There was great excitement and relaxation among the Clergy and members of Catholic Friendly Society, CFS, Thursday, February 16, 2023, when the CFS No 3619, held Sports Day with the Clergy, at Elephant Cement Sports Complex, Shagamu, Ogun State. The occasion being the 25th anniversary of the Sports’ Day with the Clergy and 120th anniversary of CFS, saw the members of the society, as well as priests come together to partake in various sporting activities. Speaking on the origin, and CFS involvement in the celebration, Worthy President, John Bajulaiye, President, CFS said the reason for the event is to ensure that priests take out time from their busy schedule to relax and engage in sports activities. He said: “We know how busy our priests are. In fact, for any Catholic who has ever been to the anniversary of any of our parish priests and you listen to their job description, in terms of what they do and all they go through, you will realise that they need, even if it’s one day in a year to just let go, forget about everything because the priests are very busy. They take care of the parish. They take care of the parishioners. “Every problem of parishioners they believe that the priest has a solution, and they are human beings. So, for us, we think there must be a day we should allow these men of God to come out, relax, forget about everything. And one of the ways we can do that is through sports. When you are involved in sports; any sports, you find that your mind is at rest. You forget about every other thing. If you have high blood pressure, it goes down because you are concentrating on the sporting activity you are doing.” He said one of the organisation’s objectives is to support priests, adding that that was the reason why Sports with the Clergy was founded. “We are happy that in the last 25 years, we have had tremendous patronage from our priests, and we believe that it’s something that we will continue to do for as long as the CFS remains”, he said. On the 120th anniversary celebration of CFS, Bajulaiye said that the first Laity organisation in the Catholic Church is the Catholic Friendly Society, as he added that the history of the society dates back to 1861, when the slave trade returnees came back from Brazil and Cuba to Nigeria.
He said: “You cannot tell the history of Catholicism in Lagos without the Catholic Friendly Society. We have been involved with the Catholic Church and our Mother Church, which is the Holy Cross. If we go into the history, you will see how active the Catholic Friendly Society has been. This year is our 120th anniversary and 25th anniversary of hosting our priests to this sporting activity. “For the 120th anniversary, we have decided to thank God that we have continued to exist for this long. There has been no disruption, no break. And therefore, we have some activities that have been planned to celebrate the anniversary. The first one is this sporting activity which we are having today.” On other activities marking the 120th anniversary, Bajulaiye disclosed that on March 29, being the CFS Patron Saint Day, the society will be having a thanksgiving Mass at the Holy Cross Cathedral, followed by reception where they expect the Archbishop to join them in celebrating the day. He said: “We are also doing a few other things. One of them is to contribute to the building of the home for our aged priests. Our plan is also to contribute to that project. And we are also supporting the Church by sponsoring one of the students who might be inclined to study music, and a few other projects. Therefore, I want to implore everybody as we have done to continue to support the Church and all its activities.”