The June 2024 Knight of the Month is Father Michael Forge. This award honors his support of the Knights of Columbus Council 11716 and the Catholic community of Prince of Peace as pastor.
A native of Riverhead, New York, on Long Island, he lived in nine states before the age of 12 as his father served in the U.S. Air Force.
Fr. Michael has been a priest in the Diocese of Dallas since 1997. He has served at several Catholic churches including St. Pius X, as the Vocation Director for the Diocese of Dallas, as a priest in residence at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Plano for 3 ½ years, as a priest at St. Ann in Coppell, St. John the Apostle in Terrell, Mary Immaculate in Farmers Branch for 13 years and Prince of Peace. He has been a member of the Knights of Columbus for 20 years.
During his mid-20s, he pursued a path of discovering the essence of God and joined a Bible study that led him to a prayer group. From that group, he gained clarity through a profound experience of the presence of the Holy Spirit that changed his outlook.
He became very involved in providing religious education support for middle school youth and said the “game changer” experience he had while attending daily Mass in his mid-20s led him to more clearly recognize “the reality of the resurrected Jesus.”
His journey led him to believe that he could offer a more positive, spiritual impact to others as a priest rather than as a lay person. He stopped working in a corporate work environment and entered the seminary at age 30.
“What was happening at the altar clicked,” he says, and to this day, Christ present in the Eucharist is his favorite part of being Catholic.
Having worked closely with several Knights Councils, Fr. Michael has come to value the impactful role of the Knights in Catholic communities and views Council 11716 as the most active he has worked with directly in many public facing and behind the scenes ways.
Fr. Michael offers extreme appreciation to the POP community and staff for helping bring about a new level of excitement at POP. The new worship space has helped lead more people to encounter Christ and cultivate a deeper level of prayer.
He has a very close relationship with St. Bernadette that began in December 2015 with a dream that involved a silhouette of Mary who introduced St. Bernadette to him and vice versa. Since that “meeting,” Fr. Michael has maintained a very close connection with her and consecrated his priestly ordination to the ministry of healing. He did so because there are so many broken people in the world, himself included he notes, and he now includes St. Bernadette in his prayers for healing.
Since 2006, Fr. Michael has celebrated Mass with the Dallas Cowboys during home games as the Catholic chaplain of the football team. He is involved in various diocesan endeavors, committees, and councils. In 2018, he earned a master’s degree in ecclesial administration and management from Catholic University of America.
