When you join the Knights of Columbus, you join a brotherhood of Catholic men more than 1.9 million strong. With a rich 135-year history, the Knights of Columbus has a long tradition of helping men to lead with faith, protect our families, serve others, and defend our values in a busy and changing world.
Knights of Columbus History
The Story Behind Our Movement
In 1882, a young parish priest, Father Michael J. McGivney, saw that the families of his parish were suffering both financial and spiritual poverty. His compassion, especially for the widows and orphans left behind after breadwinners were killed working in factories, compelled him to band together the men of his parish and form the Knights of Columbus.
Through the Knights of Columbus, Father McGivney gave Catholic laymen a new opportunity – the chance to grow in holiness while serving their parishes and communities and protecting their families. In 2008, the Holy See declared Father McGivney as a “Venerable Servant of God”, the first step on the path to sainthood.
Since 1882, Knights of Columbus has grown to more than 15,000 local councils in the United States, Canada, and across the world. Over the past decade, Knights have raised and donated nearly $1.4 billion to charity and given almost 653 million hours in humanitarian service. Each Knight continues Venerable Father McGivney’s legacy and answers the call to be a man who leads with their faith and makes a difference in his community.
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The Venerable Father Michael J. McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus.
“In fidelity to the vision of Father McGivney, may you continue to seek newways of being a leaven of the Gospel in the world and a spiritual forcefor the renewal of the Church in holiness, unity and truth.”Pope John Paul II
The Origins of the Knights of Columbus
The Knights of Columbus was founded by an Irish-American Catholic priest, The Venerable Father Michael J. McGivney in New Haven, Connecticut. He gathered a group of men from St. Mary’s parish for an organizational meeting on October 2, 1881 and the Order was incorporated under the laws of the U.S. state of Connecticut on March 29, 1882. Though the first councils were all in that state, the Order spread throughout New England and the United States in subsequent years.
The primary motivation for the Order was to be a mutual benefit society. As a parish priest in an immigrant community, McGivney saw what could happen to a family when the breadwinner died and wanted to provide insurance to care for the widows and orphans left behind. He himself had to temporarily leave his seminary studies to care for his family when his father died. In the late 19th century, Catholics were regularly excluded from labor unions and other organizations that provided social services.
In addition, Catholics were either barred from many of the popular fraternal organizations, or, as in the case of Freemasonry, forbidden from joining by the Catholic Church itself. McGivney wished to provide them an alternative. He also believed that Catholicism and fraternalism were not incompatible and wished to found a society that would encourage men to be proud of their American-Catholic heritage.
McGivney traveled to Boston to examine the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters and to Brooklyn to learn about the recently established Catholic Benevolent League, both of which offered insurance benefits. He found the latter to be lacking the excitement he thought was needed if his organization were to compete with the secret societies of the day. He expressed an interest in establishing a New Haven Court of the Foresters, but the charter of Massachusetts Foresters prevented them from operating outside their Commonwealth. The committee of St. Mary’s parishioners McGivney had assembled then decided to form a club that was entirely original.
McGivney had originally conceived of the name “Sons of Columbus” but James T. Mullen, who would become the first Supreme Knight, successfully suggested that “Knights of Columbus” would better capture the ritualistic nature of the new organization. The Order was founded 10 years before the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the New World and in a time of renewed interest in him. Columbus was a hero to many American Catholics, and the naming him as patron was partly an attempt to bridge the division between the Irish-Catholic founders of the Order and Catholic immigrants of other nationalities living in Connecticut.
