the Lumen Vitae honoring service to christ and his church
Vir g il & Ann D e chan t by John D e chant D an & Ter r i C are y by Ste ve John son & J. D. B enning
Virgil & Ann Dechant
From the plains of Kansas, Virgil Dechant ascended to the highest office of the Knights of Columbus, the world’s foremost Catholic fraternal benefit society. Amazingly, his path to such heights began as a result of a nasty car accident along a quiet western Kansas road. Virgil was 18 and working for a western Kansas auto dealer in 1949. A car wreck sent him to the hospital, where he was treated for a broken hip and other complications. Even after his discharge from the hospital, he was sent back in to recover after an allergic reaction to the pins that had been surgically inserted into his hip. Virgil had recently joined the St. Augustine Council of the Knights of Columbus in his native town of Liebenthal, and members of that council stopped by almost every night to help him pass the time during his grueling recovery. He was so touched by the gesture he vowed to devote more of himself to the council once he healed. Virgil rose fast in the Knights of Columbus, becoming a grand knight in his local council, then a district deputy, and, in 1960, state deputy of the Kansas State Council. His work as a state deputy caught the attention of numerous senior members of the Kansas State Council and members of the Supreme Council in New Haven, Conn., where the Order had been founded by Fr. Michael J. McGivney in 1882. In 1967 K of C Supreme Knight John McDevitt asked Virgil to come to New Haven to work for the Order full-time. The offer put him in a bind – he had become a successful auto and implement dealer in La Crosse, and he had started acquiring sections of farmland as he looked to diversify his business interests. Plus, he had a family to consider: his wife Ann and their four young children. After much discernment, Virgil received a helpful piece of advice from Bishop Marion Forst of the Diocese of Dodge City who told him he’d regret it if he bypassed such an opportunity. Plus, if things didn’t work out in Connecticut, he could always come back to Kansas. So off the Dechants went. Virgil’s rise up the corporate ladder in New Haven came nearly as fast as his rise through the Kansas State Council. This was aided in part through the work he did modernizing the K of C insurance business and growing its membership. In 1977, he replaced McDe-
vitt as supreme knight of the Order. He would hold the position for 23 years. Under Virgil’s leadership, membership in the Knights of Columbus would grow to more than 1.6 million and local councils jumped to more than 11,000. K of C insurance would earn top ratings on an annual basis from Standard & Poor’s and A.M. Best. By the time of his 2000 retirement, the K of C insurance program had $40 billion of life insurance in force and $8.5 billion in assets. While his business savvy was unquestioned, perhaps Virgil’s greatest contribution to the Knights of Columbus was transforming the Order from a men’s organization to a modern, family-first organization. This effort actually began back in Kansas during his days as a state deputy, where he insisted that Ann join him at all K of C functions. Soon others followed suit and started bringing their wives along to meetings; then they began bringing their children. Virgil and Ann brought this same vision with them to New Haven, and since, the Knights of Columbus has prospered. Virgil and Ann also strengthened the ties between the Knights of Columbus and the Holy See. The order was instrumental in the 1982 construction of a chapel in the basement of St. Peter’s Basilica to honor Saints Benedict, Cyril and Methodius—the patron saints of Europe, and the 1985-86 renovations to the façade of St. Peter’s Basilica, which hadn’t been touched in hundreds of years. In 1982, the Knights of Columbus created the Vicarius Christi Foundation—the brainchild of Virgil—to provide funds annually to the Pope for his personal charities. Together, Virgil and Ann were named to the Pontifical Council for the Family So strong was the relationship between the Dechants and Pope John Paul II, in 1987 the Holy Fr. granted Virgil the title of “Gentleman of His Holiness,” making him a member of the Pontifical Lay Family. He served in this role during the pontiff ’s 2005 funeral, escorting U.S. President George W. Bush and other dignitaries at the funeral. In 2012, the Knights of Columbus awarded Virgil the Gaudium et Spes Award, its highest honor, joining a prestigious list of past recipients which include Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Virgil and Ann Dechant returned to Kansas in 2001, where they still live today. They have four children, 11 grandchildren, and four greatgrandchildren.
During his service as Supreme Knight, Virgil & Ann made frequent trips to the Vatican, meeting with the Holy Father about how the Knights of Columbus could best serve the Church. 18
Kansas Monks
