Devotion

In April 1882, Fr. McGivney, with the permission of Bishop McMahon, wrote to all the pastors of the Diocese of Hartford. He urged each pastor to exert influence “in the formation of a Council in your parish.” Fr. McGivney personally installed the first officers of San Salvador Council 1 in New Haven, in May 1882.

Fr. McGivney’s dedication to the Order was evidenced in trips he made to all parts of Connecticut and in handwritten correspondence—little of which survives—about K of C business. At St. Mary’s, despite all this, he remained the energetic curate with constant concern for every parishioner’s problems.

Then in November 1884, he was named pastor of St. Thomas Church in Thomaston, Conn., a factory town 10 miles from his hometown. It was a factory parish, heavily in debt, serving working-class parishioners with few resources beyond their faith. With prayerful acceptance, Fr. McGivney put his seven years at St. Mary’s behind him.

His New Haven parishioners, in a testimonial resolution elaborately superimposed on the drawing of a chalice and host, declared that despite burdens and afflictions, his courtesy, his kindness and the purity of his life had “secured the love and confidence of the people of St. Mary’s, which will follow him in every future field of labor.”