Michael Joseph McGivney was born on August 12, 1852 at Waterbury, Connecticut to an Irish-American McGivney family. In 1877, Michael was ordained priest for the Diocese of Hartford at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist at St. Joseph's Cathedral (Baltimore).
Michael served as parish priest at St. Mary's parish in New Haven, Connecticut (1877–1884) and at St. Thomas parish in Thomaston (1884–1890).
Michael became the pastoral response to the widespread Irish-American Catholic-immigrant poverty and the Protestant-fraternal-society exclusion of Catholics. In 1882, at the Church of St. Mary in New Haven, Michael founded the Knights of Columbus — the Catholic fraternal service organization combining the Catholic-Christian principles of charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism with the systematic mutual-aid insurance for the Irish-American Catholic immigrant families.
The Knights of Columbus became the largest Catholic fraternal service organization in the world — 2+ million members in 17 countries to the present day.
Michael died at Thomaston on August 14, 1890 at the age of 38 — of pneumonia contracted during the Russian flu pandemic of 1889–1890.
Beatified October 31, 2020 by Pope Francis.