Religion and Social Conscience
Patterson was a devout Catholic, and in 1979 sang at the Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II in Dublin's Phoenix Park before a congregation of almost a million people. In 1984 he was awarded the Knighthood of St. Gregory by the Pope. He was also a Knight of Malta and a Knight Commander of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. While many of his Irish songs were quite sentimental, he did not indulge in strongly nationalistic themes and the first funds raised for the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in the early 1970s were takings from a concert he gave in the Rupert Guinness Hall. Later, he continued to donate to the Centre from performances by him at the National Concert Hall in Dublin.
Read more about this topic: Frank Patterson
Famous quotes containing the words religion, social and/or conscience:
“A chaplain is the minister of the Prince of Peace serving the host of the God of War—Mars. As such, he is as incongruous as a musket would be on the altar at Christmas. Why, then, is he there? Because he indirectly subserves the purpose attested by the cannon; because too he lends the sanction of the religion of the meek to that which practically is the abrogation of everything but brute Force.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“A man’s social and spiritual discipline must answer to his corporeal. He must lean on a friend who has a hard breast, as he would lie on a hard bed. He must drink cold water for his only beverage. So he must not hear sweetened and colored words, but pure and refreshing truths. He must daily bathe in truth cold as spring water, not warmed by the sympathy of friends.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The President is not only the leader of a party, he is the President of the whole people. He must interpret the conscience of America. He must guide his conduct by the idealism of our people.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)