Tom Cancelmo, co-founder of Fans of the Kingdom, poses with his dog while wearing apparel featuring the company’s crown-of-thorns logo. Inspired by a desire to show the Catholic faith as visibly as sports-team pride, Cancelmo launched the brand to encourage everyday evangelization through clothing. (Courtesy Photo)
For Tom Cancelmo, a Philadelphia-area marketer and avid runner, the idea began with a question: If people can proudly show their allegiance to their favorite sports teams, why not do the same for their Catholic faith?
“I felt the Holy Spirit tapping me on the shoulder,” Cancelmo said.
The tap has turned into Fans of the Kingdom, a partnership between two devout Catholic men creating sportswear that are designed to look at home alongside Philadelphia Eagles, Phillies, Penn State, or Villanova gear. But instead of a beloved bird, Nittany lion, or wildcat, Fans of the Kingdom features a crown of thorns as its logo.
“You spend a lot of money on Eagles and Phillies garb, hats, t-shirts and things like that, [so] the Lord was asking, ‘Why aren’t you doing the same thing for My kingdom?’” Cancelmo said.
“He didn’t use the term kingdom, but the idea that I have so much energy and enthusiasm to be a fan of a sports team. Why can’t we do the same thing for the most important fandom we have?”
Tom hooked Chris Murray, his partner at BTC Marketing and a fellow Catholic, into the concept, and they launched Fans of the Kingdom this summer.
“Knowing that owning a marketing agency, a marketing communications firm, that we had resources and talent here that could help truly create and launch a brand from soup to nuts, everything from the naming and logo development to the messaging and apparel design,” said Murray.
The result is a brand that occupies a space between faith-based workout and golf apparel and more casual everyday sportswear, Murray said.
At first glance, the logo may not immediately appear to be explicitly Catholic.
Yet when you look at the logo, in time it becomes apparent that it’s the crown of thorns — a reference to Christ’s Passion and the events of Good Friday.
“His kingdom obviously is a little different than our kingdom here on earth, and his death and resurrection is the foundation of our faith,” Cancelmo shared.
The crown of thorns emerged after the company considered numerous logo designs and names.
Murray believes that when people see the logo on someone, it literally becomes a place where people see someone’s faith on their sleeve at a time when clothing today expresses more about a person than ever before.
“Whether it’s when you’re golfing, working out, just casually wearing clothing to a game. I think people do want to represent things that matter in their life,” Murray said.
The company began with brand colors of navy and white on t-shirts and hats and have since expanded into Kelly green. They’ve now thrown in hoodies and quarter-zips.
Mockups of Fans of the Kingdom’s signature navy and white T-shirts featuring the brand’s crown-of-thorns logo.
But these items reflect something more important than the sports teams they love, and they’re marketing their wares to Catholic audiences like the thousands who traveled to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa for the recent AbbeyFest.
“We got a lot of positive feedback at AbbeyFest, a Catholic and Christian concert,” Cancelmo said.
“The feedback just from people [was] ‘Wow, we’ve never seen anything like this. It’s really neat to have it.’ We sold a couple thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise and apparel, so I would say it was very well received.”
The partners plan to add more women’s apparel and develop additional lines featuring messages such as “Thy will be done.”
For Cancelmo, however, the clothing is ultimately about something larger than branding.
Chris Murray wears a Fans of the Kingdom hat featuring the brand’s crown-of-thorns logo and a sun shirt bearing the message “Thy Will Be Done.” Murray and co-founder Tom Cancelmo launched the apparel line to help Catholics visibly express and share their faith in everyday life. (Courtesy Photo)
He acknowledges that he’s not the most verbal in evangelization, but said Catholics are called to bring their faith beyond the walls of the church.
“I think there are some Christians that more outwardly promote their faith and how they live their faith. I feel like as a cradle Catholic that, you know, we go to church on Sunday and we kind of stay in that sphere, but that’s really not what our faith is about,” Cancelmo said.
“It’s about, you know, not hiding it under a bushel basket and being more proactive.”
They are actively seeking more avenues to share what they’re doing, reaching out more to parishes, archdiocesan and other Catholic schools.
They are also using Fans of the Kingdomto help raise money for Paradisus Dei, the Catholic organization behind “That Man is You” and “She Is Called Woman” which are active in about 1,100 parishes across the U.S.
“What they’re doing to reach Catholics in America to get them out of the one or two hours a day on Sunday into mainstream living their faith, they’re doing some tremendous work,” Cancelmo said.
For Cancelmo and Murray, that is ultimately the point of Fans of the Kingdom: to turn something as ordinary as a T-shirt into an opportunity to witness to the faith.
“You got to live it and you can’t just talk about it,” Cancelmo said. “You got to live it.”
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