Building the Domestic Church

What is the Domestic Church?

The phrase “domestic church” has been used to describe families since the beginning of Christianity. In his Letter to Families, Pope St. John Paul II explained, “The Fathers of the Church, in the Christian tradition, have spoken of the family as a ‘domestic church,’ a ‘little church.’”

The domestic church is believing that how you live your faith in your councils, families, parishes and community has a ripple effect that changes the world.

It is the council, the family and the parish that knows that everything they do must be based in surrendering prayer.

It describes the imperfect family and council who deliberately chooses to live contrary to what seems like a Godless world and says, “In our home, council and parish, we choose to live our faith.”

It is the family and council who prays together, goes to Mass weekly, frequents the Sacrament of Confession and (because they realize they are powerless without God), deliberately avoids that which pollutes their minds and hearts.

It is the imperfect, humble and joy-filled family and council that rarely preaches the faith because they are too busy living it.

A Catholic priest holding father McGivney’s prayer card with his photo on the front.

The Building the Domestic Church While Strengthening Our Parish Initiative

The Knights of Columbus seeks to strengthen family life through its Building the Domestic Church While Strengthening Our Parish initiative. Through this initiative, the Order endeavors to support Christian family life and encourages councils and families to more fully integrate with the sacramental and social life of their parish. We thereby hope to not only help each family participate in the Church’s mission of evangelization, but to also strengthen our members and revitalize our parishes.

Faith in Action

The Building the Domestic Church initiative is the inspiration and foundation of our Faith in Action program model, which greatly emphasizes faith and spirituality. Those councils that thoroughly implement Faith in Action will be living and exemplifying the domestic church.

Be a Leader

Take a leadership role in your council, your family and your parish in becoming the domestic church. It's what we signed up for as Knights of Columbus. By choosing to be Knights, we have chosen to be different from secular society and to live our faith boldly.

Encourage your brother Knights to live the Supreme Chaplain's Monthly Challenge. It allows all Knights of Columbus to be united in a simple challenge each month to live their faith.

Living as the domestic church is extremely effective. Throughout all of Judeo-Christian history, there has been nothing more effective at evangelizing the culture than regular, everyday people choosing to live their faith at home and in the public square. Salvation history was changed forever by a family.

Building the Domestic Church Kiosk

Help strengthen the domestic church (our families) by providing exceptional religious education materials to all Catholics. Building the Domestic Church Kiosks contain engaging, faith-based literature and are available for councils to distribute to members, parishioners, and the general public.

By organizing activities in their parishes, councils can educate and evangelize using the rich resources found in the Catholic Information Service® (CIS) Building the Domestic Church series of booklets.

Since 1948, CIS has been the major evangelical arm of the Knights of Columbus. Through multiple booklet series and various media formats, CIS makes our Catholic faith accessible and continually provides tools for catechesis and faith formation. For $150, a council receive a Building the Domestic Church Kiosk (#BDC-K) and the first set of 225 booklets of the most popular CIS resources, aimed at helping Catholics to live out the Church’s vision for our families.

Program Resources

Resources