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The son of Irish immigrants, McGivney was a man to whom "family values" represented more than mere rhetoric. And he left a legacy of hope still celebrated around the world. In the late 1800s, discrimination against American Catholics was widespread. Many Catholics struggled to find work and ended up in infernolike mills, where an injury or death would leave a family penniless. Called to action in 1882 by his sympathy for these suffering people, Father McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus, an organization that has helped to save countless families from the indignity of destitution. From its uncertain beginnings, it has grown to an international membership of 1.7 million men. At heart, though, Father McGivney was never anything more than an American parish priest, and nothing less than that, either--perhaps the most beloved parish priest in U.S. history.--From publisher description.… (more)
User reviews
I see the struggle of American Catholics, that was somewhat different from what I pictured from articles in the Columbia magazine.
It interesting to see how fraternal
I liked reading of the "Total Abstance" societies and the ideas that youngsters going somewhere unsupervised was a totally calcimining in a city as big as New Haven in the 1880s.
Yet what I took away most from this writing was that we aren't doing that bad. I learn the K of C almost collapsed during its first year to to infighting, I'm no so worried that Greg thinks we all need to be doing things his way. The Knights of Columbus provided a place for the Catholic man to be able to have some fun and make a difference, without having to give up Alcohol 100%. It left us a way to provide for our children that was needed then, and not overly difficult now. I find the hall council to be more in line than the Parish council, and Father McGivney a man after my own heart. I can't imagine passing away at the ripe old age of 38 not being uncommon for his line of work in that day, now if our priest is under 40 half the parishioners fail to listen to him.
Blessed Michael McGivney, pray for us. And thank you for a fraternal organization where I belong, and a book that wasn't as exciting as it could have been, but may have been as exciting as you'd let it be :-)