Address to the State Deputies
Post-Installation Luncheon
New Haven, CT
June 6, 2026
Words of Thanks
Thank you, Worthy Supreme Knight and thank you for your leadership of the Knights of Columbus. Under your leadership, we continue to build on the foundations set in place by Blessed Michael McGivney, and on the accomplishments of those who have gone before us. May the Lord continue to bless you, Vanessa, and your family, and may he continue to prosper your leadership of our Order!
Let me renew my congratulations to our new State Deputies. Your election speaks to the respect your brother knights have for you. But getting elected is the easy part. Leading with humility and strength is the challenging part. But we can do this because we are part of an Order built on unity and fraternity. And my warmest regards and thanks to brother knights who are in the midst of your service as State Deputies. You have already borne the heat of the day and I am confident that God will bless you and your jurisdictions as you sprint towards the finish line.
I’d also like to say what a grace it is to meet with my brother priests, the chaplains of the Order, and to go on pilgrimage with them to the places where Blessed Michael lived out his priestly ministry. May God continue to bless us as we stive to walk in his footsteps in our service to the Knights of Columbus.
America’s 100th Anniversary
As Officers, Board Members, State Deputies, and families, we reflect the global character of the Order. With that in mind, permit me to focus for a few moments on my country, as the United States of America marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. What I say of my own country, I hope will shed some light on all the countries represented here.
In 1876, America celebrated its centennial. At that time, Michael McGivney was a seminarian in Baltimore. In nearby Philadelphia, the Centennial Exposition opened on November 10th, celebrating America’s foundations in freedom as well as her cultural and industrial achievements. There was much to celebrate! But there were also challenges. A highly contentious presidential election was underway. The wounds of the Civil War were still fresh. Slavery was finally ended but the plight of most black people remained dire. There was widespread prejudice against Catholics and immigrants. There were political scandals, a faltering economy and much more.
So far as we know, seminarian Michael McGivney didn’t participate in the centennial celebrations. For example, there is no record that he visited the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia to which I referred earlier. But we should not imagine that the Centennial had no impact on him. After all, his family had come from Ireland in search of a better life. For him and for his family, the United States was not a perfect country but it was a land of opportunity and freedom – Families like his were contributors, not detractors. Less than 10 years later, young Fr. McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus. The patriotic degree would not be established until 1900, but it’s fair to say that Fr. McGivney “baked in” a patriotic spirit in the Order right from the start. He wanted his Knights to be faithful Catholics and loyal Americans. And he addressed the very real wounds of society not by denunciation or by ideology, but by charity, unity, and fraternity. Indeed, he sought to make things better for Catholic families who experienced economic insecurity, social exclusion, and cultural suspicion.
Blessed Michael Teaches Us How to Celebrate Our 250th Anniversary
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, not everyone feels like celebrating. Sadly, there are those who feel that our nation was fatally flawed from the start, principally because it countenanced the institution of slavery. Even some convinced of our nation’s essential soundness are discouraged. They cite, as I have in my pastoral, the toxic cultural atmosphere, marked by extreme ideologies, loneliness, and isolation. Politics is more vitriolic than usual. Our country seems polarized and paralyzed. Some say that the United States is more divided today than at any time since the onset of the Civil War.
I, for one, think we ought to celebrate. Anniversaries are moments for giving thanks, for rejoicing. They are moments of remembrance. Not to give thanks is to be ungrateful to God who has blessed this wide land. And it is to be ungrateful to those who went before us, who built this country, who defended it, who died for it, many of them numbered among our brother knights. But anniversaries are more than nostalgia or selective memory. They are moments to take stock, to look ourselves in the eye, to resolve to make things better. At this moment in history, we owe it to ourselves to contribute to the repairing our wounded political culture, to model how to talk with one other, not at each other, to help recover something of a sense of national unity and civic friendship, to reintroduce virtue into public life and discourse.
How should we celebrate? How should we remember? And how should we respond? We, the Knights of Columbus, will respond as we always do – as Blessed Michael McGivney taught us! We bring to this moment both his vision and his commitment to the Lord, to the Church, and to the wider society around us. And does he continue to teach us?
First, he reminds us to respect the human dignity of those we encounter. Blessed Michael did not leave a treatise on the subject, but in his short life on this earth, he showed us how to do it: ‘by caring for the widow and the orphan, the needy and the outcast, by being ourselves apostles of family life and leading the young to the generous service of their neighbor.’ Or, as I put it in a recent pastoral letter, “In Blessed Michael we see a lived Christological anthropology: a man who knew that to follow Christ is to serve the whole person —body and soul— and to build communities where dignity is protect and hope is sustained.”
This surely includes cherishing and protect human life at all its stages, but with special love and care for the most vulnerable, the unborn.
Second, Blessed Michael taught us virtue. He didn’t write a book on moral theology, but he lived a virtuous life. He abounded in the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, but he also manifested the key moral virtues: Prudence, by which he saw clearly, and choose wisely. Justice, by which he respected the rights and responsibilities of others. Courage, by which he pursued the good in the face of opposition and difficulty. And temperance by which he led a well-ordered life. It is these same virtues that you and I must exemplify, publicly and privately. This is how we contribute to the moral framework needed for healthy political engagement. These virtues do not belong only to any party or ideology. They are the shared moral grammar that enable people of good will to work together to defend human dignity and work for the common good.
Finally, Blessed Michael left us (both explicitly and implicitly) the principles upon which the Knights of Columbus is founded. In a political culture wounded by indifference, anger, and even violence, we are men and women of charity – not as an abstract sentiment – but love made visible through solidarity, sacrifice, and the works of charity. Charity includes listening to others and discerning what is good. It means leaving our comfort zone and encountering those we disagree with, not as opponents but as persons made God’s image. In a country that is polarized more than in recent memory, we, the Knights of Columbus, are builders of unity, surely in the Church we love with all our hearts but also in the wider society. In a country of rugged individualism, self-reliance, and isolation, we are builders of fraternity and solidarity. And finally, we, the Knights of Columbus, are patriots, not proponents of a nationalism that disregards other nations and cultures but a true and virtuous love of country that seeks the good of the nation without sacrificing fidelity to Christ.
Conclusion
Let us bring what we have received from Bl. Michael to the countries that we represent. Let us pray for our homelands and for our leaders and let us continue to work for justice and peace. And as America observes its 250th anniversary, pray that it will always be “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Vivat Jesus!