Origin of the Knights of Columbus in the United States
It began as a dream of a young Catholic priest, who envisioned a society for Catholic men, which would unite them in fraternity, while binding them together in a spirit of charity and service to the Church. This was the dream of Father Michael J. McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus.
Father McGivney was born on August 12, 1852, in Waterbury Connecticut, the first of thirteen children born to Patrick and Mary (Lynch) McGivney. Patrick had come to this country in the great wave of Irish immigration during the 19th century. He became a molder in the heat and noxious fumes of a Waterbury brass mill. Since six of his siblings died in infancy or childhood, Michael McGivney learned early the deep sorrow and the harsh grip that poverty can have on working-class families. However, it was through those harsh conditions that he also learned about the powers of love, faith, and family fortitude.
Shortly after the Civil War, when the Connecticut metal industry was booming, 13 year-old Michael left school to go to work as a spoon-maker in a brass factory, an early sacrifice to bring a few extra dollars into his family. At age 16, Michael left the factory to pursue a career in the priesthood. He attended college at St. Hyacinthe, in Quebec, Canada followed by two years of study at Our Lady of Angels Seminary in Niagara Falls, NY, and St. Mary’s College in Montreal. In 1873, at the request of the bishop of Hartford he entered St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, Md. His father, Patrick McGivney, died that same year.
After four years of study, on December 22, 1877, Michael J. McGivney was ordained in Baltimore’s historic Cathedral of the Assumption by Archbishop (later Cardinal) James Gibbons. His first Mass was celebrated in his home parish church of The Immaculate Conception, in Waterbury Connecticut.
Father McGivney’s first assignment was at St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Connecticut. It was the city’s first parish, with a massive stone church situated on one of New Haven’s finest residential streets, Hillhouse Avenue. With great caution, Father McGivney began his ministry to the working-class Irish families, while trying to subdue the tensions and defensiveness among his flock, whowere under constant rejection from the elite citizens of the neighborhood because of their religious beliefs.
In 1881, Father McGivney began to explore, with the help of various laymen, the idea of a Catholic fraternal benefit society. In an era when parish clubs and fraternal societies had wide popular appeal, the young priest felt there should be some way to strengthen religious faith and at the same time provide for the financial needs of families overwhelmed by illness or the death of a breadwinner. After receiving permission from his bishop, Father McGivney traveled extensively and consulted with many experts and organizations to seek information that would help the Catholic laymen to organize themselves into a benefit society.
It was through Father McGivney’s tireless efforts that on Feb. 7, 1882, he and twenty men met with hearts full of joy and thanksgiving met in the basement of St. Mary’s Church and gave birth to the Knights of Columbus. To combine Catholicism and Americanism together through the faith and bold vision of the New World’s discoverer, Christopher Columbus, Father McGivney suggested “Sons of Columbus” as the name for the order. After many suggestions and opinions, the word “Knights” replaced “Sons” to help apply a noble ritual in support of the emerging cause of Catholic civil liberty. On March 29, 1882, the Connecticut Legislature granted a charter to the Knights of Columbus, formally establishing it as a legal corporation. Father McGivney personally installed the first officers of the San Salvador Council #1 in New Haven, in May of 1882.
By the end of 1885, there were 31 councils of the Knights of Columbus in Connecticut. Father McGivney used his influence throughout the state to persuade the establishment of more and more councils. Although he was transferred to St. Thomas Church in Thomaston, Connecticut, in November 1884, he continued his devotion to the Order as Supreme Chaplain.
After serving six years as pastor of St. Thomas, the saintly Father Michael J. McGivney contracted tuberculosis and died on Aug. 14, 1890, at the age of thirty eight. His was dubbed as one of the largest funerals in history of Waterbury Connecticut. Delegates were present from nearly every one of the 57 Knights of Columbus councils that had been chartered in the Order’s first eight years. The bishop of Hartford and more than 70 of Connecticut’s Catholic priests were joined by civic leaders and laity, forming a great procession that was reported to have consisted of every available carriage for miles.
In thirteen brief, busy years as a priest, Father McGivney’s piety and compassion had won the love of those he served as curate and pastor. His Christian inspiration, leadership and administrative drive had brought himthe loyalty and affection of thousands who knew him as the founder of the Knights of Columbus. From the moment he launched it, the organization fortified Catholics in their faith, offered them ways to greater financial security in a sometimes hostile world, and strengthened them in self-esteem.
Remarkably developed from its simple beginnings in a church basement, The Knights of Columbus today combines Catholic fraternalism and one of the most successful American insurance enterprises. Originally, Father McGivney had envisioned a council in every parish in Connecticut, but did not foresee expansion beyond its borders. Nonetheless, good ideas often assume lives of their own. Since, the reality of a parish priest’s dream, the Order has grown to more than 13,000 councils throughout the United States, Canada, the Philippines, Mexico, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, Cuba, Guatemala, Guam and Saipan. More than 1.7 million Catholic men now call themselves Knights. Through the combined efforts of these men, each year countless millions of dollars and man-hours are donated toward charitable causes, church, and community projects. The Knights of Columbus is recognized world-wide as the largest Catholic organization of its kind.
During the Order’s centennial observance in 1982, Fr. McGivney’s body was formally exhumed from its resting place in Waterbury, with the permission of his family, state and church authorities, and reinterred in St. Mary’s Church, in New Haven, Connecticut. Today, the site is a shrine for pilgrim Knights, at a place where the Order was founded.
The four towers of the Knights of Columbus International Headquarters Building in New Haven, Connecticut, symbolize the Order’s world-wide commitment to charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism, the founding principles of an order founded by a young Irish-American priest who longed for a better life for the people he served.
