Knights of Columbus Secrecy

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BlueEyedLady said:
At a basic level though is it even ethical to voluntarily enter in to an organization that requires you to take an oath to keep secrets from your spouse just to join?

The armed forces are slightly different. That’s a matter of your safety, national security, and even your family’s safety. This is a social/service organization that’s requiring you to keep a secret for fun.
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You are mistaken. Knights of Columbus don’t take oaths, vows, or even pledges of allegiance.

We are just expected to keep our word, as honest men.

Edit: To clarify, we can say the Pledge of Allegiance of the USA, I meant we aren’t asked to make a pledge of allegiance to this context.
 
These control freakish replys serves as a reminder why I have no interest in another relationship as my soon to be ex-wife was a MAJOR control freak. Good grief, let your husband have a night out with the boys and if he wants to fill you in, he will.

I got to the point were I quit asking my wife how her day was because after her 30 minutes of rambling, I wanted to commit Harry Carry, she ask me how my day was and she got the canned “it was okay, same stuff, different day.”
 
Havard said:
You are mistaken. Knights of Columbus don’t take oaths, vows, or even pledges of allegiance.

We are just expected to keep our word, as honest men.

Edit: To clarify, we can say the Pledge of Allegiance of the USA, I meant we aren’t asked to make a pledge of allegiance to this context.
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The original poster said that her husband had to take an oath of secrecy. Could she be mistaken? Or do different groups have different rules?
 
garn9173 said:
These control freakish replys serves as a reminder why I have no interest in another relationship as my soon to be ex-wife was a MAJOR control freak. Good grief, let your husband have a night out with the boys and if he wants to fill you in, he will.

I got to the point were I quit asking my wife how her day was because after her 30 minutes of rambling, I wanted to commit Harry Carry, she ask me how my day was and she got the canned “it was okay, same stuff, different day.”
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I agree women are sooooo annoying especially when they ask you how your day was.:eek: Good thing you got away :rolleyes:

Anyways it’s not about knowing what your husband does all the time. The issue is that the original poster said that her husband took a vow to keep a secret from her. Its seems like an overreach for a volunteer organization and could be seen as undermining a sacred bond that is for life. I don’t personally think its that big of a deal but I would see it as a negative for the organization instead of a positive.
 
LucyLight said:
The original poster said that her husband had to take an oath of secrecy. Could she be mistaken? Or do different groups have different rules?
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She is mistaken.

An oath is a promise with a divine witness.
A vow is a promise with a divine witness and divine recipient of the promise.

You do NOT make either in the Knights. The only thing holding us to our promise is our integrity.
 
Havard said:
She is mistaken.

An oath is a promise with a divine witness.
A vow is a promise with a divine witness and divine recipient of the promise.

You do NOT make either in the Knights. The only thing holding us to our promise is our integrity.
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They certainly as a whole seem to have a lot of integrity. Keeping a secret does not sound as bad as taking a vow to keep something secret.
 
Havard said:
She is mistaken.

An oath is a promise with a divine witness.
A vow is a promise with a divine witness and divine recipient of the promise.

You do NOT make either in the Knights. The only thing holding us to our promise is our integrity.
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Since it seems you are a Knight, could you elaborate on what benefit the secrecy has? The answers in this thread have been lacking. As a young man, this would help me, since I do not like pretentiousness on any level but am possibly interested in joining the KoC at some point.
 
The secrecy of the knights initiation is not about pretentiousness, but about not spoiling the story for lack of a better term. If my wife really wanted to know I would likely give her the 5 minute outline, but I would not tell my sons so that I did not spoil the revelations that can come from the ceremonies.

Being a convert raised in a masonic family I can tell you that they masonic initiations (what little I know of them) are very different from the knights initiations. One is about mysticism and the other is about teaching moments and helping a man draw closer to God, the church and their families. The impact of those teaching moments can be spoiled if you know about them before hand.
 
BlueEyedLady said:
At a basic level though is it even ethical to voluntarily enter in to an organization that requires you to take an oath to keep secrets from your spouse just to join?

The armed forces are slightly different. That’s a matter of your safety, national security, and even your family’s safety. This is a social/service organization that’s requiring you to keep a secret for fun.
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Why would your spouse feel entitled to be so nosy about other people’s business that she won’t let you hang around with people who don’t want you feeding her everything that happens at your gatherings? Do wives have a right to get every bit of gossip their husbands know?

Is it ethical to ask someone to keep a secret that a 3rd party has no right or need to know? Of course it is. Even if you would have to keep the secret from your wife, it is only important that you have the freedom to assure your wife that you will never be asked to be complicit in evil by keeping a secret for the Knights and that the Knights will never be complicit in keeping anything from your wife that she has a right to know…that is, that you are keeping company with women other than her, getting drunk, that kind of thing.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t be ethical to voluntarily have anything to do with AA. It is a legitimate matter of privacy, and a very small one at that.
 
LucyLight said:
The issue is that the original poster said that her husband took a vow to keep a secret from her.
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Maybe if he has just said “we were all asked strictly to not to tell anyone, so that future initiates could not find out what was coming and have the experience spoiled for them”, she wouldn’t be upset.

Honestly, do some people not realize that there are parishes, parishes full of very devout people, where the Knights really do have to say, “NO, not even your wife, and not to name names but especially not a few wives that we can think of, because in 50 years they’ve been in this parish, they swear they’ll never pass a secret on and yet since we met them in 1st grade they’ve never kept a secret that they promised to keep…SO WE MEAN NOBODY, GENTLEMAN. DOES ANYONE NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT ‘NOBODY’ MEANS?”
 
Baelor said:
Since it seems you are a Knight, could you elaborate on what benefit the secrecy has? The answers in this thread have been lacking. As a young man, this would help me, since I do not like pretentiousness on any level but am possibly interested in joining the KoC at some point.
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I agree with what Usige said. Again, the closest example I’ve heard is the Kairos retreat experience, although I’ve never been to one of those. But my understanding of those is that there’s a twist at the end that makes the retreat particularly special, and if you knew what that twist was, it’d be a lot less of a powerful experience.
 
Ophelia23 said:
My husband recently was initiated into the Knights of Columbus. I am so happy and excited for him, because he is always working so hard to grow in his faith. This is a great opportunity for him to put himself out there, to meet people, to experience community interaction, and really to express himself as a Catholic gentleman. I am in full support of the KofC.

HOWEVER.

He took an oath of secrecy and can’t tell me anything about his initiation. While I logically can understand that this is no big deal, it is biting at me a little bit. If when we are married two become one, then how can any Catholic society require a man to not share with his spouse?

Even while typing and reading this, it is clear to me that I shouldn’t actually have an issue with this. But I do. Does anyone have any tips for just letting go and allowing him to have his secrets? It shouldn’t hurt me to know he can’t tell me something, but it does a little bit. How irrational is that?! 🙂
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How are you in full support of the Knights, but you have an issue with this? You have an issue, but does he have an issue? If he does not, then it’s your problem, not his, or so it looks. If he does have a problem, then perhaps it’s best to bail now, before he is too invested with it. But don’t kid yourself that everyone keeps the secrets, because I know that they don’t.

I have nothing but deep regrets for having joined the Knights. The oaths of secrecy were only a smaller concern for me, and I’m not even married. As long as you have plenty of money for yourselves, and are able to take care of yourselves, and need no one else, you may never notice any problem, and may indeed find it an opportunity to have some fun. Certainly I am just one of the unlucky ones here, as others have expressed their delight with their membership. If they say it is so, then it is. My tough luck is just that, it’s MY tough luck.

Hopefully, you belong to one of the supposed “good” councils that will be there for you, and not turn their backs, and treat you like a red-haired stepchild if or when your luck runs out.

BTW. If you really need to know the secrets, why don’t you just plug it into your favorite search engine? Google, Yahoo, Dogpile. It’s all there.
 
EasterJoy said:
Why would your spouse feel entitled to be so nosy about other people’s business that she won’t let you hang around with people who don’t want you feeding her everything that happens at your gatherings? Do wives have a right to get every bit of gossip their husbands know?

Is it ethical to ask someone to keep a secret that a 3rd party has no right or need to know? Of course it is. Even if you would have to keep the secret from your wife, it is only important that you have the freedom to assure your wife that you will never be asked to be complicit in evil by keeping a secret for the Knights and that the Knights will never be complicit in keeping anything from your wife that she has a right to know…that is, that you are keeping company with women other than her, getting drunk, that kind of thing.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t be ethical to voluntarily have anything to do with AA. It is a legitimate matter of privacy, and a very small one at that.
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This is not about gossip. I’m sure most women would find what goes on at a KofC meeting boring and don’t care to know all the details. I don’t tell my husband everything and he doesn’t tell me everything. Its the principal of the issue. Your spouse comes before any fraternal organization. I don’t believe the KofC should ask its members to keep a secret from a spouse. The bond between spouses is sacred and can not be compared to other relationships like a parent child relationship. Asking members of an organization to keep secrets is fine as long as they are not asking members to keep a secret from their spouse.
 
CatholicBoy1957 said:
Can someone here do a websearch, and post some links for this person?
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Haha, it’s cool. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. I’ve always found secret societies to be interesting. Look up the Skull and Bones (Yale) to read about some supposed traditions that they have. Neat stuff.
 
JeraldW said:
I am a Knight of the third degree. Rest assured, NOTHING amoral or against Church teaching is done during the initiations.
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That’s not the point.

Marriage is a sacramental union with the love between Christ and the Father as its model. God the Father and God the Son hold nothing back from each other, even to the point of offering themselves on a cross. The union of man and woman created with this type of self giving love, created in the image of the Trinity “Nake and without shame” precludes secrets of any kind.

It’s OK for the Knights to keep secrets, but it is OK for me not to want to join them because I believe that marriage is a greater obligation, and that keeping secrets is inconsistent with a sacramental covenant obligation with Trinitarian love as it’s model and goal.

I say this to the Knights at my parish and they say, “But there is nothing to worry about” and we go around in circles. I don’t understand how it is permissible within the context of marriage to say to my wife, “There is a major part of my life which I promise is OK but which I can never discuss with you.”

-Tim-

-Tim-
 
TimothyH said:
Marriage is a sacramental union with the love between Christ and the Father as its model. God the Father and God the Son hold nothing back from each other, even to the point of offering themselves on a cross. The union of man and woman created with this type of self giving love, created in the image of the Trinity “Nake and without shame” precludes secrets of any kind.
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“But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” Matt. 24:36

Apparently, the Son, incarnated as a man, could stand the idea of the Father knowing something he did not know. He did not see this as a violation of their unity.

I do not know how marriage requires me to demand total access to all my husband’s thoughts and experiences. That sounds really over the top to me. If my husband couldn’t stand that I knew something and didn’t tell him, I’d think he had some serious control issues. What married couple in history ever expected that?
 
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