Honoring 'a priest's priest'

By Marlene Quaroni - Florida Catholic

MIAMI | Two Knights of Columbus Florida Honor Guard members carried a framed portrait of Father Michael McGivney, founder of the organization, into St. Mary Cathedral for a Mass celebrated October 31st, the day of his beatification.

“It’s the greatest honor the Knights could bestow in his honor,” said Michael Gizewski, Florida State Warden, who sat in a front pew with his wife, Lisa, and George Hayek, Florida State Council marketing director and his wife, Gema.

Several honor guard members sat behind them dressed in the new regalia of the organization. Black berets with fourth degree badges, blue blazers with fourth degree crests and order-emblem buttons, grey trousers and hand-embroidered ties replaced feather-plumed hats and capes.

Pope Francis authorized Father McGivney’s beatification, the first step on the path to sainthood, following the survival of a Tennessee boy who suffered from a grave case of fetal hydrops while in utero, a condition which has a low survival rate. The boy’s family, whose father is a Knight of Columbus, had a longstanding devotion to Father McGivney. They prayed and asked the 19th century priest to intercede for the boy. Their prayers were answered.

“The boy’s survival is attributed to the intercession of Father McGivney,” said Gizewski. Another miracle would have to be attributed to the priest as the final step to his canonization.

The Knights of Columbus came about when Father McGivney recognized how immigrant families were affected by the death of their father and wage earner in 1873. As a parish priest in Connecticut, he founded the mutual aid society in 1882 to provide financial aid to Catholic men's widows and orphans. The organization was also meant to keep Catholic men and their families close to their faith at a time of widespread anti-Catholic bigotry. The priest died from pneumonia in 1890, at age 38, during an Asiatic flu pandemic.

“Father McGivney set the bar to fulfill the missions that the Catholic Church stands for,” said Hayek. “I feel incredibly moved by his beatification. He was a priest’s priest.”

Archbishop Thomas Wenski, in his homily, praised the Knights of Columbus for promoting a Catholic identity that is strong in faith and unafraid.

“In defending religious freedom at home and abroad, you have resisted those that would tell you that faith must be separated from society and that one’s belief should be kept to oneself,” he said. “In doing so, you have promoted the legitimate place of Catholic citizenship in a pluralistic, democratic American society.”

The Knights of Columbus now have about two million members in more than 16,000 councils located in all 50 United States, Canada, Mexico and the Philippines. Councils have been established recently in Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, France and South Korea.  

Corrected: Father Michael McGivney lived in the 1800s, which would make him a 19th century priest, rather than an 18th century one, as originally stated in the article.