A new play about Father Michael J. McGivney debuted Monday night at the Knights' convention. In eight scenes, He Was Our Father touched upon the life of the Order's founder, the effect he had on his parishioners and the legacy he left to the Church through the Knights.

Written by playwright Dominican Father Peter John Cameron and staged by actors from the Blackfriars Repertory company from New York, He Was Our Father was an artist's interpretation of the life of Father McGivney.

The production was met by a standing ovation from the more than 700 Knights, family members, hierarcy and priests in attendance.

Among those in attendance were John Walsh, great grandnephew of Father McGivney, and his family, and Douglas Brinkley, noted historian and author, who has co-written a book about Father McGivney to be published in 2006.

The impact Father McGivney had on those he met, those he served as a parish priest and as a founder, might best be summed up in the exchange he has with the daughter of a prominent Protestant clergyman who seeks Father McGivney's counsel about converting to Catholicism after hearing him preach on the divine maternity of Mary.

"When I heard those words," she tells Father McGivney, "it was as if life suddenly made sense."
Father McGivney seemed to be able to speak the right words throughout his short life, words that could console a young widow or motivate men to rally behind the cause of Columbianism.

Father McGivney's pastoral heart is displayed in several scenes, including a very dramatically staged episode where he ministers to Chip Smith, a young man sentenced to death for murdering a city cop. "My father is here right now," the condemned man tells a visibly shaken Father McGivney before mounting the gallows to be hanged.

The founding of the Knights was told with touches of humor, but the playwright captured completely how the Holy Spirit must have guided the deliberations.