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Faithful invited to Oct. 15 Rosary Crusade

By Julie Filby

All are invited to Denver’s Family Rosary Crusade at 2 p.m. Oct. 15 at Civic Center Park. The same day, a similar event expected to draw thousands, will be held at San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza.

Both public rosaries commemorate the 50th anniversary of Father Patrick Peyton’s October 1961 Rosary Crusade in San Francisco that drew a crowd of more than a half-million people.

“(The 1961 crusade) was absolutely spectacular … wow!” said Father Joseph Hearty, F.S.S.P., chaplain for the Denver comitium for Legion of Mary, sponsor of the local event. “I couldn’t believe (the footage) when I saw it … people filled the large park.”

Holy Cross Father Peyton, whose cause for sainthood was opened in 2001, was known as “The Rosary Priest” for leading rosary events around the globe in the 1950s and ’60s. The 1961 event at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park was a symbolic high point of Catholicism in the country and promoted the slogan: “The family that prays together, stays together.”

The idea for a Denver rosary crusade was proposed to Father Hearty by a parishioner at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Littleton, where he serves as parochial vicar.

“A parishioner here read about the San Francisco rosary crusade in The Wanderer Catholic newspaper,” he said. “She brought it to my attention because the article mentioned that the Legion of Mary in San Francisco were the ones sponsoring it.”

He described the upcoming rosary crusade as “a great demonstration of our faith, our trust in God, and our devotion in the role of the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

“What a great time to do it,” he said referring to the month of October, the month of the rosary. “And (to do it) in union with the rosary crusade in San Francisco.”

Father Hearty will lead the rosary at the Greek amphitheater at the south end of Civic Center Park in downtown Denver, near the corner of West 14th Avenue and Broadway Boulevard, across the street from the Denver Public Library.

“We will pray for the protection of families during this very difficult time,” he said. “And to obtain peace, grace and healing for all involved—and for the whole Church.

“(We’ll pray that) we stop rejecting God in our lives,” he continued, “And accept him through his instrument, the Church.”

The Family Rosary Crusade is open to everyone, and is expected to last 30-40 minutes. Legion of Mary organizers hope to make it an annual event.

“It would be a nice tradition to start,” said Father Hearty.

The Legion of Mary is an international community of lay Catholics who serve the Church through spiritual and temporal works of mercy. This year marks 90 years since the organization’s founding in Dublin Ireland on Sept. 7, 1921, by Frank Duff. There are at least 50 praesidia, or groups, based at parishes around the Denver Archdiocese.