For Christopher Healy, discovering that his great-grand-uncle helped to form the Knights of Columbus alongside Father Michael J. McGivney, an up-and-coming-saint, was like “finding out you are related to Abraham Lincoln,” he says.
“It’s hard to get your head around this,” says Healy, executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference. “It was a humbling moment of reflection.”
Healy stumbled upon this family tie coincidentally. Some five years ago, he was given a copy of the book Parish Priest. Authored by Douglas Brinkley and Julie M. Fenster, the book chronicled the life of then-Father McGivney, parochial vicar of St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, who founded the Knights of Columbus there in 1882. The priest was bestowed with the title “Blessed” during his beatification Mass on Oct. 31, 2020, in the Archdiocese of Hartford.
Healy says he recalls reading page 141 and learning that his great-grand-uncle, Bart Healy, was a member of the committee that formed the Knights of Columbus. However, Bart went on to oppose a priest at the organization’s helm.
In the book, Jane Curran, who was acquainted with committee members at that time, relayed Bart’s disapproval: “At one of the meetings, Bart Healy said, after a quarrel over something, that he never knew a society to prosper which had a priest at its head. That evening Healy and some others drew right out.” They had quit and left the meeting.
Curran goes on to say that Bart and the rest of the men returned the next day, and Father McGivney – who was considering pulling out himself – was overjoyed that the organization would move forward with his involvement.
“The good part about the story was, after cooler heads prevailed,” Healy says, “this group returned and put aside their differences, brought Father McGivney back into the organizational side of it, and established what we know today as the Knights of Columbus.”
Father McGivney’s compassion for widows and orphans was the objective of the Knights of Columbus – to provide support and financial resources to Catholic families suffering the loss of their sole provider.
Although Bart is not included in a poster of the founders of the Knights of Columbus with Father McGivney at its center, Healy believes his great-grand-uncle was one of the incorporators. He is pursuing records through the Connecticut State Library and Archives.
Since reading about great-grand-uncle Bart in Parish Priest, Healy has taken on a greater interest in Father McGivney’s life. He has also been researching his family ancestry. A few years ago, he visited the Healy homestead in Mohill, Ireland. “I’ve got the doorknob from the original house,” he adds. 
After seven years at St. Mary’s Church, Father McGivney was reassigned to St. Thomas Church in Thomaston, where he died at age 38 in 1890. In 2020, Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of Father McGivney. Another miracle attributed to his intercession is needed for canonization.
Healy, a Knight himself, recently shared his connection to Blessed McGivney with Knights of Columbus Council No. 4193 in Wethersfield. “Needless to say, I am a big fan of him becoming a saint,” he proudly states.
By Karen A. Avitabile