14/08/2026
𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬 𝐅𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐌𝐜𝐆𝐢𝐯𝐧𝐞𝐲?
𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝟒: 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐨𝐫
Happy Feast Day of Blessed Michael McGivney!
Join us over the next week as we get to know our parish patron better, as we celebrate his feast day! While best known for founding the Knights of Columbus, Father McGivney has something for everyone to connect to.
Father McGivney saw a great need amongst his flock during his time in New Haven, although the problem was widespread. Whenever the husband of the working class families died of illness or work-related injuries, so did his income, and the wife and her children were left to try to support themselves. If the widow could not prove to the court that she could provide for her children, the children were taken away and put in the care of the state. Father McGivney personally financially adopted the son of one such family while in New Haven, in order to keep the family together.
At the same time, he saw a great need for the men of the parish to come together and grow in faith and fraternity. Secret societies were popular at the time, and many were falling away from the Church and joining these societies, a good number of which also offered death benefits.
Father McGivney gathered a group of laymen in the basement of St. Mary Church and began to form his idea for a Catholic lay society that would offer death benefits to the members' wives and families in the case of an untimely death. The Knights of Columbus was officially founded on March 29, 1882. To this day, the organization operates on four core principles: charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism.
Council One at St. Mary was named the San Salvador Council, which is still active today. Councils slowly began forming in other parts of Connecticut, then other parts of New England. Today, the Knights are an international organization headquartered in New Haven, numbering nearly 17,000 active local councils spread across 17 countries and territories worldwide including Canada, the Philippines, Mexico, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, Ukraine, Lithuania, South Korea, and others.
It all started with one parish priest and a group of dedicated laymen. Father McGivney was ahead of his time in recognizing the call and role of the laity within the Church. As is written in his biography, Parish Priest, “𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ [𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑠] 𝑜𝑛 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑠 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝑡𝑜𝑔𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟, 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡.”
Knights of Columbus
www.fathermcgivney.org
www.michaelmcgivneycenter.org
www.kofc.org