chicago White Sox baseball team, AS Roma football side (that´s soccer to American readers)and the Villanova college basketball team. He is also apparently a dab tennis player.

As the World Cup football championship will kick off shortly in the US, Canada and Mexico I would like to highlight one particular religious rivalry that is epitomized by sport. I am talking about the bitter rivalry – “enmity” might be a better word – between two Scottish teams, Glasgow Celtic and Rangers. I have personal knowledge of this as Glasgow is my home town.

Celtic and Rangers represents two religious traditions. Celtic was founded by a priest in 1888 in a bid to raise money to help downtrodden Irish immigrants drawn to Scotland at the time. Most encountered poverty and hardship and faced discrimination by the majority Protestant population. Rangers, founded 15 years before Celtic, represented the voice of hardline Protestantism that was marked by a hatred of Catholicism, particularly the Pope, and loyalty to the British Crown.

Although this rivalry was based on religion, theological issues had nothing to do with it. In theory Catholics were more “religious” as they had no choice but to go to mass every Sunday while working class Protestants seldom went to the kirk as the Church of Scotland was called. Children went to different schools. Catholic schools were often run by religious orders, such as the Marist Brothers in my case. We Catholics had religion rammed down our throats every day while Protestant children had an easier time. Neither side knew anything about the others´ version of Christianity. My Protestant friends had only a hazy idea of what mass was and I knew nothing about why Scotland became the most staunchly Protestant country in Europe after the Reformation. To this day I have never attended a Protestant service.

Despite the decline in faith, with 51% of Scots saying they had no religion in the 2022 census, neither team makes any attempt to hide its religious differences. Rangers, for example, did not sign a Catholic player until 1989, more than a century after the club was founded. Celtic have never had any religious bar for players but always allowed priests to watch matches free of charge. When the late Scottish Cardinal Thomas Winning was buried in 2001 his coffin contained not only his biretta and a rosary but also his Celtic season ticket.

The clubs are also different politically. A journalist once wrote that the rivalry between the Old Firm (as Celtic and Ranger are known) had more to do with Northern Ireland than Scotland. Both teams have massive support in Ireland, north and south. Rangers fans generally wave Union flags while Celtic fans fly the Irish tricolor rather than the Scottish Saltire. These colors are reflected in the teams´ outfits – green, white and gold for Celtic and blue, red and white for Rangers.

The Protestants are well organized into secular groups such as the Boys Brigade and Orange Order which holds marches through the streets accompanied by flute bands. For their part Catholics have more religiously minded organizations like the Knights of St. Columba, now a worldwide association which was founded in Glasgow in 1919.

This hostility which I grew up with shows no sign of disappearing. It might even be getting worse thanks to the social media which is full of sites and posts in which both sides denigrate the other. It saddens me that a religion like Christianity that is based on loving your neighbor and compassion should have been perverted in this way. Christ´s message has been ignored and replaced by bigotry and hatred.

I suppose we should be grateful that these differences are no longer fought on the battlefield but it is a sad reflection on Scotland´s history that it still exists. After all, at the end of the day does anyone really believe God supports one team or the other?