In 1882, Father Michael McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus as a fraternal benefit society. His goal was to unite Catholic men in faith, keep them from joining secret societies, and protect working-class families financially if the breadwinner died.

At the time, Christopher Columbus was widely lionized in American culture, despite being a Catholic, and Father McGivney proposed him as a model for these first Knights who sought to hold on to their Catholic faith and identity in the New World.

After founding the Knights, Father McGivney was notably intentional about placing leadership in the hands of the group’s lay members. In this way, he anticipated by nearly a century Vatican II’s focus on and empowerment of the laity in living out the universal call to holiness and the Church’s mission to evangelize.