St. Patrick: Pilgrimage to Peace

One hardly needs a reason to go on a spectacular video journey through ancient haunts in Ireland. But this deeply informative and visually beautiful account of St. Patrick's life and ministry in a widely divided, 5th century Ireland is a pretty good excuse to gaze upon the island nation's unending green. The film cannily opens on a St. Patrick's Day parade in Belfast, a city where violence between Catholics and Protestants took place for decades within living memory. The point is that Patrick is a unifying figure for several Christian denominations, as we can see by the huge crowds celebrating Paddy's Day and identifying themselves as one or another branch of the core faith. That same religious expansiveness applies to the wide range of scholars interviewed for the film, some Catholic, others Anglican, or Lutheran. Patrick's story really is the stuff of legend. Raised in Britain during the Roman occupation, a 16-year-old Patrick was kidnapped by Irish pirates and made a slave for seven years. After a desperate escape, he found his way back home but was troubled by dreams in which he was prompted to return to Ireland one day and convert the pagan Celts to Christianity. Eventually ordained, he took on the seemingly impossible task of uniting myriad, mini-kingdoms in pagan Ireland through his ministry, building churches, and eclipsing the spiritual influence of Druids on all-important chieftains. But what about all those snakes he mythically chased away? Well, in the centuries after Patrick's death, competition between kingdoms and churches to top one another in venerating him resulted in a lot of lore still with us. But as a viewer can see by watching "St. Patrick's Pilgrimage to Peace," the verifiable facts are enough to honor his memory. Strongly recommended. Aud: E, I, J, H, C, P. (T. Keogh)