Blessed Michael McGivney
Blessed Fr. Michael McGivney
12 x 24 1/4 Signed print on panel
by Terry Waldron
As a parish priest, his primary concern was for the welfare — both spiritual and temporal — of the largely Irish-American and immigrant Catholic population that teemed into New Haven, where he began his ministry at St. Mary’s Church in 1878.
Catholics then were especially vulnerable. It was a time when many employers had a policy of “Irish Need Not Apply.” Immigrants often had to take the most dangerous positions in the mines, on the railroads, and in the factories. Accidents, disease and overwork led too often to the family’s breadwinner suffering an early death, leaving his wife and children destitute, with no social safety nets.
Father McGivney had lived through hard times himself as the eldest of 13 children, six of whom died young. After finishing elementary school, he joined his father in the factory for three years, and this experience formed in him a deep solidarity with working men and their families. He also knew personally the effects of the death of a breadwinner. His own father died in 1873 and young Michael had to leave seminary to tend to the family before returning to his studies.
These experiences — viewed through the lens of faith — formed the man who went on to form the Knights of Columbus as an answer to the many problems his people faced. A little more than four years after being assigned as an assistant priest to St. Mary’s, he gathered a handful of men in the church basement to establish a new fraternal association dedicated to helping men and their families with spiritual and temporal needs.
The founder of the Knights of Columbus, Father Michael J. McGivney was a central figure in the growth of Catholicism in America, and he remains a model today. His example of charity, evangelization and empowerment of the laity continues to bear fruit and guide Knights of Columbus around the world.
