Parish Priest

Written by Douglas Brinkley and Julie M. Fenster

Narrated by Julie M. Fenster

Father Michael McGivney was a man to whom ""family values"" represented more than mere rhetoric, a man who has left a legacy of hope still celebrated around the world.

In the late 1800s, discrimination against American Catholics was widespread. Called to action in 1882, Father McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus, an organization that helped to save countless families. It has since grown to an international membership of 1.7 million men. At heart, though, Father McGivney was never anything more than an American parish priest, and nothing less than that, either.

In an incredible work of academic research, Douglas Brinkley and Julie M. Fenster re-create the life of Father McGivney, a fiercely dynamic and yet tenderhearted man. Moving and inspirational, Parish Priest chronicles the process of canonization that may well make Father McGivney the first American-born parish priest to be declared a saint by the Vatican.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Jan 10, 2006
• ISBN: 9780060878306

Douglas Brinkley

Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University, presidential historian for the New-York Historical Society, trustee of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. The Chicago Tribune dubbed him “America’s New Past Master.” He is the recipient of such distinguished environmental leadership prizes as the Frances K. Hutchison Medal (Garden Club of America), the Robin W. Winks Award for Enhancing Public Understanding of National Parks (National Parks Conservation Association), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lifetime Heritage Award. His book The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He was awarded a Grammy for Presidential Suite and is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates in American studies. His two-volume, annotated Nixon Tapes won the Arthur S. Link–Warren F. Kuehl Prize. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and three children.

Reviews for Parish Priest

[sirthomaspc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fr McGivney was the founder of the Knights of Columbus, but what was more fascinating was the workings of a parish priest in the mid to late 19th century. Prejudice and practices, living, life spans, and dying; all part of what a priest dealt with, and more. I found it to have minimal information regarding the KofC, but far more in the history of Catholicism in America during this time frame. Well researched and an easy read.

[fulner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good book that I think did well to try to be fair and balanced look at who may be the first Parish Priest to become a Saint. I see the struggle of American Catholics, that was somewhat different from what I pictured from articles in the Columbia magazine. It interesting to see how fraternal organizations as a whole were so popular in the late 19th century, and its amazing that one so unloved then as the K of C has been one to survive. I liked reading of the "Total Abstance" societies and the ideas that youngsters going somewhere unsupervised was a totally calcimining in a city as big as New Haven in the 1880s. Yet what I took away most from this writing was that we aren't doing that bad. I learn the K of C almost collapsed during its first year to to infighting, I'm no so worried that Greg thinks we all need to be doing things his way. The Knights of Columbus provided a place for the Catholic man to be able to have some fun and make a difference, without having to give up Alcohol 100%. It left us a way to provide for our children that was needed then, and not overly difficult now. I find the hall council to be more in line than the Parish council, and Father McGivney a man after my own heart. I can't imagine passing away at the ripe old age of 38 not being uncommon for his line of work in that day, now if our priest is under 40 half the parishioners fail to listen to him. Blessed Michael McGivney, pray for us. And thank you for a fraternal organization where I belong, and a book that wasn't as exciting as it could have been, but may have been as exciting as you'd let it be :-)