Blessed Michael McGivney (1852-1890) and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821) were certainly the saints the world needed in their times. The founder of the Knights of Columbus gave American Catholics a profound experience of fraternity and Elizabeth Ann Seton brought her motherly virtues to children, the poor and the sick.<\/p>\n
But the 21st century might have an even greater need for their charisms.<\/p>\n
Today, America faces a crisis of community, with an epidemic of loneliness and social isolation. It also faces a crisis of the family \u2014 with an increasing number of single mothers, who as a group face poverty at five times the rate of married women.<\/p>\n
Enter Father Michael McGivney, the parish priest.<\/strong><\/p>\n When the Knights of Columbus got serious about pursuing the canonization of Father Michael McGivney in the early 2000s, they commissioned research by historian Douglas Brinkley to track down details about his life. Surprisingly little had been recorded about the life of the priest who died at the age of 38 after founding an organization that would grow rapidly after his death.<\/p>\n The research resulted in a book Brinkley co-authored with Julie M. Fenster. Its title summed up the man in two words: Parish Priest.<\/em><\/p>\n McGivney was born August 11, 1852, in Waterbury, Connecticut, the oldest of 13 siblings in an Irish immigrant working-class family (though only seven survived into adulthood). He attended school until he was old enough to work in a brass factory at the age of 13. When he was 16, however, he left for seminary education in Quebec and then in Niagara Falls, New York.<\/p>\n His studies ended abruptly when his father died and he returned home to look after his family. The Hartford bishop saw his promise, though, and when the family was back on its feet, sent him to St. Mary\u2019s Seminary in Baltimore.<\/p>\n As a new priest in 1877, he became the assistant pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in New Haven, Connecticut, where he proved to be an imaginative community-builder, putting on plays for parishioners and devoting himself to works of mercy, including visiting prisoners. He visited the death-row prisoner James Smith daily as he awaited execution for first-degree murder, helping him \u201cface death without a tremor,\u201d according to the convict.<\/p>\n Father McGivney got his first pastorship in Thomaston, Connecticut, north of his hometown \u2014 but then died six years later at age 38 during an influenza epidemic.<\/p>\n His experience with his own family\u2019s hardships gave him a heart for families in need.<\/strong><\/p>\n Blessed Michael McGivney\u2019s greatest legacy is the Knights of Columbus, which he founded in 1882. It used the pomp-and-swords trappings of the secret societies for men that were popular then, but directed towards a very practical purpose: To not only build fraternity, but to provide financial security for widows and orphans. Today it remains both a Fraternal Organization and an insurance company.<\/p>\n An early member of the Knights, Edward Downes, said that McGivney had his own way of finding out who was in trouble. \u201cHis close friendship with Michael Curran, the undertaker, brought him the first-hand stories of the poverty and heartache which plagued so many,\u201d he said. \u201cHe wanted some kind of adequate financial protection for the young families whose bread-winners were stricken by death.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, as then, fatherlessness is a major cause of poverty.<\/strong><\/p>\n Single mothers face a hard road, whether their husbands have died or simply abandoned the home. In addition to plunging women and children into poverty, fatherlessness today is associated with higher teen pregnancy rates, dropping out of school, incarceration, and high suicide rates for children. McGivney\u2019s Knights are still providing materially and spiritually for families, including new programs such as Fathers for Good, which forms fatherly virtues<\/a> in dads.<\/p>\n From the maternal perspective, we have saints like St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, who became a single mother herself when she was widowed with five children to support in 1803 at the age of 29.<\/p>\n Soon after she lost her husband to sickness during a trip to Italy, Elizabeth was introduced to the Catholic Church by the Filicchi family. In an 1804 letter to her friend Amabilia Filicchi, she shared the difficulties of life as a single mother: \u201cThere is a sad weariness now over life I never before was tired with.\u201d But, \u201cmy lovely children round their writing table or round our evening fire make me forget a little this unworthy dejection which rises.\u201d<\/p>\n It was her children who connected her motherhood to the Lord\u2019s mother, she added. \u201cAnna coaxes me when we are at our evening prayers to say Hail Mary and all say, \u2018Oh do Ma teach it to us!\u2019 Even little Bec tries to lisp it though she can scarcely speak.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I ask my Savior, why should we not say it? If anyone is in heaven, his Mother must be there \u2026 So I kiss her picture you gave me, and beg her to be a Mother to us.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, she goes one step further. Reflecting on death, she sees motherhood as a metaphor for God\u2019s welcome. As a soul dies, the \u201cFather of your Soul attends and watches it in the weakness and trials of parting nature, with the same care you and I watch our little infant\u2019s body in its first struggles and waits on its entrance into life.\u201d<\/p>\n The tenderness of Mother Seton and the protective care of Father Michael McGivney are the complementary virtues that build families.<\/strong><\/p>\n Father W.J. Slocum\u2019s 1905 testimonial pointed to the fatherly virtues of the young parish priest.<\/p>\n \u201cFather McGivney, though a man of unassuming character, was possessed of an indomitable will, by which, aided by the grace of God, he was able to face unkind and unjust criticism from all directions in his great effort to found a society for the benefit of young men and the glory of the church,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Likewise, Elizabeth Ann Seton\u2019s spiritual director praised her motherly virtues.<\/p>\n \u201cHer distinguishing characteristic was compassion and indulgence for poor sinners. Her charity made her watchful never to speak evil of others, always to find excuses, or to keep silence,\u201d he said in the 1936 book The Soul of Elizabeth Seton<\/em>. \u201cHer heart was compassionate, religious, lavish of every good in her possession, disinterested in regard to all things. O Mother, excellent Mother!\u201d<\/p>\n At a time when America needs faithful fathers and devoted mothers, these two saintly Americans provide the models we need.<\/p>\n TOM HOOPES<\/strong>, autor m\u00e1s reciente de El Rosario de San Juan Pablo II, es escritor residente en el Benedictine College de Kansas, donde imparte clases. Es anfitri\u00f3n de La extraordinaria Stor<\/a>y podcast sobre la vida de Cristo. Su libro Lo que dijo realmente el Papa Francisco<\/a> ya est\u00e1 disponible en Audible<\/a>. Antiguo reportero en la zona de Washington, D.C., fue secretario de prensa del Presidente del Comit\u00e9 de Medios y Arbitrios de la C\u00e1mara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos y pas\u00f3 10 a\u00f1os como editor del peri\u00f3dico National Catholic Register y de la revista Faith & Family. Su trabajo aparece con frecuencia en el Register, Aleteia y Catholic Digest. Vive en Atchison, Kansas, con su esposa, April, y tiene nueve hijos.<\/em>Imagen: Dominio p\u00fablico<\/em><\/p>\n