What We Know About St. Patrick

Why have people honored Patrick's memory for more than 1,500 years?

BY: Greg Tobin

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March 14--Sunday, millions of Americans, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, will celebrate the feast day of Ireland's patron saint and apostle.

But why have people honored Patrick's memory for more than 1,500 years? What do we know about the man who causes such an annual fuss?

The little information that we have, from two documents that he wrote in the fifth century A.D., sometimes surprises and upsets the saint's contemporary admirers.

Here are some of the things we can state with near certainty about St. Patrick:

He was not Irish.

He did not carry a bishop's crozier or wear a miter, as so often depicted.

He did not drive the snakes out of Ireland.

He was not a "Roman Catholic," as we understand the term.

He was never canonized.

Let's take these points one by one.

First, Patrick was born in Britain, an outpost of the Roman Empire, the son of a landowner and government official, and the grandson of a Christian priest. (This was before the universal discipline of priestly celibacy in the Western Church.)

At about age 16, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders taken from his hometown on the British coast and sold into slavery in Ireland. After six years, he escaped miraculously and eventually made his way back to Britain.

Patrick wrote that in dreams and visions he heard "the voices of the Irish" calling him back to be with them. He felt an irresistible need to carry the Gospel to the people among whom he had lived.

He had to maneuver his way into a position of favor so that he could be appointed missionary bishop and then go back, never to leave Ireland again. Even when his mission was criticized by enemies across the Irish Sea, he did not return to defend himself. So Ireland was his adopted home, his spiritual fortress.

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