College Knights at World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia.

One of our most important priorities is to recruit young men in their 20s and 30s into the Order, and to lay the groundwork for that growth among teenagers who are not yet old enough to be Knights.

Our Columbian Squires program scored a net gain of 21 circles this year, and as of June 30, we had 1,399 active circles, which is the highest number ever. The total number of Squires at year’s end was 28,961. It’s very important that we make sure that every one of these Squires be encouraged to join a council when they turn 18. They are the future leaders of the Knights of Columbus.

A fine example is Deriek Iglesias, who this year became the first Squire to earn the designation “Squire of the Body of Christ,” the highest level of achievement in our new Squire Advancement Program. Deriek was a Squire for four years in Circle 5022 in Harker Heights, Texas. He took his First Degree after turning 18 in April, and is already a Third Degree Knight. He heads off to college in the fall. We added another 16 councils of college Knights this year, and have added a total of 64 college councils over the past four years. The number of college Knights is now 20,758, an increase of 1,301 over last year.

	Father McGivney Hall, at the Catholic University of America, will be formally dedicated in September 2008.
	College Knights from the U.S., Canada and Mexico wave their flags as the pope arrives in Sydney Harbour at World Youth Day.
	College Knight award winners at their 2007 conference in New Haven.

At The Catholic University of America, where our history of support goes back to 1899, the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, a graduate school of theology supported by the Knights of Columbus since its establishment in 1988, is about to get a beautiful new home. Early next month, as the fall term begins, we will formally dedicate McGivney Hall, formerly known as Keane Hall, renovated thanks to an $8 million grant from the Order. Three hundred thirty-nine students have received graduate degrees at the Institute since its founding two decades ago, and they are playing an increasingly important role in the life of the Church, broadening and developing Catholic understanding of the family, the most fundamental building block of civilization.

The Knights of Columbus Supreme Council provides a variety of scholarships for college students, and during the academic year just ended, we provided scholarships to 707 students, including 206 new scholarship winners and 501 returning students. Twelve of these are recipients of the Matthews and Swift Scholarship program, established in 1944 to provide college educations to children of Knights who were killed or totally disabled while serving in the military in time of war.

Just a few weeks ago, our Supreme Chaplain and I had the pleasure of being in Sydney, Australia for World Youth Day, along with 35 of our college Knights, who represented 18 different universities. In addition to taking in all of the major events of World Youth Day, the college Knights also served as volunteers at the Love and Life Site on the campus of Notre Dame University in downtown Sydney. The site was cosponsored by the Knights of Columbus, the Sisters of Life and the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. A wide variety of talks, concerts and other events drew large crowds of young people anxious to hear more about building a culture of life.

I’ve had the pleasure of being at other World Youth Day celebrations over the years, and I can tell you that the enthusiasm at these events gives us all cause for hope about the future of the Church and of society in general.

Finally, one other aspect of our youth programming is worthy of mention: our sponsorship of local Boy Scout units. In the United States, there are more than 300,000 boys who participate in Scouting under the auspices of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting, and 34,238 of them are members of 1,388 units that are sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. In Canada, Knights sponsored 56 Catholic Scout units involving 1,088 Scouts.