If you didn’t know that St. Patrick wasn’t Catholic, don’t feel bad-neither did we. But that’s precisely what we learned when we read this nonsense in the March/April edition of the Christian Coalition’s flagship publication, Christian America.
The so-called “real story” of St. Patrick wherein this fable was invented cited as its source “Friends of Wesley & Patrick,” an outfit from Pasadena, California. Fortunately, an address and phone number was listed. We called and guess what we learned?
Well, it so happens that the source person says he was misquoted in the magazine and that he never said that St. Patrick wasn’t Catholic. Knowing that we weren’t too thrilled with the story, he called the writer of piece in Christian America to let him know that he wasn’t too pleased either. The result is that the publication will retract the claim and make an apology to its readers in the next edition.
This may not seem like a big issue but it should be remembered that what gets into print gets circulated via the electronic media and other sources. This is how rumors get fed and how total untruths become accepted as conventional wisdom. That is why we jumped on this issue.
