Patrick Peyton

Patrick Joseph Peyton, CSC (January 8, 1909 – June 3, 1992), also known as "the rosary priest", was an Irish-born priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross who founded the Family Rosary Crusade. He popularized the phrases "The family that prays together stays together" and "A world at prayer is a world at peace."

Peyton staged massive rallies worldwide. He utilized mass communication, along with help from some Hollywood celebrities to promote his ministry. Peyton was a popular and charismatic figure in Latin America and the Philippines.

Peyton's cause for canonization was opened in 2001. Pope Francis declared him venerable in 2017.

Biography

Early life Patrick Peyton was born on January 9, 1909, in Attymass, County Mayo, in Ireland, to subsistence farmers John and Mary Gillard Peyton. Peyton was the sixth child in a family of five girls and four boys. The Peytons lived in a small cottage on a stony farm near the foot of the Ox Mountains. They were a devout Catholic family that prayed the rosary every night.

At age five, Peyton was sent in 1914 to his mother's relatives in Bonniconlon, County Mayo, to study at the Bolend School. However, he remained close to his family and deeply religious. In 1917, at age 8, Peyton was living with his grandparents in Attymass and attending school there. While living with them, he spent some time picking potatoes for another farm family. Realizing that this family was not very religious, he convinced them to start praying the rosary.

Immigration to United States

The two brothers arrived in New York City after a 10-day trip, traveling by steerage. They took the train from New York to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to live with Beatrice and her family. Nellie had previously spoken to Paul Kelly of Saint Peter's Cathedral in Scranton, mentioning Peyton's interest in the priesthood. Kelly told her to bring him to the cathedral for a conversation as soon as he arrived. Peyton refused and started looking for a job. In June 1928, Kelly searched for and offered him a job as the cathedral sexton.

Peyton took the job as sexton with hesitation, but his daily presence at the cathedral motivated him again to become a priest. Kelly encouraged Peyton's vocation, but insisted that he complete his high school education before admission to the novitiate. With Thomas deciding to enter the priesthood also, the two brothers entered high school while working at the cathedral. In early 1929, the priest Pat Dolan of the Congregation of Holy Cross came to Scranton to recruit new seminarians for his order. Peyton and Thomas left Philadelphia to enter Holy Cross School in Notre Dame, Indiana, the minor seminary of the Holy Cross brothers. The brothers professed their temporary vows to the Holy Cross brothers in 1932.

First radio shows

A Catholic college in the Albany area donated a time slot on a local radio station to broadcast Peyton's first program on the family rosary. Each week, he would invite a different Catholic family to pray the rosary with him on air. The station management was initially skeptical of the concept, but the show proved to be very popular with its listeners. US President Harry S. Truman, a non-Catholic, endorsed the program.

Peyton's program aired on Mutual in May 1945, In addition to Crosby, the show also featured an appearance by Cardinal Francis Spellman of the Archdiocese of New York. Also praying on the broadcast were members of the Sullivan family of Iowa. Five brothers from that family had been sailors on the USS Juneau; they had died when their ship was sunk during the 1942 Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.

Family Rosary rallies

The end of World War II in 1945 heralded the beginning of the Cold War rivalry between the communist regime of the Soviet Union and the United States. As it had for decades, the Catholic church viewed communism as its greatest enemy. According to historian Hugh Wilford, made this statement in a 1946 radio broadcast, 'The rosary is the offensive weapon that will destroy Communism—the great evil that seeks to destroy the faith.'"

In 1948, Bishop John Thomas Kidd of the Diocese of London in Ontario invited Peyton to hold a rally there. Several thousand lay volunteers were enlisted to promote the event and handle its logistics. The rally was held at Labatt Memorial Park, a baseball stadium in London, Ontario. Over 80,000 people attended the rally.

The success of the London event prompted Peyton embark on three-day rallies in different cities and countries. After obtaining the support of the local bishop, priests would promote the event to their parishioners. He conducted his first American rosary crusade on the grounds of St. Ann's Monastery (the Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Ann) in Scranton in 1949. Over the coming 15 years, Peyton staged massive rallies at sites in Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Oceania.

As Peyton was starting a Family Rosary Crusade in South America, Grace met with Allen W. Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Grace proposed that the CIA help Peyton in funding rallies there. After an approval by Vice President Richard Nixon, the CIA sent $20,000 to Peyton and asked him to go to Chile instead of his planned stop in Bolivia. Glad to get the money, Peyton complied. Over the next seven years, Peyton received $1 million from the CIA.

However, the Holy Cross brothers who knew about Peyton's CIA funding were uneasy with the idea of an intelligence agency funding Catholic activities. In October 1964, Theodore Hesburgh, the former president of the University of Notre Dame and a Holy Cross brother, reported the situation to Germaine Lalande, superior general of the Holy Cross brothers, saying,“I cannot alter my opinion that this situation is extremely dangerous . . . I believe that all of the good would be destroyed, as well as many other innocent works, if the facts of the matter ever came to light.”

Suffering from congestive heart failure, Peyton's health began to fail in the 1990s. He was hospitalized for it three times. Peyton finally moved into the Jeanne Jugan Residence in San Pedro, California, operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Death

Peyton died of kidney failure on June 3, 1992, at age 83 at the Jeanne Jugan Residence. He was holding a rosary at that time. He was buried on June 8 at the Holy Cross Cemetery on the grounds of Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts.

In October 2020, Family Theater Productions released a biographical film about Peyton, entitled Pray: The Story of Patrick Peyton.

The following are named after Peyton:

Patrick Peyton Athletic Complex, Gloucester Catholic High School in Sewell, New Jersey Father Peyton Centre, Attymass, Ballina, Co. Mayo in Ireland Father Peyton Family Institute in Bengaluru, India Father Peyton Family Institute, Lima, Peru

Celebrities who appeared on Peyton's radio and TV shows + Lucille Ball 1952 Hyde Park, London, England 100,000 1962 Bogotá, Colombia 1 million 1962 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 1.5 million