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By Fr. Jonathan D. Kalisch, O.P.
Director of Chaplains and Spiritual Development
The month of September marks the 140th anniversary of what our founder, Blessed Michael McGivney, called “perhaps the most trying ordeal of my life.” On Sept. 1, 1882, just months after founding the Knights of Columbus while serving as parochial vicar at St. Mary’s Church, Father McGivney accompanied 22-year-old James “Chip” Smith to the gallows. At the time, national media attention was focused on New Haven, Conn., for the sensational trial of Smith, who was convicted of shooting and killing his good friend, policeman David J. Hayes, while in a drunken stupor in the fall of 1881.
For months, Smith refused Father McGivney’s requests to visit him in jail, but eventually he relented, and the priest had a profound influence on him. In the summer of 1882, Smith told The New Haven Union: “Father McGivney visits me very often … I think a great deal of him.” He then said, “Jesus died for me and I am willing to die for him.”
The New Haven Daily Palladium reported that on the Sunday before Smith’s execution, Father McGivney offered Mass at the jail, with more than 150 parishioners in attendance. Through the ministry of Blessed Michael and God’s grace, Smith repented of his crime and asked for forgiveness from the policeman’s widow and family.
The Aug. 28 newspaper article read: “Father McGivney, who is Chip’s spiritual advisor, made an affecting address, which brought tears to the eyes of many. On behalf of James Smith, the young curate asked the ad hoc congregation to pardon him for all faults he may have given and at his request asks for the prayers of all of you that when next Friday comes he may die a holy death.”
The Daily Palladium also quoted Father McGivney as saying: “I trust that all of you will offer up fervent prayer to the throne of grace that God will strengthen and prepare us to perform that awful duty which we shall be called upon to perform before this time next Sunday. To me this duty comes with almost a crushing weight. If I could consistently with my duty be far from here next Friday, I should escape perhaps the most trying ordeal of my life, but this sad duty is placed in my way by providence and must be fulfilled.”
Father McGivney did not shrink from the burden of responsibility before him. Having tirelessly witnessed to Chip Smith of the mercy of God, he accompanied him across the finish line. The day before Smith’s hanging, Father McGivney celebrated Mass in his jail cell. He stayed with Smith until midnight and returned early the next day to be with him on the gallows. In Smith’s last will and testament, he left Father McGivney a plant “now blooming in my cell.”
As chaplains, we know well the rigors of pastoral ministry. Blessed Michael McGivney’s outreach to a convicted murderer and accompaniment of the young man under the glare of media spotlight, all the while serving a burgeoning immigrant community and breathing life into the first K of C council is an inspiration and example for us. Here is a shepherd with the smell of his sheep. As a contemporary, Father James Daley, said of him: “Father McGivney’s influence over men was something extraordinary. Young men particularly were attracted to him and hung upon his words with an eagerness which he himself often wondered at; hundreds petitioned for the light of his counseling and sent others too, to share his advice.”
As our councils return to full swing, let us draw inspiration from Blessed Michael McGivney’s example of engagement with even notorious sinners and those avowedly far from God. He visited them regularly, and brought along others to show them the mercy of the Body of Christ. Our brother Knights should remember those in prison, those on death row and all in need, and seek to emulate Blessed Michael McGivney’s example of outreach, mercy and compassion. Vivat Jesus!
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