CathalOhAimheirginWhat would St. Patrick think of how his feast day is celebrated throughout the world?
Anyone who is familiar with the life of St. Patrick would have to conclude that he would be disgusted with how his feast day has been turned into an occasion of licentious festivities contrary to God’s moral law. Aside from the few remaining souls that still honor St. Patrick through their fidelity to the Catholic Faith, the majority of people think of “Paddy’s Day” as an excuse to get drunk and party, and sadly the Irish people have spread this custom throughout the world. To add to this sacrilege, St. Patrick’s day parades have become mere pagan amusements with little or no connection with Catholicism. In fact, LGBT and other anti-Catholic groups are now allowed to participate in such parades without any resistance from Catholic organisers or prelates, such as Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who led the 2017 New York parade even though the LGBT were allowed to participate, and thousands of faithful Catholics petitioned him to refuse. 1
Do people really think St. Patrick would be pleased with drunkenness and LGBT flags being waved triumphantly through the streets to celebrate his feast day? Seriously! St Patrick was a man of extreme penance and prayer. He tells us in his Confessions that:
“In a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and almost as many in the night, and this even when I was staying in the woods and on the mountains; and I used to get up for prayer before daylight, through snow, through frost, through rain.” 2
Unlike the pandering cowardice in the face of sin that we are accustomed to from our modern bishops and clergy, St. Patrick was not afraid to speak the truth. e spoke of sinners as “slaves of hell” destined for “eternal punishment.” 3 In his letter of admonishment to the Christian prince Coroticus, which many scholars believe to be a letter of excommunication, St. Patrick’s words are just as applicable to many modern Catholics, both clergy and laity, as they were to the Christian prince:
“You betray the members of Christ as it were into a brothel. What hope have you in God, or anyone who thinks as you do, or converses with you in words of flattery? God will judge. For Scripture says: ‘Not only them that do evil are worthy to be condemned, but they also that consent to them.'” 4
So how did St. Patrick’s day become a celebration of sin rather than St. Patrick? As the old saying goes: corruption of the best is the worst. Nowhere can this be seen better than in Ireland. The Irish people were once renowned for their great learning, numerous saints, monasteries, and Catholic spirit, now the Irish are renowned for drinking and being the first country in the world to vote for same-sex “marriage.”
To this day, the opening paragraphs of the Irish Constitution of 1937 proclaim the social kingship of Jesus Christ. The Constitution opens with the preamble:
“In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred, We, the people of Éire, Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial…Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.” 5
Unfortunately, Ireland has seen some major changes since its Constitution was enacted in 1937. The ban on contraception was removed in 1980; homosexual activity was decriminalized in 1993; divorce was signed into law in 1996; same-sex marriage was legalized in 2015, and abortion is just around the corner. Worst of all, in the wake of Vatican II’s new springtime for the Church, Ireland has seen an ever decreasing number of vocations to priestly and religious life, as well as numerous closings of once booming seminaries, monasteries, and religious houses. Going by the drought of seminarians in Maynooth, the only seminary left in Ireland, and given the fact that the average age of an Irish priest was 70 years old in 2017, it is clear that the Catholic Church in Ireland is facing extinction. 6
The legalization of same-sex “marriage” in 2015 revealed to the world that the Catholic Church in Ireland no longer held any power over public policy. The strongest influence from the Church at the time came from a number of heretical priests who openly advocated for same-sex “marriage.” 7 The Bishops of Ireland did almost nothing to oppose same-sex “marriage,” nor did they punish the numerous priests who openly told the public in their Sunday sermons and to media outlets, that they were voting for same-sex “marriage.” The only thing the Bishop did was release a pathetic pastoral letter prior to the referendum, which spoke of the beauty of true marriage, but left the final decision to the conscience of each individual. 8 On a personal note, during the referendum, every time I campaigned for true marriage by handing out literature outside Catholic Churches, I was constantly being rebuked by parishioners telling me that the Bishop’s letter said they were free to make up their own minds on the issue!
This kind of behavior from the Irish bishops comes as no surprise, given the conduct in the Vatican these days. The silence of Pope Francis before and after the legalization of same-sex “marriage” in Ireland did nothing to strengthen the few remaining faithful Catholics in their uphill battle against both the world and traitors within the Church herself. In fact, one of the few comments which came from the Vatican at the time, came from the Pope’s close friend, Cardinal Kasper, who defended the vote of the Irish in favor of same-sex “marriages,” telling Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera:
“A democratic state has the duty to respect the will of the people; and it seems clear that, if the majority of the people wants such homosexual unions, the state has a duty to recognize such rights.” 9
In light of the uphill battle facing Catholics in Ireland, one might ask the question: Is Ireland beyond redemption? The answer is No! Nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). Just look at how the conversion of Constantine changed the spiritual and political situation of the persecuted early Christians.
Miraculously, despite all the media propaganda and treachery from the hierarchy, there are a remnant of faithful souls left in Ireland; souls faithful to the faith their ancestors died to preserve. These souls may yet have to shed their blood for the faith, but for now, their persecution consists in being the outcasts of modern Irish society, at odds with both the world and the Irish hierarchy. They continue to proudly profess the name Catholic in a country where the very word breeds either hatred, due to clerical scandal, or laughter, due to its association with the hyper-feminine, hippy Catholicism which spawned from Vatican II’s “renewal” of the Church.
St. Patrick, pray for us!
1 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-dolan-marches-with-homosexual-activists-at-nyc-st.-patricks-parade
2 http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/PATCONF.htm
3 http://www.catholic.org/saints/saintpatrick/epistola.php
4 Ibid
5 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Ireland_(original_text)
6 https://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/irish-catholicism-dying-no-priests-mass
7 http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/is-this-the-death-of-the-catholic-church-in-ireland
8 https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2015/04/24/marriage-family-pastoral-letter-bishop-john-buckley/
Matt Gaspers
