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This month, as we continue “Celebrating 125 Years of Faith in Action,” it is an appropriate time to show our admiration for the visionary, courageous and determined brother Knights who brought us to this moment in history. They were men filled with devotion to Columbianism and excitement for the opportunity to change history.
Within two decades of our incorporation in Connecticut on March 29, 1882, these leaders added Fraternity and Patriotism to the founding principles of Charity and Unity. They brought the Order to Canada in 1897. Just eight years later, the first councils would be established in the Philippines and in Mexico.
Not long after, when the U.S. entered World War I and it became apparent that Catholics serving in the military would not receive the same level of social and support services as their Protestant comrades in arms, the Order established more than 150 support centers from Texas to Russia under the banner “Everybody Welcome, Everything Free.”
After the war, when thousands of veterans eagerly joined the Order, we faced a challenge in some ways more difficult than the enemy overseas: hatred and bigotry on the basis of race and religion led by organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.
In the courts, we fought the Klan’s efforts to close Catholic schools, and we defended racial and ethnic minorities from slander through our historical studies project that detailed the many contributions of blacks, Jews and Germans to American society. We also called national attention to Catholic contributions to society by such projects as the Columbus Monument in Washington, D.C., and the endowed chair in American History at The Catholic University of America.
When the worst persecution of Catholics in North America began in Mexico in the 1920s, the Knights of Columbus led the effort to mobilize support to end that oppression by the Mexican government.
We have much to be grateful for in the lives of those brave brother Knights who were always ready to take bold action to advance the growth of the Order and refused to yield in their defense of the Church and their Catholic values.
We can be grateful too for the lives of countless brother Knights who witnessed day after day to the truth of the Gospel. By building up strong councils in support of their parishes, schools, universities and families, they also helped to build what we could call “cultures of the Gospel” in thousands of Catholic communities. All of this occurred at a time when millions of Catholics were entering the new democratic institutions of American society.
We have received a wonderful gift from these great fraternal leaders of generations past. Now, it is our turn to build up and pass on this legacy to the next generation.
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