Patrick Peyton

Patrick Peyton, CSC (9 January 1909 – 3 June 1992), also known as "the Rosary priest", was an Irish-born Catholic priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, and founder of 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 Rosary rallies in key cities of the world and extensively utilized mass communication, helped by world-recognized celebrities of Hollywood at that time, promoting his ministry of binding families through prayer under the Family Rosary. Peyton was a popular and charismatic figure in Latin America and the Philippines, where he promoted the rosary and was known for his strong Irish accent.

His cause for canonization was opened in 2001 and Pope Francis declared him venerable on 18 December 2017.

Peyton was born Patrick Joseph Peyton in Attymass, County Mayo, Ireland, to subsistence farmers John and Mary Gillard Peyton. Peyton was the sixth in a profoundly religious family of five girls and four boys living in a small cottage on a 14-acre (5.7 ha) stony farmland near the foot of the Ox Mountains. Later on, some members of the family migrated to the United States.

Peyton was sent to his mother's relatives in Bonniconlon, County Mayo to study at a school run by Tadhg O’Leary in Bofield. As a young man, Peyton was rebellious and had moments of defying authority; as a result, he dropped out of school. Despite the youthful rebellion, he remained close to his family and deeply religious.

By his teens, he was considering a priestly vocation. Although religious recruiters such as the Capuchins and the Redemptorist fathers visited Carracastle in search of young men wanting to pursue the priesthood, Peyton concentrated on helping his family earn a living when their father became too ill to work the farm. Some of his elder sisters were already in America and sent money to help the family in Ireland. In 1927, his sisters sent word that Patrick and his older brother Thomas could sail to the United States and join them in Scranton, Pennsylvania. On 13 May 1928, nineteen-year-old Patrick and his brother set sail.

The brothers arrived in New York after a 10-day trip, traveling by steerage. The two took the train from New York to Pennsylvania and lived at the home of their married sister Beatrice, who was working as a housekeeper for Thomas J. Baldrige, the state Attorney General. Peyton's sister Nellie had already spoken to Monsignor Paul Kelly of Saint Peter's Cathedral and mentioned Peyton's interest in pursuing a priestly vocation. Monsignor Kelly told Nellie to bring her younger brother Patrick to the cathedral as soon as he arrived. By June 1928, with hard luck in finding a job, Peyton finally met Monsignor Kelly and was offered a position as the cathedral's sexton.

Peyton took the job with initial hesitation, but his daily presence at the cathedral brought back the calling for a vocation, and he finally decided to pursue the priesthood. Monsignor Kelly insisted that Peyton complete his high school education before admission to the novitiate. He and his older brother Thomas both pursued their religious vocations while working at the cathedral. During the spring of 1929, Father Pat Dolan of the Congregation of Holy Cross came to the cathedral in Scranton in search of new seminarians. Peyton and his brother Thomas entered the minor seminary of the Congregation of Holy Cross in Notre Dame, Indiana.