Was St. Patrick a Baptist?

The Reformed Reader ^ | 1952 | Rev John Summerfield Wimbish

[Augustinian monk]

Green beer , anyone?

[IrishCatholic]

Sigh, I think you have had enough.

Not quite the Discovery Channel locating the tomb of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and their dog Spot, but was this drivel necessary?

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I prefer mine ORANGE. 8~)

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Kind of hard to claim that a man who was consecrated as a priest and bishop, who studied in monasteries, ordained priests, set up groups of dedicated virgins like St. Bridget, could be considered a Baptist.

But he was a man who deeply, deeply loved God.

And the world is a better place because he answered God's call.

[Commander8]

Thank you for posting this!

[Suzy Quzy]

Patrick is a SAINT BECAUSE he was a Catholic....the Baptists don't HAVE saints...DUH.

What is up with non-Catholics trying to de-moralize Catholics?? Ridiculous or jealously??

The Baptists don't think Catholics are CHRISTIAn....what a pathetic joke their leaders are trying pull off on them.

[Campion]

His father was a Christian deacon and his grandfather a clergyman in the ancient church of Britain, which had never come under the yoke of Rome.

History check. The "ancient church of Britain" was founded by the Romans, all myths about its alleged foundation by Joseph of Arimathea notwithstanding. The first Christians in Britain were Romans.

Britain was a Christian and Catholic country by the time Roman authority fell apart in the 5th century.

[Campion]

Oh, and, if I'm not mistaken, Ireland is not a Baptist country.

When, where, and how did the Papists take over Ireland? Dates, places, and documentation, please.

[Campion]

The truth about St. Patrick, missionary of Christ to the Irish, sent by the Pope of Rome.

[jude24]

What is this baloney?

The Baptists were an off-shoot of the Anabaptist Reformation. You will search in vain for a credible antecedent to the Baptists before John Smyth, a Puritan separatist. Reformed Christianity simply did not exist when St. Patrick was roaming fair Ireland. In AD 500 (when St. Patrick died), there weren't any other churches worth considering. There was the One Church, and a few splinter churches you wouldn't recognize as Christian either (mostly non-Trinitarian).

Heck, this was even before the East-West split.

This is a bogus attempt to hijack a man who was, without a doubt, a Bishop in the catholic church. There's no way a Bishop was Baptist. He might not recognize some of the teachings and practices that crept in the thousand years after him, but that does not change the fact that he was catholic.

I'll never understand why Protestants are so afraid of their Catholic heritage. I sure as heck am not.

[jude24]

When, where, and how did the Papists take over Ireland?

Hey! Facts! No fair!

[jude24]

it is freaking hilarious the lengths our separated (and apparently confused) brethern will go in order to prop up their own lack of connection back to the early church....by creating a false reality to conform to their own man-made beliefs.....

I grew up in the Plymouth Brethren. They're a small sect mostly known for introducing dispensationalism (the theology behind Left Behind) to Christianity, but anti-clericalism is their chief raison d'etre. When I was in college, I picked up a copy of a book called The Pilgrim Church. I put it down less than a third of the way through when the book started extolling the Montanists as predecessors to the Plymouth Brethren, since they were non-clerical. Something tells me that the Brethren would be quite uncomfortable having in their pedigree a man who claimed he was the paraclete, and his wife was the Second Coming of Jesus.

That's when I started reading the Early Church Fathers. It hasn't made me a Catholic, but it has made me a lot more comfortable with Catholicism (and Orthodoxy, as best as my Western mind can grasp it).

[redgolum]

You could actually make a good case that Ireland and St. Patrick used to be Orthodox. They celebrated Easter according the the Orthodox calendar, not the Latin, for a while (see the Venerable Bede).

[redgolum]

Meant to ping you to that last one.

[Augustinian monk]

The article will have to stand on its own. I have no independent scholarship to add. In fairness to the author, I do not think he meant that St. Ptrick was actually a capital "B" Baptist but was closer in theology to the Baptists than to Rome.

[ArrogantBustard]

Some folks believe that the Pope is the Antichrist, and that the Church is, in fact, the "Whore of Babylon". I expect that sort of puts a damper on one's enthusiasm for "Catholic heritage".

[ArrogantBustard]

You could actually make a good case that Ireland and St. Patrick used to be Orthodox. [rather than Catholic]

In St. Patrick's day, there was no such distinction.

[CholeraJoe]

St Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. He didn't pick them up and play with them like a true Baptist would.