Please tell me more about the Knights of Columbus

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Their founder, Venerable Father Michael McGivney, a priest, is up for beatification and canonization, so they aren’t Freemason in the least. I pray for his cause regularly, I got a prayer card of him at the Knights fish fry.

They were started primarily to provide insurance benefits to Catholic widows and their children. The United States had many such organizations then, because there wasn’t really a private insurance industry for people who weren’t rich, so when a man died people would have to pass the hat for his family who had suddenly lost their main source of income.

Maybe the Knights are a culturally US thing, but it’s rather insulting of you to say things like you wouldn’t join when you don’t have one there and have no personal experience of them other than what you read, and who knows if that was even accurate.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Their founder, Venerable Father Michael McGivney, a priest, is up for beatification and canonization, so they aren’t Freemason in the least. I pray for his cause regularly, I got a prayer card of him at the Knights fish fry.

They were started primarily to provide insurance benefits to Catholic widows and their children. The United States had many such organizations then, because there wasn’t really a private insurance industry for people who weren’t rich, so when a man died people would have to pass the hat for his family who had suddenly lost their main source of income.
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This part is interesting. Thanks!
 
Another fun fact: they were named after Columbus in order to combat anti-Catholic sentiment, since Columbus at the time they were started was one of the only Catholics (and one of the only Italians) who US Protestants respected and even had a holiday honoring him and his purported “discovery of America”.
At that time most US Catholics were immigrants from Ireland, Italy and other European countries, and Protestants had a huge anti-Catholic bias and even directed hate group activities towards Catholics, so it was important to have an acceptable public image for the Knights.

Of course now it’s fashionable to hate on Columbus but after this many years they can’t easily change the name.
 
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Of course. I didn’t mean it in an offensive way. Just meant to illustrate that we have no idea what they are.

If you find it offensive, and think others might to, I shall delete the post in the name of consideration for you and other’s feelings.
 
A lot of people in US have relatives in it. My dad wasn’t personally a member (he had a lot of health problems and spent his limited social time in a war veterans’ group), but the Knights do good things. People are always complaining about lack of fellowship in the US Catholic Church, and the Knights are one of the only organizations that provides fellowship events like breakfasts and dinners and picnics and stuff. Of course then people find other reasons to complain, like the Knights are too old, too cliquey, too pro-life, too traditional, too this and too that. You can’t win.
 
Ven. Fr. McGivney started the Knights during a time when Freemasonry was very popular, in order to keep men from joining that, as well as to provide a network of assistance for immigrant families. It’s a Catholic fraternity, basically, but it has a very rich insurance wing now (for which it faces some criticism).

I wonder why the Supreme Knight has been the Supreme Knight for 19 years. He also pulls in quite a hefty salary (it was north of $1.5 million a decade ago, I don’t know what it is now). Grand Knights for councils are usually elected annually or bi-annually; has the SK been re-elected so many times over the years?

In the parishes I’ve been to, the Knights are good men but they are almost all old men and they aren’t recruiting enough young men to replace them. I think the best means of recruitment is through the college chapters.

There is also the name and a kind of hero motif around Christopher Columbus (a lot of councils even have a picture of him) that is a little less than inspiring — in fact, awkward — given the actual facts of history. Anyway the first Catholic mission to the “new world” was led by Leif Erikson, hundreds of years before Columbus, and he didn’t enslave anybody.

At the end of the day, the Knights are philanthropists and they do good work.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
the Knights are one of the only organizations that provides fellowship events like breakfasts and dinners and picnics and stuff. Of course then people find other reasons to complain, like the Knights are too old, too cliquey, too pro-life, too traditional, too this and too that. You can’t win.
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The fellowship and food sounds very good. Everybody likes to socialize and eat… Yes Catholic church’s could use a bit more socializing. I’m glad the Knights are doing this type of thing.

A men’s group within the Catholic church will always being criticized no matter what they do. It is like a law of nature…taxes, death, and never ending comic book movies.
 
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Loud-living-dogma said:
If you join, there will be an insurance agent who comes to your house to sell you insurance. We didn’t buy it, and that was okay. But they do make you sit through the presentation.
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What?!?!?

That’s odd. Why insurance?

I’d love to have male comaraderie, but FWIW the Knights don’t appeal to me.
 
I joined the knights a few years ago. I think its a great organization especially since I was a convert and didn’t know to many other Catholic men. Since joining them I feel much more involved in my parish and there are huge numbers of opportunities to serve. Most members are older but that’s because as a whole older men have more time available. I am younger (30) and joined when I was 27. I think its wonderful and I think any Catholic man should consider joining. St. John Paul II called it the “strong right arm of the church” in the US.

I know our council basically says if the priest wants it do, we make sure it gets done.
 
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The insurance is there because one of the main reason was back when the Order was founded the man was the principal breadwinner in the family. If he got injured or killed in a mill or mine (which was pretty common back then and there was no workman’s comp) the family would be financially ruined and impoverished. One of the reasons the Knights was founded was to support these widows and orphans.

I do not have the insurance and they don’t pressure you to join it but they do propose it. From what I understand it is actually quite good insurance if you need some.
 
Ahh. Okay. That makes sense and is a pretty positive historical bit. I like it.
 
I like the Knights. I certainly like their pancakes. I love their pro life work. I’ve helped out, in the past, when they’ve needed warm bodies to help out with things.

I’m just not a fraternal organization guy.

One thing I’ve always been curious about is the symbol. It looks like a maltese cross, which I get. The anchor makes sense. But the fasces I never quite got. My knowledge of that comes from the Roman republic.
 
The fasces is also unfortunately associated with the brutality of early 20th century history now. It was designed for the Knights in 1883, based on the symbol of authority in the Roman republic, decades before Mussolini’s dictatorship (though strangely enough, the very year of his birth). The meaning is there to respect the structure of the organization, not to blindly obey the orders of a megalomaniac. Unfortunately it fits snugly into the “Catholics are fascists” narrative. Credit to the Knights for not caving to that nonsense.
 
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For various reasons, I do not plan on joining the K of C in the foreseeable future, but they are a fine organization. It’s just not the thing for me at this time.

I came to the Church through the K of C’s correspondence course. At the time (mid-1970s) the booklets were thoroughly traditional and most, if not all, used pre-Vatican II terminology and methods. It was an excellent learning experience.

They still offer this course, though I have to think they have updated their booklets since then. (I would be very pleased, though, to find out they have not — why tamper with perfection?)

The course is available at:

http://www.kofc.org/en/cis/correspondencecourse.html
 
I have found their free booklet on St. Joseph to be very helpful recently. It consolidates many Scriptural and traditional teachings about St. Joseph and I have referred to it several times in threads on the forum.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Of course now it’s fashionable to hate on Columbus but after this many years they can’t easily change the name.
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And we shouldn’t change the name because Christopher Columbus was a major victim of slander.

Both by the Spanish and English.

The Spanish elite who resented his leadership because he was Italian and lived in Portugal before leading the Spanish to America.

The English tore him down in their anti-Spanish and Anti-Catholic propaganda.

What we know is that he lived at a monastery with his son for a while, was very devout, and very intelligent. And while he may have been “cruel” compared to today’s standards; he was no more cruel than good people in his position during his time.

Therefore, (without far more credibility evidence) I believe in a noble and good Christopher Columbus
 
If you are really interested in the founding of the Knights of Columbus then you should pick up " Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism" by Douglas Brinkley and Julie M. Fenster.
 
I’ve been a Knight for 5 years and a Sir Knight (4th Degree) for 4 years.

The service program are Family, Community, Faith and Life. They are pretty self-explanatory except youth programs would fall under Community and Special Olympics under Life.
https://www.kofc.org/en/columbia/detail/faith-in-action.html

Every once in a while, we need to be reminded that we aren’t as awesome as we think we are. Nothing like some gentle rubbing to remind you that we all put a our pants on the same way,
 
We started as a fraternal mutual aid society. Life insurance at the time was hard to get.
 
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