A sainthood campaign is underway for Celtic legend and devout Catholic Tommy Burns. His family has backed the campaign which would make him the first footballer ever to receive such an honour. The bid has been submitted to the Bishop of Paisley, calling on the former player, manager, and coach to be canonised by the Catholic Church.
Burns played 500 times for Celtic from 1975 and 1989. He won six league titles and five Scottish cups. Following time at Kilmarnock, he returned to Glasgow to manage the club from 1994 to 1997. In 1995, he inspired them to a Scottish cup win, the club’s first trophy in six years. Sadly, he never managed to win the league as manager with Celtic.
He remained working at the club until his death from skin cancer in 2008 at the age of 51, with the club’s grounds being covered in tributes.
A campaign is now underway for Burns to be the first footballer to ever be given sainthood. If the initial bid is successful, it will go to the Vatican with the pope deciding if Burns should be Scotland’s second eve saint since the reformation and the first since John Oglive in 1976.
The campaign is supported by his son Micheal Burns who said it would be a deserved honour, saying “if you look at what he’s done in his life that we now know, we didn’t know in the past but after his passing, all the letters that came through to us and the things that he did.”
Those running the campaign have been offering evidence of “holy acts” to highlight his suitability for sainthood.
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