The color Catholic Cardinals wear is scarlet, which symbolizes the blood of Christ. It’s a different shade of red than what the football cardinals wear.

As I said above, the Chicago Cardinals got their name from the color of the faded jerseys:

>In 1898, Chicago painting and building contractor Chris O'Brien established an amateur Chicago-based athletic club football team named the "Morgan Athletic Club". O'Brien later moved them to Chicago's Normal Park and renamed them the "Racine Normals", since Normal Park was located on Racine Avenue in Chicago. In 1901, O'Brien bought used maroon uniforms from the University of Chicago, the colors of which had by then faded, leading O'Brien to exclaim, "That's not maroon; it's cardinal red!" It was then that the team changed its name to the "Racine Street Cardinals".[1]