Carl A. Anderson

Recently, we announced the results of our latest fraternal survey of charitable activities. During 2005, Knights of Columbus worldwide donated more than $139 million to charity and logged over 64 million hours of volunteer service — both records for our Order. Any organization would be justifiably proud to announce such accomplishments and I am grateful to all my brother Knights for their dedication year in and year out.

Significantly, we are building upon many initiatives to help those in need regardless of nationality, religion or race through our cooperation with Special Olympics, the Wheelchair Foundation, the Points of Light Foundation, Veterans Affairs hospitals, and our increased efforts for disaster relief following Sept. 11, 2001, and most recently the hurricanes in the Gulf States. Through these projects and in thousands of others on the local level, during the last decade we have provided more than $1.2 billion in cash donations and more than 574 million hours of service.

Surely, the Knights of Columbus has remained faithful to Father Michael J. McGivney’s vision and our principle of Charity.

For these reasons, we received with special joy our Holy Father’s first encyclical Deus Caritas Est, dedicated to the Church’s mission of charity. I firmly believe that it is Providence and not mere coincidence that the pope’s first encyclical and our first principle are dedicated to the virtue of charity. As I said earlier this summer to our state deputies, our Holy Father sees clearly what needs to be done, and we Knights must be 100 percent in alignment with his pastoral mission.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Deus Caritas Est that the Church possesses a threefold responsibility: “proclaiming the word of God, celebrating the sacraments and exercising the ministry of charity.” Especially important is the pope’s message that these three duties are inseparable.

Certainly this is the case for members of the Knights of Columbus.

This is the real meaning of the more than 574 million hours of service over the past decade we have provided for charity — it is the personal commitment of hundreds of thousands of brother Knights. They have not only written checks totaling more than $1 billion but have also given of themselves. These brother Knights have made the pope’s words their own: “I must give to others not only something that is my own, but my very self; I must be personally present in my gift.”

Deus Caritas Est reminds us that “charity workers need a ‘formation of the heart’: they need to be led to that encounter with God in Christ which awakens their love and opens their spirits to others.”

We must always remember that our mission is inseparable from the mission of renewal that was set for our Church by the Second Vatican Council which Pope Paul VI said presented to the world, “the Church of the Good Samaritan.”

May our commitment to the Order’s principles of Charity, Unity and Fraternity grow stronger each day so that each of us may daily live more fully the lesson of Deus Caritas Est.

Vivat Jesus!