Virgil Dechant Remembered

April 1, 2020

Past Supreme Knight Virgil C. Dechant’s vision and leadership left an indelible mark on the Knights of Columbus

April 1, 2020

Supreme Knight Carl Anderson delivers the eulogy for his predecessor at the Church of the Nativity in Leawood, Kan., on Feb. 22. Ann Dechant (right) is seated beside her husband’s coffin. (Photo by Stephen Feiler)

The longest-serving supreme knight in K of C history, Virgil C. Dechant, died Feb. 16 at age 89. He is survived by his wife, Ann, their four children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

During Dechant’s 23-year administration, from 1977 until 2000, the Order grew in membership and played an increasingly important role in the life of the Church.

‘A Man Who Was True’

by Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson

EDITOR’S NOTE: Supreme Knight Anderson delivered the following eulogy at the Church of the Nativity in Leawood, Kan., Feb. 22.

The best tribute to Virgil Dechant can be found in the 25th chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

That is how I will always remember Virgil.

A good and faithful Catholic man, husband and father — a man who touched the lives of millions, a man who by hard work and example helped show millions more the light of faith.

Many of us have known great men over the years. But Virgil stands out: He brought together the ability and vision to lead with a concern for those utterly forgotten.

For Virgil, loving God and neighbor were not abstractions. They were a rule of life that he lived concretely every day.

It is hard to encapsulate nine decades of life in just a few minutes. It’s even harder when those nine decades were lived by Virgil Dechant.

What he accomplished was a testament to a life lived faithfully — to a great return on the talents God gave him, and to what we mean when we say “faith in action.”

I would like to focus on just a few aspects of his legacy.

Virgil did many things for the Order — growing its membership and business, and making it a key partner in major Vatican restoration projects.

But for the Order, I think his most enduring — and endearing — legacy was his success, not as a businessman, but as a Catholic man who intuitively understood what was necessary to sustain this great brotherhood of Catholic men that is the Knights of Columbus.

The first part of this legacy was his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary — prayerfully bringing her image to millions through our pilgrim icon program, introducing her rosary into the ceremonials of the Order, and giving every new member a Knights of Columbus rosary.

Pope John Paul II meets with Supreme Knight Dechant and a K of C delegation, including Count Enrico Galeazzi, director the Knights of Columbus Rome Office, and Supreme Chaplain Bishop Charles Greco of Alexandria, La., at the Apostolic Delegation in Washington, D.C., Oct. 7, 1979. — Pope John Paul II meets with Supreme Knight Dechant and a K of C delegation, including Count Enrico Galeazzi, director of the Knights of Columbus Rome Office, and Supreme Chaplain Bishop Charles Greco of Alexandria, La., at the Apostolic Delegation in Washington, D.C., Oct. 7, 1979. (Knights of Columbus Multimedia Archives)

“Mary with her Knights … what challenge can we not face?” These words inspired a generation of Knights — especially those committed to defending the sanctity of human life before birth.

A second part of this legacy was that Virgil always remembered his studies at the Pontifical College Josephinum, and his time there marked him with a special reverence and respect for the priesthood. There was no more heartfelt expression of his leadership as a layman in our Church and devotion to its sacraments than the phrase, “In solidarity with our priests.”

And third was a change which today is taken for granted but at the time was quite revolutionary: his work to shift the Knights of Columbus from a too inward-looking men’s organization to one focused increasingly on strengthening Catholic marriages and family life. He was very proud of the changes he made to include our wives in so many Knights of Columbus activities.

Virgil understood a profound truth: No knight, whether in medieval times or in our own, can be all that he can be without his fair lady by his side.

So often when I have been asked about women joining the Knights of Columbus, I wanted to say, “Would you please just look at Virgil and Ann — how they are together? Do you not see that asking Ann to become a member would actually be a step back?”

That was the example that Virgil and Ann set, and together they changed the course of the Knights of Columbus.

For Virgil, like Father McGivney before him, it was all about family. He cared deeply for his own family, for the family of the Knights of Columbus, for the Catholic family, and for the human family.

There are so many corporate accomplishments of which Virgil was rightly proud: professionalizing our agency force, putting our insurance products on a sound actuarial basis, modernizing our investments and securing a superior level of financial strength for the Knights of Columbus.

But on this day, at this hour, in this place we apply a different measure: one not bound by time or space.

We apply the measure of St. Paul. Did he fight the good fight? Did he run the race to the end? Did he keep the faith?

In Virgil we saw a man with courage to defend those with no protector; a man with compassion for the poor and suffering — and a man who was true to those to whom he had pledged faithfulness or who were entrusted to his care.

In these ways and in many others, Virgil raised a standard to which every Catholic man could aspire — a standard that today shines brightly — and one that will continue to shine for many years to come.

Today, we pray that Virgil will be one of those of which the prophet Daniel spoke. We pray that he will shine “like the stars for ever and ever” (Dan 12:3).

Virgil is now at rest in the Kansas he loved so well.

But may we be forgiven if for a moment we think of Virgil as already enjoying a homecoming — being welcomed by friends who have gone before him such as Count Enrico Galeazzi, Cardinal John O’Connor, Mother Teresa, John Paul II and by millions of others whom he never knew in his lifetime, but whose lives were changed for the better because of him.

O Lord, grant Virgil — who did so much for so many — eternal rest in you.

Virgil and Ann Dechant stand smiling with their children, Dan, Tom, Karen and Bobby, circa 1964. (Photo courtesy of the Dechant family)

Farewell, Faithful Knight

by Russell Shaw

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following tribute was published in the Feb. 24 edition of Our Sunday Visitor. It is reprinted with permission.

Obituaries of Past Supreme Knight Virgil C. Dechant, who died at age 89 on Feb. 16 at his home in Leawood, Kan., were factually correct but superficial. Dechant was a much larger man, with far more influence on the Church than merely listing dates, offices held and honors bestowed can suggest.

Joining creativity to love of tradition and business acumen, he shaped a profoundly Catholic organization suited to changing times. The question for the Knights of Columbus now is whether it can rise to the contemporary challenge of relevance put to it by a secular culture radically opposed to what it stands for.

In a way, of course, the Knights have been here before.

At the urging of a young parish priest, Father Michael Mc- Givney, whose cause for canonization is currently under consideration in Rome, a small group of Irish-American men met in February 1882 in the basement of St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Conn. Three years earlier, a newspaper had headlined a story about the same church: “How an Aristocratic Avenue Was Blemished by a Roman Catholic Edifice.” The men had come together to launch a new organization as a bulwark against anti-Irish, anti-Catholic bigotry like that.

The name chosen for the new group was Knights of Columbus. Selecting Columbus as patron sent a message: “We [Catholics] got here before you [Protestants] did.”

Many fraternal organizations of those times have withered and died, but the Knights survived and flourished. Combining religion and patriotism was a brilliant move that made the group, in the words of a historian, “a classic instance of a minority’s drive to assimilate.”

Years later, out in Kansas, a young man named Virgil Dechant joined the group. Laid up after an accident, he noticed that, family aside, most of those who dropped by to cheer him up were his brother Knights. Motivated, he began his rise through the organization’s ranks, eventually becoming Kansas state deputy. In 1967, by then a successful businessman and wheat farmer, he went to New Haven as supreme secretary. Ten years later, the directors elected him supreme knight, the position he held until retiring in 2000.

Membership and insurance soared in those years, while business and investment success made the Knights an important source of financial support for popes, bishops and innumerable Catholic groups. Locally, many pastors became increasingly aware of the Knights as a can-do group whose members were always ready to lend a hand to parish projects.

Even more important, the Knights imparted much-needed stability to the Church during the troubled years after the Second Vatican Council. While others fretted about what it meant to be Catholic, these men knew the answer and, at their best, sought to exemplify it.

At the same time, the group showed it could move with the times. Hence its strong commitment to the pro-life movement and the defense of family life. That openness to adjustments has continued under Dechant’s successor, Carl Anderson, as illustrated by recent changes in the Order’s ceremonial garb and ritual, for many years considered virtually untouchable.

Today, challenges to things dear to the Knights of Columbus are on the rise again. Fidelity to Catholic values, the glue holding the group together from the start, has situated this historically assimilationist and American group in opposition to powerful secular forces on life issues, marriage and religious liberty. Columbus sometimes sailed on rough seas. As the secular environment becomes increasingly hostile, the Knights may be doing the same.

*****

RUSSELL SHAW is the author or co-author of more than 20 books, a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, and a contributing editor of Our Sunday Visitor. A member of Our Lady of Victory Council 11487 in Washington, D.C., he previously served as communications director for the U.S. bishops and as director of information for the Knights of Columbus, and was a longtime columnist for Columbia.

A Holy Names sister instructs students at St. Mary’s Academy & College in Portland, Ore., circa 1915.

Virgil Dechant Remembered

‘A Man Who Was True’

Farewell, Faithful Knight

Related Articles

K of C History

Let Religious Freedom Ring

Let Religious Freedom Ring

K of C History

‘Dear Friends...’

‘Dear Friends...’

K of C History

125 Years of Patriotic Service

125 Years of Patriotic Service

K of C History

This Land Was Made for You and Me

This Land Was Made for You and Me

K of C History

In Service to the Faith

In Service to the Faith

K of C History

Sincerely yours in Christ, Benedictus XVI

Sincerely yours in Christ, Benedictus XVI

K of C History

Champions of Charity: Mother Teresa and the Knights of Columbus

Champions of Charity: Mother Teresa and the Knights of Columbus

K of C History

Prepared by Providence

Prepared by Providence