The Rosary is an offensive weapon

Father Patrick Peyton, who was born in Attymass near Ballina (County Mayo, Ireland), built a huge media presence in the US during the 1940s with his famous slogan “The family that prays together stays together.” …

His growing influence soon inspired him to bring the Family Rosary Crusade on the road, and he created an international stadium tour that attracted millions of people across the world.

His efforts eventually came to the attention of the CIA, which the documentary claims secretly funded his crusade as a weapon of devotion to fight Communism during the Cold War.

“The Rosary is the offensive weapon that will destroy Communism — the great evil that seeks to destroy the faith,” Peyton once said in a radio broadcast, conscious of the political nature of his crusade.

In 1959, the CIA started to secretly fund Fr Peyton’s Crusade, paying for advertising, promotion and events, with Brazil a particular focus of the strategy.

“I consider the Crusades in Latin America throughout the decade of the sixties as the most significant and the most effective,” Peyton said. …

As time went on, Peyton’s message became less powerful, and his influence declined before his death in 1992 at the age of 83, but in 2017, Pope Francis moved him closer to sainthood by naming him as ‘Venerable.’

The Journal