St. Mary’s Seminary charters its first Knights of Columbus council – named after alumnus who founded the Knights

St. Mary’s Seminary in Roland Park is establishing its first Knights of Columbus council, naming it after an alumnus who graduated from the seminary 145 years ago and founded the Knights of Columbus 140 years ago. 

St. Mary’s Seminary named the council after Blessed Michael McGivney, whose canonization cause is underway in Rome.

Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly presented the charter for a new college council April 26 as Archbishop William E. Lori, supreme chaplain, presided over solemn vespers at the seminary.

Charter Grand Knight Michael L. Schultz, a second-year St. Mary’s seminarian from the Archdiocese of Louisville, leads the new council made up of about 40 members.  

Schultz said members are encouraged to be men of heroic courage, generosity and faithfulness. 

“He (Blessed McGivney) lived in a time where Catholics were threatened and he did everything he could to support Catholic men struggling to be Catholic,” he said.

According to Schultz, Knights can express their generosity through service to the poor at Our Daily Bread in Baltimore, the Source of All Hope urban ministry at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and similar ministries.

Men of the council are encouraged to be men of faithfulness by devoting themselves to prayer and to the Lord, especially in the Blessed Sacrament, he noted.  

“Our first project as the Knights of Columbus council will be to renovate a chapel space, to dedicate it in honor of Michael McGivney and to house a (Blessed McGivney) relic that the Supreme Council has given us,” Schultz said.

The chapel is located on the fourth floor of the seminary and will serve as a space for seminarians to pray and ask for Blessed McGivney’s intercession. Along with the relic, a portrait of the future saint was gifted to the new council. 

The first charter grand knight of the college council said it is important to have a Knights of Columbus council at the seminary because it connects seminarians to a broader service organization.

“We’ll have a lot of interactions with the Knights of Columbus as priests in any parish we’re sent to in the country, so it is important to foster those relationships with the Knights of Columbus now,” he said.

Blessed McGivney, who founded the Knights of Columbus at St. Mary Parish in New Haven, Conn., was beatified in October 2020. A tribunal is actively looking for a second miracle in order to proceed with his canonization.

Sulpician Father Phillip J. Brown, president-rector of St. Mary’s Seminary and University as well as charter chaplain of the new council, said the presentation of the new Knights of Columbus council represents a new beginning for St. Mary’s Seminary. 

The seminarians at America’s first seminary look up to the blessed, who was ordained at the Baltimore basilica, in pursuing a holy, priestly vocation.

“He was one of us, a seminarian trained by Sulpician priests who lived in Baltimore,” Schultz said. “There is a renewed excitement about his memory and creating a Knights of Columbus council is a way to honor that memory.”

In his vespers homily, Archbishop Lori said the founding of the seminary council is “not only a way of honoring Father McGivney, but also a way of holding before our  eyes the model of a priesthood well-lived, as well as a way of supporting the Knights of Columbus and its worldwide mission of charity, fraternity and unity.”

To find more about the McGivney Council, contact Michael Schultz at 410-864-4261. 

Email Priscila González de Doran at pdoran@CatholicReview.org

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 10:30 a.m. on May 16, 2022 to correct the first name of Sulpician Father Phillip J. Brown.

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