TRANSCRIPT

For those of Irish heritage (which estimates place at roughly 25% of the U.S. population), today is a moment to stop and consider how the work of one man can change the world. 

Patrick converted Ireland, and, as the barbarian invasions of Europe began in earnest, it was Irish monks who preserved Western civilization by transcribing the classics and, of course, Scripture. 

They were among the first apostles of Patrick (after a manner of speaking), men whose families and earlier generations had converted to Catholicism and then committed themselves to the preservation of the Faith.

Eventually, Ireland became a mass producer of missionaries, carrying the Faith all over the world and, eventually, being one of the major sources of immigration to the United States thanks to the horrible conditions of life under British tyranny.

Today, however, the land of St. Patrick is barely recognizable as having any Catholic roots.

Hermann Kelly is the Founder of the Irish Freedom Party, a small political group looking to restore what has been wiped out in Ireland. He recognizes that much of the blame for what has happened in Ireland falls squarely on the shoulders of Church leaders.

With the collapse of moral and religious leadership, the entire nation has descended into darkness quickly. Ireland, perhaps the staunchest Catholic nation in the world at a time not too long ago, now accepts sodomy as marriage and child killing as a human right.

Ireland may, in fact, be the textbook example of what happens when a culture, thoroughly drenched and saturated in Catholicism, is betrayed by leaders and falls into complete secular darkness.

Michael Leahy is chairman of the Irish Freedom Party and recognizes that, in the absence of the Faith, the Irish nation began casting about for another direction — and walked away from the Church, opening themselves up for any storm that would come.

That storm would be a darkening of the mind and will when it came to controlling a population.

In many ways, Ireland has become emblematic of what has happened to the Church all over Western civilization. Religious leaders, unaccountable to anyone, eventually succumbed to the pleasures of earth.

They, in turn, perpetuated their own personal evil by recruiting, training and ordaining wicked men, disturbed men — many of them homosexual — who, in successive generations, warped the minds of the faithful, who gave them a free pass.

It would not be long after that (the corruption of the Faith) that the corruption of the culture would automatically follow, as automatic as night follows day.

That now places the onus squarely on the shoulders of the few remaining Catholics to dedicate themselves to the same work St. Patrick once did 1,600 years ago, converting pagans and barbarians to the One True Faith.

Saint Patrick was a man of intense prayer, but his love of souls was not confined to simply prayer. He was also a man of action — an ingredient in the work of the Church that many lay Catholics seem to happily overlook.

If you'd like to listen to that full interview with Hermann Kelly, please click on the provided link.

The best way to honor the Apostle of Ireland on this, his feast day, is to resolve within yourself that you are going to do something, to roll up your sleeves and get involved.

Catholics have always been willing to leave their comfort zone and get out into the world and fight.

In fact, if that had not been the case with the Roman Patrick, many of us would not have the Faith today.