Clinic to Be Named for Emilio B. Moure

The clinic in Haiti sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, which provides prosthetic devices for children who lost a limb in the earthquake last year, will be newly named after Former Supreme Secretary Emilio B. Moure, who passed away last month after a long battle with cancer.

Moure, who was supreme secretary at the time of his death on July 23, was a leader in the “Healing Haiti’s Children” program in which the Knights of Columbus works in partnership with Project Medishare to provide artificial limbs and ongoing physical therapy for hundreds of young Haitians who suffered amputation due to injuries in the January 2010 earthquake that wracked the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

The naming of the Emilio Moure Clinic for Hope was announced by Dr. Robert Gailey on Tuesday night during the States Dinner of the Order’s Supreme Convention in Denver, Colo. Gailey is director of rehabilitation services for Project Medishare, a medical mission based in Florida that has done extensive work in Haiti. He was a special guest at the convention, along with five members of a Haitian amputee soccer team who have received prosthetics through “Healing Haiti’s Children.”

The annual States Dinner was a festive gathering of hundreds of delegates and their wives. On the dais were dozens of cardinals, archbishops, bishops and other dignitaries who joined Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson and other members of the Order’s Board of Directors and their wives.

The dinner began with the playing of the National Anthems of all the countries where the Knights of Columbus is present and continued with state songs from all 50 U.S. states and the provinces of Canada, Mexico and the Philippines. During the songs, attendees waved the flags of their jurisdictions, with many showing allegiance to two or more areas.

Delivering the keynote address was Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Vatican’s Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s highest court. He has been a member of the Knights of Columbus for 36 years and addressed the diners as “brother Knights,” and he thanked the Order for its continued solidarity with bishops and priests.

Drawing from the theme of the convention, “So That the World May Know New Hope,” Cardinal Burke spoke about Blessed John Paul II’s heroic life and witness, and quoted extensively from the late pope’s apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in America, from which the words of the convention theme were taken. Outlining the essence of the new evangelization proclaimed by John Paul II and carried on by Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Burke urged the Knights of Columbus to continue its support of the Church, its extensive works of charity, its formation of laypersons and families in the Catholic faith and its efforts to build a civilization of love and life.