Father Patrick Peyton; the ‘Rosary Priest’

Father Patrick Peyton, the internationally known “Rosary Priest” who used his dogged determination and the media’s influence to bring spiritual crusades and filmed drama to millions around the world, is dead.

A spokesman for his Family Theater Productions said the priest who coined the phrase “the family that prays together stays together” was 83 when he died Wednesday of kidney failure at a Catholic retirement home in San Pedro.

One of nine children born to an impoverished Irish family, Peyton came to the United States with one of his brothers in 1928 to join the order of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. Both Peyton and the brother, Thomas, who survives him, became priests.

In 1939, while studying in an Indiana seminary, Patrick Peyton contracted tuberculosis. He told The Times in an interview many years ago that he prayed to the Virgin Mary that he might recover and live to fulfill his vows. He was ordained in 1941 and in gratitude, Peyton, with the permission of his superiors, founded his Family Rosary Crusade to encourage families throughout the country to pray the rosary each day.

Initially he traveled from parish to parish in the Midwest, preaching the strength of the family as the backbone of civilization, a lesson he said he had learned from his own modest boyhood. During World War II he also conceived the timely phrase “a world at prayer is a world at peace.”

But he was disappointed that his message, now spreading nationwide with the blessing of bishops throughout the country, was being accepted so slowly, and in 1945 he went to Mutual Broadcasting Network executives in New York with a plan for a special Mother’s Day radio broadcast. The success of that show sparked an interest in family prayer and ultimately--through radio, television, film, books and other publications--Peyton was to take his Rosary Crusade to an estimated 27 million people around the world.

In 1947 he decided to carry the message further through his own film production company. Because of his reputation, writers and stars flocked to the Hollywood headquarters he had established on Sunset Boulevard. James Dean’s second professional acting job was as John the Apostle in one of Father Peyton’s 1951 Family Theater productions. Over the years, such actors as Bing Crosby, Natalie Wood, Ronald Reagan, Raymond Burr, Grace Kelly, Loretta Young and Bob Newhart appeared in his religious productions, as did Mother Teresa. The non-sectarian television and film dramas were either original plays or adaptations of classics. At the end of each was a one-minute “commercial” urging a return to the simplicity of family life as exemplified through daily prayer.

In 1958 alone, Family Theater turned out 15 dramas on the life of Christ as depicted in the 15 mysteries of the rosary. Peyton also set up satellite transmissions of the Pope’s celebration of midnight Mass at the Vatican. Air time was donated.

The Rosary Crusade grew concurrently. From its headquarters in Albany, N.Y., it expanded to Spain, Ireland, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay and the Philippines.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union last year and the return of religious freedom, Peyton’s staff sent 1 million rosaries to the new Commonwealth of Independent States.

His honors over the years ranged from the spiritual (tributes from the last four Popes) to the secular (the Freedom Foundation and Thomas A. Edison National Mass Media medals).

He will be buried Monday at the Holy Cross congregation’s cemetery in North Easton, Mass.

Contributions in his memory are asked to Family Rosary Inc., Executive Park Drive, Albany, N.Y.