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Last fall, Patrick McCrystal, director of Human Life International (HLI) in Ireland, inspired by photos on social media of hundreds of men in Poland praying the Rosary in public, began a project called the Men’s Public Rosary of Reparation and Repentance.
McCrystal discussed it with his colleague at HLI, Owen Gallagher, and both agreed they could “do something like that.”
“One thing led to another, and we set it up for five dates around Northern Ireland, starting Oct. 4,” McCrystal said.
The initiative, he said, is in response to Our Lady of Fátima’s request for the devotion of the Five First Saturdays, in reparation for the insults and blasphemies against her Immaculate Heart. It has since spread throughout the island.
In a video, McCrystal said that men are praying in reparation for the sins they are responsible for as men, which, he said, have helped bring Ireland to its current state, where secularism prevails and where abortion and same-sex marriage have been legalized. Specifically, McCrystal said, the men are making reparation for the sins of “abortion, contraception, all forms of impurity, reckless driving, dishonesty, and deceit.”
“One of my main comments to the men last month was, ‘If the men of Ireland took proper responsibility initially for the women in their lives, there would be no abortion crisis,’” he told Angelus. “Abortion is in one sense a manifestation of men’s irresponsibility. That’s why only men can properly do reparation and repentance. The women can’t do it for us.”
But, he added, “When people repent, God promises to heal our land.”
The organizers believe that praying the Rosary in public makes it far more effective. Mary “communicated to St. Louis de Montfort that public prayer is far more powerful than private devotion,” McCrystal said. “So we decided to get on our knees and beg God’s mercy for all of Ireland.”