Special Announcement

Rev. Patrick Mooney
December 10, 1937 - March 18, 2025
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Fr. Patrick Mooney was born in Clonaslee, County Laois, Ireland on December 10, 1937. He completed two years of college in Ireland and entered Queen of the Apostles Seminary in Dedham, Massachusetts. Fr. Patrick graduated from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and was ordained as a Roman Catholic Priest in 1966. He consequently served in various parishes throughout the Diocese of Bridgeport, in Connecticut for forty five years. 

 

During this time, together with full time parish duties he served as a hospital chaplain and a teacher of religion in one of the Diocese's high schools. Convinced that the Church was too linear and dogmatic in its approach to communicating the Christian message, Fr. Patrick entered a graduate program in Communications at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. He earned a Master's degree for his undertaking and was appointed the media coordinator for the Christian Formation Center in the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut. 

 

Fr. Patrick has written, narrated, photographed and produced over twenty-four original multimedia programs, published six books on spirituality as well as an extremely large photographic portfolio.

 

Fr. Patrick's video programs are his original audio-visual programs on various subjects such as: father, mother, child-parent relationships, a search for meaning, family as a school of deeper humanity, divorce and separation, grief, death, the sacraments as well as Christmas and Easter. All these spiritual meditations were hammered out on the anvil of Celtic Mysticism. 

 

Fr. Patrick wrote, photographed, produced and narrated all of his own programs. Rather than a stop gap Theology, Fr. Patrick would often speak of how Irish Celtic spirituality proposes, "The mystery of the ordinary. If we do not see and live the mystery of God in the here and the now, we will not know God in the hereafter. He loved this to the fullest. “ He believed that “Life is a continuum. We are infinite consciousness. We move from immanence to transcendence.”

 

Fr. Patrick believed deeply and lived a life of Irish Celtic spirituality which emphasizes that there is only a thin line between heaven and earth. With a spiritual perspective that, “Heaven is but an inch and a half above the head of a man." His retreat home in Moneyquid, Killeigh, County Laois, Ireland is aptly named "Anam Cara" which means "Soul Friend". Fr. Patrick, who was friends to many, believed that we develop a friendship with all that is deepest about our own interior and that we become aware that consciousness envelops and surrounds us everywhere. The natural world becomes a sacred place where all that exists lives in an interrelationship and interdependence. The cosmos is one. There is no separation. Each one of us is the universe. There exists a great non-local intelligence that is very much alive and working throughout all God’s creation. With this perspective, Patrick looks upon the natural world as the voice of God. Divinity exists and teaches us all that is necessary through the world of nature. The one consciousness joins humans, plants and animals together, each according to its own electromagnetic evolution. For this reason Fr. Patrick's home, Anam Cara was created with beautiful gardens, animals and fowl organically infusing it with an obvious glimmer of God's presence.

 

Fr. Patrick passed on March 18, 2025 while retired and living on his small farm, Anam Cara, in County Laois, Ireland.

 

Fr. Patrick was one of 14 children to Julia and Sean Mooney of Clonaslee, Co. Laois, Ireland. He is survived by his brother Seamus of Rosenalis, County Laois and his sister Anno in Florida in America. Fr. Patrick also leaves behind many cousins as well as nieces, nephews, good friends, parishioners, and students who worshipped with him for 45 years. 

 

May Fr. Patrick rest in deep peace.

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Deep peace of the running wave to you
Deep peace of the flowing air to you
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the gentle night to you
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you

Deep peace of Christ to you