Tom Brady's father to share his faith

Tom Brady Sr. is so devoted to his Catholic faith that it almost cost the world a star athlete.

The father of the New England Patriots' two-time Super Bowl MVP quarterback studied seven years to be a Maryknoll priest before deciding to leave the seminary and later having a family.

He says the church has given him a lifelong community and a stable tenet of love. Since he just happens to be in the neighborhood tomorrow, he's going to share that publicly. Brady is to talk at Our Lady of Good Counsel School in Lawrence at 1 p.m. before he catches his son's Monday night nationally televised game against the Indianapolis Colts in Foxborough.

The 61-year-old insurance consultant from San Mateo, Calif., also gave the keynote speech at the Proud 2B Catholic Music Festival in Framingham in July, and while he doesn't give public talks often, he agreed to a request from the Lawrence pastor to appear.

The son apparently inherited his stamina from his father, who spoke by phone from his office at 6:15 a.m. PST this week before a crammed business day. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: What are you talking about Sunday?

A: I'm talking about, as we live in difficult times, how much more significance the church takes on and has always taken on in my life.

Q: How did you become an evangelist for your church, going to all these events?

A: I have to chuckle when you use the word evangelist. I don't think anybody would ever call me an evangelist. What I feel comfortable talking about, without embellishing it, is the role of the church and how important it has been in the life of me and my wife and my family. Most everything in my life has been centered around the church, whether when I was very young and was an altar boy, and then spent seven years in the seminary.

Q: You were on your way to becoming a priest. What changed that?

A: I had a Latin teacher who told me that it probably would have been smarter for me to propagate the faithful than propagate the faith.

Q: Can I infer that you had fallen in love?

A: No. He just realized that while I wanted to be a priest, there were other issues. Frankly, it was a very difficult time for the church, because the [Second] Vatican Council was taking place. It was a turbulent time in the church and for me. Maryknolls are very rich in the Boston heritage. It's the Catholic foreign missionary society, and they just do marvelous work. I was fortunate to be hooked up with them for seven years.

After leaving and getting married, the church has always [had] an important role, [such as] Marriage Encounter [a church program to enrich Catholic couples' marriages].

All the people closest to us in our life have been met through these various groups, and they continue to be in our lives 30, 35 years later. Many of our closest friends are the same people that are walking the same journey. They've allowed us to weather the storms in our lives.

Q: How about the storms that have hit the church, [such as] the sex abuse scandal?

A: It's beyond my comprehension that the hierarchy would have manipulated these priests between parishes after it came to their attention that these guys were molesters.

Q: How does your religion inform your business career?

A: Hopefully, when I'm doing business, I'm being honorable. We talk about the Tycos and the Enrons -- there are scalawags running those businesses, and the bottom line is that those aren't the companies; those are the hierarchy of the companies. It's true in government, too. We've got guys being indicted in Washington, D.C. Our civil servants aren't even civil. The way I live my business is the way that I live my life. It's fairly simple: You treat others like you'd like to be treated.

Q: You have a deep love for your faith. Has [your son] inherited that?

A: He's not in the seminary. That doesn't mean that he doesn't love it every bit as much. Absolutely, it's an important role for him.

Q: What's your take on the new pope?

A: I'm not sure. I just read the headlines, but when he starts talking about clergy can't be gay, it makes it such an exclusive club. I don't think that Jesus ever excluded people. He brought everybody in, and everybody was welcome.

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