Celebrating St. Patrick's mission to Ireland

The man now revered as one of the world's greatest Christian missionaries and the patron saint of Ireland found his greatest success among his former captors and persecutors.

So as thousands of Utahns join millions of Irish Catholics worldwide in celebrating St. Patrick this week, the focus may be on shamrocks, wearin o' the green, beer and celebration, but the foundation of that merrymaking is a deep religious faith that swept the Emerald Isle more than 1,600 years ago. (See accompanying list of celebrations)

Father Patrick Carley, a namesake and leader of St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church, said while St. Patrick was not the first Catholic missionary to Ireland, "their efforts seemed to coalesce under him." Some speculate his stunning success at evangelizing what was then a primarily pagan region may have come out of his familiarity with the people. He spent several years as a teenager living as a captive among them after Irish raiders captured him and enslaved him as a shepherd.

"There was something about him that appealed to the Irish, and they later wrote of him with great affection," Father Carley said.

After his ordination to the priesthood and service in the ministry in Britain following his escape as a slave, he returned to the people who had held him captive and was able to preach a Christianity "that fit right in with some of the old Celtic paganism in a way that there was sort of a seamless fit," Father Carley said.

"They cherished many of the things that Christians do, in their disciplined practice of religion in everyday life.

Today, though other missionaries were active at the same time he was, St. Patrick has become the focal point for Ireland's conversion to Catholicism, which still holds a firm place in the minds and hearts of its citizens, he said.

That religious zeal continues, he said, as the Catholic church sends missionaries worldwide, most of them to serve and care for the poor rather than to evangelize. "There is a great concern that we have to respect other people in their ways and traditions. Missionary work is not primarily to make them Catholic or Christian, but if by the example of their lives it happens, that's all to the good for us."

When Father Carley asks groups which nation St. Patrick is the patron saint of, all will name Ireland, though he is also patron saint of Nigeria, he said. "That's because of all the Irish missionaries, priests, nuns, brothers and lay people that have gone out from Ireland to serve there."