That’s a great question! But, like so much of modern life, it involves scrutiny because of extreme revisionism that has happened in recent decades. Let’s look at the beginning:
Patrick was a Roman Britain, raised in a Roman Christian family. However, like much of Christianity now, his family were nominal Christians by his own admission and Patrick himself had no real faith of his own. Until he spent years in slavery in Ireland as a boy. Those years forged in him a desperate thirst for God, which he found quenched through much daily prayer. His miracle deliverance from slavery forged in him a reliance upon God.
Patrick found the Christianity of his family and community (back in England) to be deficient, lacking the kind of intense reliance on prayer that had quenched his thirst. So, he found himself thirsty again. Ultimately, he was called to Seminary and at Seminary he found himself learning the Bible and developing a theology of Biblical prayerful reliance on Christ.
When Patrick was called to return to Ireland as a missionary – he knew it would be to form a Christian community as he had learned from the Bible. Relying on prayer and the word of God, Patrick moved boldly to reach the Irish. He spoke the Gospel to the people in their own language, formed Christian communities that were Christ-centered, Bible-based, extremely prayerful, engaged Christian communities; he educated the people. His method was unstoppable – because it offered a real Holy-Spirit empowered, Christ-filled, supernatural, and life changing Christian experience where illiterate Irish became some of the most educated and literate people of their world at that time.
Patrick’s disciples repeated his methodology. Cuthbert took the same methodology to the Northumbrians and transformed Northumbria to Christian in a single generation. Cuthbert was, in the most literal sense, a spirit filled Christian. Within three generations, the entirety of the British Isles were majority Christian. Others took the same methodology further afield back into northern Europe.
In later generations the Roman Church considered the Celtic Church to be “rogue”, so Latin-Rite Roman Catholic Bishops reigned in the Irish-Scottish-Welsh-English Celtic Christian church under the Roman banner and customs, focusing on ritual, creed repetitions, works-based, priest-centric, Roman (now Papal-led) system.
Is Celtic Christianity Catholic?
Patrick was a Roman Britain, raised in a Roman Christian family. However, like much of Christianity now, his family were nominal Christians by his own admission and Patrick himself had no real faith of his own. Until he spent years in slavery in Ireland as a boy. Those years forged in him a desperate thirst for God, which he found quenched through much daily prayer. His miracle deliverance from slavery forged in him a reliance upon God.
Patrick found the Christianity of his family and community (back in England) to be deficient, lacking the kind of intense reliance on prayer that had quenched his thirst. So, he found himself thirsty again. Ultimately, he was called to Seminary and at Seminary he found himself learning the Bible and developing a theology of Biblical prayerful reliance on Christ.
When Patrick was called to return to Ireland as a missionary – he knew it would be to form a Christian community as he had learned from the Bible. Relying on prayer and the word of God, Patrick moved boldly to reach the Irish. He spoke the Gospel to the people in their own language, formed Christian communities that were Christ-centered, Bible-based, extremely prayerful, engaged Christian communities; he educated the people. His method was unstoppable – because it offered a real Holy-Spirit empowered, Christ-filled, supernatural, and life changing Christian experience where illiterate Irish became some of the most educated and literate people of their world at that time.
Patrick’s disciples repeated his methodology. Cuthbert took the same methodology to the Northumbrians and transformed Northumbria to Christian in a single generation. Cuthbert was, in the most literal sense, a spirit filled Christian. Within three generations, the entirety of the British Isles were majority Christian. Others took the same methodology further afield back into northern Europe.
In later generations the Roman Church considered the Celtic Church to be “rogue”, so Latin-Rite Roman Catholic Bishops reigned in the Irish-Scottish-Welsh-English Celtic Christian church under the Roman banner and customs, focusing on ritual, creed repetitions, works-based, priest-centric, Roman (now Papal-led) system.
Published in Church History, Commentary and Teaching