Blessed Michael J. McGivney

Michael Joseph McGivney (August 12, 1852 – August 14, 1890) was an American Catholic priest based in New Haven, Connecticut. He founded the Knights of Columbus at a local parish to serve as a mutual aid and insurance organization, particularly for immigrants and their families. It developed through the 20th century as the world's largest Catholic fraternal organization. The cause for his canonization started in the Archdiocese of Hartford in 1996; in March 2008, Pope Benedict XVI declared McGivney "Venerable" in recognition of his "heroic virtue". On May 27, 2020, Pope Francis announced that McGivney had been approved for beatification, which officially occurred on October 31, 2020. He was born to Irish immigrant parents, Patrick and Mary (née Devine) McGivney. He was the eldest of 13 children, six of whom died in infancy or childhood. His father worked as a molder in a Waterbury, Connecticut, brass mill. Michael attended the local Waterbury district school but left at 13 to work in one of the brass mills' spoon-making departments. In 1868, at the age of 16, he entered the Séminaire de Saint-Hyacinthe in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada. He continued his studies at Our Lady of Angels Seminary, near Niagara Falls, New York (1871–1872) and at the Jesuits' St. Mary's College, in Montreal, Quebec. While in seminary, he and other seminarians formed a baseball team and McGivney was a "naturally talented ballplayer." He had to leave the seminary, returning home to help finish raising his siblings after his father's death in June 1873. McGivney later resumed his studies at St. Mary's Seminary, in Baltimore, Maryland; he was ordained a priest on December 22, 1877, by James Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore at the Cathedral of the National Shrine of the Assumption. From his own experience, McGivney recognized the devastating effect on immigrant families of the father and wage earner's untimely death.