Editor’s note: The following essay appears in the Spring 2022 issue of Eikon.
“The family that prays together stays together.” This very catchy phrase was created as a motto in 1947 for the Roman Catholic Family Rosary Crusade, which was led by an Irish priest named Patrick Peyton (1909–1992). Inspired by the fact that prior to the world-changing naval Battle of Lepanto (1571), soldiers and sailors of the Holy League — a coalition of Roman Catholic states — had prayed to the Virgin Mary through the rosary for victory over the Muslim fleet of the Ottoman Empire, Peyton came up with the idea of praying the rosary as a way of combatting Communism. An advertising copywriter by the name of Al Scalpone (1913–2000), later a successful television executive, is actually credited with the creation of the motto.
Despite these interesting origins, the phrase does capture an element of the New Testament’s theology of prayer, namely the importance of praying…
