Today is March 29th, the 128th Anniversary of the founding of the Knights of Columbus by Father Michael J. McGivney.
The Knights of Columbus was founded as a mutual benefit society, to aid Catholic widows and orphans when the breadwinner (who was at that time the man of the house) was killed. This during a time when Catholics were not allowed by law to join unions or partake of government social services of any kind. It was, if you will, health and life insurance reform for Catholics, since the USA hated Catholics at that time (1880's).
The KofC is a fraternal men's society now, open to observant Catholic men in a number of countries. It operates insurance and performs works of charity for members of all faiths and none at all.
I am a member of the Knights. Every year, we don vests and hand out Tootsie Rolls and collect donations for the ARC. Sadly, the federal government requires the term 'retarded' to be used when designating federal funds for developmentally disabled children, and so our vests say 'Help Retarded Children', which makes a lot of PC folk angry with us. But we do our best. We also donate time and money to help the community during natural disasters like Katrina and the recent earthquake in Haiti.
So if you don't mind, a moment to honor the Knights of Columbus. 128 years of trying to do the right thing for Catholics and for everyone.
The Knights of Columbus was founded as a mutual benefit society, to aid Catholic widows and orphans when the breadwinner (who was at that time the man of the house) was killed. This during a time when Catholics were not allowed by law to join unions or partake of government social services of any kind. It was, if you will, health and life insurance reform for Catholics, since the USA hated Catholics at that time (1880's).
The KofC is a fraternal men's society now, open to observant Catholic men in a number of countries. It operates insurance and performs works of charity for members of all faiths and none at all.
I am a member of the Knights. Every year, we don vests and hand out Tootsie Rolls and collect donations for the ARC. Sadly, the federal government requires the term 'retarded' to be used when designating federal funds for developmentally disabled children, and so our vests say 'Help Retarded Children', which makes a lot of PC folk angry with us. But we do our best. We also donate time and money to help the community during natural disasters like Katrina and the recent earthquake in Haiti.
So if you don't mind, a moment to honor the Knights of Columbus. 128 years of trying to do the right thing for Catholics and for everyone.
