St. Patrick’s Day is both a celebration of faith and a triumph of the human spirit. In addition to his theistic mission, St. Patrick brought the gifts of classical antiquity to the Emerald Isle, enduring privation and enslavement: “So I live among barbarous tribes, a stranger and exile for the love of God.”

But centuries later, the grace of St. Patrick would be forgotten by some who claimed to revere him. In An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York’s Irish and Italians, Paul Moses reveals, “Rather than try to unify the congregations, Irish-American pastors found it better to make Italians worship in the church basement.”