Family Rosary Crusade is a worldwide campaign that eventually became a Catholic movement, which was founded by Patrick Peyton, an Irish-American priest who is being considered for sainthood by the Vatican.

Due to poverty and the need to help his family earn a living, that pursuit did not bear fruit until he was already in his twenties as an immigrant in the United States.

As a school chaplain in New York, Father Peyton lived a modest life and in his bedroom cell was a small bed, a study table and a painting of the Madonna and Child by Spanish painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

Peyton was drawn to the painting, which would serve as the main image of the Virgin Mary for the entirety of his Family Rosary Crusade efforts.

Soldiers of Lepanto, with no hope of winning the war against the Moors, knelt and prayed the Rosary before a perceived losing battle.

Peyton began writing to bishops, priests and Catholic lay organizations about the importance of families praying the Rosary.

With the help of the Holy Cross Sisters in Albany and a friend, Father Francis Woods, Peyton began his appeals to promote the praying of the Rosary for all families.

In October 1943, in order to reach a wider audience, Peyton arranged for fifteen minutes of air time for families to pray the Rosary on a local radio station in Albany, WABY.

He continued to promote the mission using radio but network executives at Mutual wanted to air programs of Father Peyton with more than just the praying of the Rosary.

The first broadcast was made on February 13, 1947,[3] with guest artists Loretta Young, James Stewart (who was not a Catholic) and Don Ameche.

Others who also lent their talents were: Pat O'Brien, Grace Kelly, James Cagney, Bob Hope, Irene Dunne, Gregory Peck, Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Rosalind Russell, Jack Benny, Raymond Burr, Barbara Stanwyck, Margaret O'Brien, Helen Hayes, Natalie Wood, Maureen O'Hara, Jane Wyatt, Ronald Reagan, William Shatner, James Dean and Shirley Temple.

The campaign continues today with three new, contemporary posters designed in 2001, which have received a record number of orders from billboard companies.

There were also large rallies in Birmingham, Bogotá, Bombay, Johannesburg, Madrid, New York City, San Francisco and Nairobi.