- Feb 5, 2002
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There was a time when Fr. Patrick Peyton was a household name. It was a time when he regularly spoke to crowds of over a million, when souls lined up to be saved and hardened hearts were transformed by grace everywhere he went. And then Rome told him to back off. And he did. He did not start a schism. He did not complain to the press. Rome had spoken. Case closed. Fr. Peyton’s covert million-dollar deal with the CIA was off.
Venerable Patrick Peyton (1909–1992) was born in Ireland, the sixth of nine children raised in a three-room farmhouse in County Mayo. There his life was filled with hard work and deep joy as his mother and his chronically ill father eked out a living on their small plot of land. However hard they worked, though, they never collapsed into bed before joining as a family to pray the Rosary. From infancy, Patrick Peyton was steeped in the family Rosary, the pious practice that drove him to every corner of the world and led him to preach to some twenty-eight million people over the course of his life.
Patrick was a fifteen-year-old dropout when he preached his first sermon on the family Rosary—to a man for whom Patrick had been working as a hired hand. It was the boy’s first time staying with a family that did not pray together. After a long week of worrying about them, he finally decided to speak, though with less eloquence than he would employ years later when his Family Rosary Crusade took him around the world.
But between this sermon and the seminary lay a path of some years. Patrick had to first spend his days literally breaking rocks to earn his bread. His temper made his attempt to earn a living rather difficult. As a teen, he stormed out of school—permanently—because he was mad at his teacher. After that, he kicked his ailing father for critiquing his work and lost a job after mouthing off to his employer. At eighteen, volatile Patrick saw no path forward in Ireland, so he and his brother Tom set off for America, where they settled in Pennsylvania with their older sisters.
Continued below.
churchlifejournal.nd.edu
Venerable Patrick Peyton (1909–1992) was born in Ireland, the sixth of nine children raised in a three-room farmhouse in County Mayo. There his life was filled with hard work and deep joy as his mother and his chronically ill father eked out a living on their small plot of land. However hard they worked, though, they never collapsed into bed before joining as a family to pray the Rosary. From infancy, Patrick Peyton was steeped in the family Rosary, the pious practice that drove him to every corner of the world and led him to preach to some twenty-eight million people over the course of his life.
Patrick was a fifteen-year-old dropout when he preached his first sermon on the family Rosary—to a man for whom Patrick had been working as a hired hand. It was the boy’s first time staying with a family that did not pray together. After a long week of worrying about them, he finally decided to speak, though with less eloquence than he would employ years later when his Family Rosary Crusade took him around the world.
But between this sermon and the seminary lay a path of some years. Patrick had to first spend his days literally breaking rocks to earn his bread. His temper made his attempt to earn a living rather difficult. As a teen, he stormed out of school—permanently—because he was mad at his teacher. After that, he kicked his ailing father for critiquing his work and lost a job after mouthing off to his employer. At eighteen, volatile Patrick saw no path forward in Ireland, so he and his brother Tom set off for America, where they settled in Pennsylvania with their older sisters.
Continued below.
The CIA and the Rosary Priest: Venerable Patrick Peyton, CSC
Meg Hunter-Kilmer on imperfection and canonization.
churchlifejournal.nd.edu
