He played with Beckham, Giggs, and Neville.
Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin ordained former Manchester United and Norwich City midfielder Philip Mulryne as a Catholic priest.
Mulryne joined Norwich City in 1999 after making his Manchester United debut in 1995 and won the FA Youth Cup.
Mulryne joined Norwich City for £500,000 after playing four times for Old Trafford, once in the league in a 2-0 win against Barnsley and three times in the League Cup.
After 160 appearances at Carrow Road, he helped Norwich win promotion to the Premier League in 2004.
He retired after playing for Cardiff City, Leyton Orient, and Kings Lynn. He earned 27 Northern Ireland caps.
In 2009, the 39-year-old began his priesthood studies at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome after retiring from sports.
His Grace Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia OP ordained Mulryne a Dominican priest after ordination as a Catholic deacon in November 2017.
Norwich’s club website quoted Mulryne on his priestly transition.:
“It’s hard to pin down a particular moment. I would say it started in my last year at Norwich, not explicitly and I wasn’t thinking about it at that time but I started to get dissatisfied with the whole lifestyle.
“We have a wonderful life as a footballer and I was very privileged, but I found with all the surrounding stuff that eventually there was a kind of emptiness with it. I was quite shocked – why am I not happy when I have everything that young men want?
“It started me on a journey towards exploring my faith again, the faith that I had as a young man. I took a decision to come home for a year and it was really during that year that everything turned upside down.
“I volunteered at a homeless shelter for a while. I started going back to mass and I started praying again on a regular basis. I just found a real sense of fulfilment with it. Football was huge highs and lows and here was something that was giving me a steady sense of contentment.”
