Report of the Supreme Knight 2009

Church Activities

Knights of Columbus are always a large and visible presence at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C.

As you all know very well, our support for our Church is legendary. Almost $45 million of our charitable donations last year went to Church activities.

And not a day goes by that you won’t find Knights teaching religious education classes, helping out at parish schools, serving as active laymen in the liturgy, or helping to fix the kneelers in the church or repair the sidewalk out front.

When a parish priest needs people to fill the hard-to-schedule overnight slots at 24-hour Eucharistic adoration, the Knights respond. From meatless Friday night dinners during Lent to Mother’s Day breakfasts in the parish hall in May, Knights of Columbus roll up their sleeves and do what needs to be done.

It’s true in the local parish, it’s true at the cathedral, and it’s true at the Vatican.

When Mexico City hosted the Vatican’s World Meeting of Families last January, we not only provided crucial financial help, but Mexican Knights were a major source of volunteers to help make the meeting a success. The Knights of Columbus also provided a comprehensive set of catechetical materials on “The Family, Teacher in Human and Christian Values” produced by the Pontifical Council for the Family.

Last October, Bishop Lori and I made our annual visit to Pope Benedict to present him with a check for $1.6 million, the yearly earnings from our Vicarius Christi Fund, which provides the Holy Father with financial support for his personal charities.

Later this week here in Phoenix, upon the conclusion of this 127th meeting of the Supreme Council, we will sponsor the very first International Marian Congress ever held honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe. It is a great privilege for us to welcome the participation of so many in the Church who have so much to contribute to our understanding of the most extraordinary event in the history of the hemisphere: the apparition of Our Lady to Juan Diego in Mexico City in 1531.

We are grateful to our host, Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, for his enthusiasm and support. We are grateful as well to His Eminence Norberto Cardinal Rivera Carrera of Mexico City and Supreme Chaplain Bishop William Lori for their participation. And we look forward to hearing as well from Msgr. Eduardo Chávez, the postulator of the Cause of St. Juan Diego, whose knowledge of Our Lady of Guadalupe is unequalled anywhere in the world. Presentations by other experts, including Dr. Mario Pérez Campa, Sister Deyanira Flores, Dr. Jose Aste Tonsmann and Jorge Traslosheros, will round out a program that is unprecedented in its scope and depth.

Your presence at the Congress, and at the Guadalupe Festival that will conclude it on Saturday, will be an international sign of our witness and a sign of the bond between Mary and her Knights.

In Ecclesia in America, Pope John Paul II observed that, “America, which historically has been, and still is, a melting pot of peoples, has recognized in the mestiza face of the Virgin of Tepeyac . . . an impressive example of a perfectly inculturated evangelization”(10).

Our Lady of Guadalupe is not only an historic fact. She is a woman whose face changed an entire hemisphere.

Today, Our Lady of Guadalupe remains a true guide and inspiration, pointing us forward toward a new and greater evangelization of our hemisphere. Patroness of the Americas and Patroness of the Cause of Life, she is that gracious advocate and guiding star that does not disappoint.

Our Lady of Guadalupe points us to the things that unite us sacramentally as Catholics and that are far more important than the political and economic boundaries that divide us. And who better to help convey this message than the Knights of Columbus, which has been uniting Knights and their families from Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America and the Philippines in Christian brotherhood for more than a century.

This week’s congress and festival will be truly historic as we continue to lead the way to a truly global unity in Christ.