“Mary, I hope I will never disgrace you” were Peyton’s first words on regaining his health, and from that moment he dedicated his life, with a single-mindedness that verged on obsession, to Marian devotion.68 Casting around for ways to promote his cause, he remembered how during his childhood his parents had gathered their children together at the end of each day to say the rosary. To Peyton, this act was not only “the greatest tribute that could possibly be given,” it also made their humble home into “a cradle, a school, a university, a library and, most of all, a little church.”69 In 1942, he wrote his Holy Cross superiors, asking their permission to devote himself to the mission of bringing the rosary back to ten million American homes. Impressed by his zeal, they granted him the rare favor of an independent apostolate. After a massive letter-writing campaign, Peyton established a Family Rosary Crusade office in Albany, New York. Next, following a trail blazed by Fulton Sheen (as well as the notoriously racist “radio priest,” Charles Coughlin), Peyton took to the airwaves on Mother’s Day 1945 with a half-hour broadcast that included a blessing from Francis Spellman; a guest spot by Bing Crosby; and the nation’s most
“loved and revered family,” the Sullivans of Iowa, who had lost five sons on a battleship sunk in the Pacific, leading the rosary.70
Peyton’s radio show, which was followed by the launch two years later of the star-studded weekly broadcast
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lieved to be under threat from such scourges of modernity as divorce, birth control, and juvenile delinquency.71 With his rosy-hued invocations of his rustic Irish childhood, stern admonitions that family disunity was “the deadly sin of our age,” and memorable slogan “The family that prays together stays together,” Peyton captured the spirit of the times perfectly.72
Not all Catholic clerics approved of his brand of populist pietism, however; indeed, several of his superiors in Holy Cross came to regret the independence they had allowed him, not least because Peyton was prone to stating that he owed his obedience to Mary, not them. “We really didn’t like that,” recalled a fellow religious.73 Still, it was difficult to argue with Peyton’s dedication to the Virgin—colleagues later remembered that he would appear detached, even sullen, during mealtimes, until the conversation turned to Mary, at which point he would suddenly become animated, as if a lightbulb had been switched on74—just as it was impossible not to admire his ingenuity in using mass entertainment media to spread his message. Not content with the success of the Family Theater on radio, during the 1950s the rosary priest branched out into television, making devotional dramas such as
Most remarkable, however, was Peyton’s success in utilizing a form of worship usually associated with Protestant evangelizing: the open-air prayer meeting. Starting in London, Ontario, in 1948, the Family Rosary Crusade staged a series of rallies at which crowds, often more than a hundred thousand strong, heard the priest reminisce about his upbringing in Ireland, describe his miraculous recovery, and recite the rosary. The dioce-san crusades all followed the same basic pattern, which Peyton likened to a military campaign. First there was an aerial bombardment, with mass media being used to soften the ground. Next came the crusade itself, with religious and lay assistants moving into localities like so many troops seeking to capture territory from the enemy, the climactic battle being the rally itself. Following the Family Rosary’s inevitable victory, there was an occupation, a follow-up campaign designed to maintain the devotional intensity aroused by Peyton.75 He was, by all accounts, an extraordinarily ef-
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fective preacher. While far from eloquent—Bishop Thomas Flynn of Lan-caster, England, described him as “quite artless, unstudied, [and] simple”—