Editorial

Blessed Michael McGivney

We congratulate the members of the Knights of Columbus in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis because its founder, Father Michael J. McGivney, will be beatified on Oct. 31. This is the final step before canonization. He will join four other Americans who are now called “Blessed”: Redemptorist Father Francis Xavier Seelos, Sister of Charity Miriam Teresa, Father Stanley Rother and Capuchin Father Solanus Casey.

Father McGivney was ordained only four years in 1882 when he founded the Knights of Columbus. He did it out of pastoral concern for the welfare of his parishioners, most of whom were poor Irish immigrants like his parents. They fled Ireland because of the potato famine in the 1840s and lived in Waterbury, Conn. Michael was the eldest of their 13 children, six of whom died in infancy. He was a bright child, so much so that he graduated from high school when he was 13.

Michael was studying for the priesthood when his father died. He returned to Waterbury, certain that he would have to find a job to help support his family. However, word soon came to Bishop Francis McFarland that one of the most promising men in the diocese needed financial help. He gave Michael the equivalent of a full scholarship and sent him to St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, where he finished his studies. Archbishop (later Cardinal) James Gibbons ordained him on Dec. 22, 1877, in Baltimore’s Cathedral of the Assumption.

His first assignment was St. Mary Parish in New Haven, Conn., where he quickly got to know his parishioners through visits to the sick and other priestly responsibilities. One of the things he learned was how quickly families could become destitute if the husband and father died in those days. Discrimination against Catholics, especially the Irish, was widespread in the late 1800s. When they were able to find jobs, an injury or death could leave their families penniless and homeless.

Father McGivney envisioned an insurance and benevolent society that would care for such families. After discussing his idea with his bishop and learning about benevolent societies in Boston and Brooklyn, he gathered the men of his parish together. After months of discussion about insurance, minimum and maximum ages for membership, initiation fees and the disbursement of benefits, they founded the Knights of Columbus in May of 1882, with the first council at St. Mary Parish in New Haven. Father McGivney became its secretary.

It had a slow start. Father McGivney tried to get other parishes to join, but without initial success. But in 1883, five other parishes in Connecticut joined. That number increased to 12 by the end of 1884.

The Knights benefited when Pope Leo XIII, in 1884, published an encyclical that condemned Freemasonry and encouraged Church leaders to form Catholic societies to combat secret societies such as the Masons. The Connecticut Catholic editorialized that the Knights of Columbus “is eminently fitted” to “ward off the dangers of those secret societies.”

By the end of 1885, there were 32 councils. By that time, though, Father McGivney had been transferred to St. Thomas Parish in Thomaston, a poor parish in an impoverished factory town. He again threw himself wholeheartedly into serving both the spiritual and physical needs of his parishioners, while continuing his role in the Knights of Columbus. The organization continued to expand, reaching a membership of 5,000 in 51 councils in 1889.

Then, in 1890, Father McGivney contracted pneumonia, which evolved into tuberculosis. This was not surprising. As Douglas Brinkley and Julie M. Fenster wrote in their book Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism, “In the 1880s, parish priests did not generally live very long, under any circumstances. … Going into the priesthood, young men knew that they had little chance of reaching 50 years of age and almost no hope of reaching 70. The priests were overworked, and their short life span led to even more work for those who were left.”

Father McGivney died on Aug. 14, 1890, two days after his 38th birthday.

Today, nearly 2 million men are members of the Knights of Columbus. It has become a major charitable organization, supporting Catholic causes worldwide.

—John F. Fink