DESPITE being called on to play international football, Sydney Swan Jared Crouch cites his role as World Youth Day Ambassador as an even greater honour.
Organised by the Catholic Church, World Youth Day is expected to attract 125,000 international visitors and will mark the first visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Australia.
“It even ranks higher than representing Australia, because it’s such an honour to be able to share my faith with so many thousands of people,” Crouch says.
“I’ve been in Sydney for a long time and been to many big events and I know it brings out the best in our city so it’s going to be such an amazing time and such a happy time. It’s going to be something I remember for the rest of my life. It’s going to have that awesome vibe, that spiritual vibe and it’s one of those once in a life time opportunities to have Pope Benedict in our country.”
Crouch has never been shy about discussing his religious beliefs and is touched by the reaction of members of the community to his openness.
“I’m not going to hide the fact that I’m a catholic and I’ve always been very happy to talk about things like my faith. I’m not about saying ‘I’m a catholic, everybody should be a catholic’, that’s not what it’s about.
“Through my career I’ve received some amazing letters from people who have written to me to say how they had read articles about me talking about my faith and how it’s given them strength to continue to develop their faith and find out more about their life and how they can achieve what they want in life.”
In fact, Crouch says his faith is the foundation of his life.
“My faith is incredibly important to me. It is what gives my life meaning. You look at the grand scheme of things and you think about your life and I often think, ‘I run around chasing a pig’s skin ball’. That’s what I do in the grand scheme of things. So I guess for me, what I’ve learned from my faith is that we’ve all been given different talents by God and it’s up to us to develop those talents to the best of our ability and to use them not for ourselves but for other people to enjoy.”
Crouch will visit schools all over Sydney to conduct talks as well as meeting with foreign visitors during their stay in the Harbour City. With so much to do, he’s enlisted the help of two other Swans – Tadhg Kennelly and Brendan Murphy.
“Being Irish boys, I know they go to church. I’ve gone to church with Tadhg in the past and when I spoke to them about being an ambassador they just said if there’s anyway they can help they’d love to.”
Crouch says the boys will draw on their own experience of life and faith to converse with students.
“We’ve managed to achieve what we wanted to in life so to be able to go to schools and talk to school kids, not only about becoming AFL footballers but about becoming whatever they want to be in life, whether it’s a teacher or a doctor or a rugby league player, it doesn’t really matter.
“Simply by talking to fans or children in hospital and bringing smiles to peoples’ faces, to me that’s what my faith has taught me and what I try and do as often as possible.”
Crouch admits that he’s excited by the prospect of possibly getting to meet the Pope.
“He is our spiritual leader here on earth. It would be amazing. For me over the past few months, meeting Cardinal [George] Pell has been amazing. We’re talking about people who have devoted their whole lives to the faith of others. To be in among them is really humbling.”
