.- Throughout the past year, the Knights of Columbus has fulfilled its mission through a strong defense of religious liberty and record-breaking amounts of charitable activity, Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson announced.
Continuing in the long tradition of faith and charity that began with the organization’s founder, Venerable Father Michael J. McGivney, the Knights have remained firm in their commitment “to preach the Gospel in word and deed,” he said on August 7.
Anderson delivered his annual report at the organization’s 130th Supreme Convention in Anaheim, Calif. With 1.8 million members around the world, the Knights are committed to the principles of charity, unity and fraternity.
One of the most important ways that the order has lived out this calling in the past year is in its adamant defense of religious liberty, Anderson explained.
He recalled the American founders’ commitment to religious freedom as a foundational liberty that comes from God.
“The history of Catholics in the United States is a history of defending religious freedom,” he said, adding that whenever this fundamental liberty is threatened, “we will vigorously defend it.”
Anderson then recalled that the Catholic Church’s interest in religious freedom is not something that began this past year, rather, it has been part of the Catholic experience “from the very beginning.”
And in Anderson’s words, the Knights of Columbus has “taken the lead” in defending religious liberty from various threats in past decades.
In the 19th century, the order stood strong against the Know-Nothings’ accusations that Catholics cannot be good citizens.
In the 1920s, when the Ku Klux Klan sponsored legislation to ban Catholic schools in the state of Oregon, the Knights supported a group of religious sisters in challenging the law. The sisters eventually won their case in the Supreme Court, securing their religious freedom and setting an important precedent for similar threats in the future.
The fraternal organization also played a key role in adding the words “Under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in the 1950s, Anderson said, adding that “we have defended their right to be there ever since.”
Now, the group is battling numerous contemporary threats to religious liberty, including a federal mandate that requires employers to offer health insurance that covers contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs.
Like all of the Knights’ work, the recent efforts to defend religious freedom have been “motivated by our commitment to charity,” Anderson emphasized.
This charity can also be seen in the order’s record-breaking donations of time and money in the past year, he said, announcing that the group has donated more than $158 million to charitable causes and over 70 million hours in volunteer work over the last year.
Among the Knights’ partners are the Special Olympics, Habitat for Humanity and the Global Wheelchair Mission. The group has worked overseas to provide prosthetic limbs to Haitian children and assistance to AIDS orphans in Africa. Its domestic initiatives include blood drives, Coats for Kids and efforts to provide ultrasound machines to crisis pregnancy centers.
The order has also enjoyed continued growth, adding 215 new councils in the past year, Anderson reported.
The organization now includes 277 college councils and has reached more than 290,000 members in the Philippines, whom the Supreme Knight described as “truly extraordinary” in their faith and enthusiasm.
Looking forward, Anderson said that the Knights will continue in their practice of pursuing investments that are “economically and morally sustainable.”
The fact that the Knights of Columbus has been given the highest possible ratings for its insurance policies demonstrates that “ethics and success can and should go together,” he said.
.- Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore believes that Pope Benedict's praise for the Knights of Columbus' efforts to defend religious freedom shows that the issue is broader than the confines of American politics.
The Pope's recent letter affirming the Knights, Archbishop Lori added, puts to rest suggestions that the group's religious liberty efforts have right-wing affiliations.
“This letter from the Holy Father is exceedingly important,” Archbishop Lori told CNA in an exclusive Aug. 6 interview.
“Not only does it confirm what the Knights of Columbus has been doing, it also lends encouragement to the bishops' efforts and religious freedom.”
“The Holy Father has taught clearly, and expresses it clearly in the letter, that religious liberty is not just one of many freedoms,” he underscored, “but it is as fundamental as the right to life itself.”
In a July 19 message signed by the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Benedict commended the Knights' work at a time “when concerted efforts are being made to redefine and restrict the exercise of the right to religious freedom.”
The Pope made his remarks before the Knights' annual assembly, held this year in Anaheim, Calif., from Aug. 6-9.
Archbishop Lori – who chairs the U.S. bishops' religious freedom committee and has served as the Knights' Supreme Chaplain since 2005 – said he thinks the pontiff is aware that religious freedom issues “would very much be a focus of our convention as we begin in these days.”
“Religious liberty touches man at his root, in his relation to his Creator. And so, the right to life and religious liberty are two sides to one coin,” Archbishop Lori said.
“And I believe the Holy Father is making that abundantly clear, that the defense of religious liberty has to be a primary focus.”
With more than 1.8 million members, the Knights of Columbus is the world's largest fraternal group and among the nation’s most active charitable organizations. Last year, the Knights donated more than $158 million and 70 million volunteer hours to various humanitarian causes.
In recent months, the group has been an outspoken opponent of measures that threaten religious freedom – most notably a federal mandate that requires employers to offer health insurance that includes contraception, sterilization and early abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their religious beliefs.
Each of the Knights' state councils passed a resolution supporting religious freedom, and Supreme Knight Carl Anderson has publicly opposed the mandate as well as other threats to religious liberty.
However, at a June 13 press conference at the U.S. bishops' spring meeting in Atlanta, Archbishop Lori was questioned by Jerry Filteau of the National Catholic Reporter about funding for the bishops' campaign to defend religious liberty.
Filteau said that he had heard “rumors” that much of the funding for the bishops' effort is coming from the Knights, whose head, Anderson, is a former Reagan administration official.
He suggested that there may be “a partisanship aspect to the whole thing.”
In response, Archbishop Lori called the idea an “injustice” and urged those in attendance to think “of what the Knights of Columbus does for the Catholic Church and for many other humanitarian causes.”
“It is not in any way partisan, either in its spirit or in its funding,” he said.
Speaking to CNA on Aug. 6, Archbishop Lori observed that by his support for the Knights, the Pope himself has reaffirmed that the issue of defending religious liberty goes “beyond partisan confines.”
Through his letter, Pope Benedict “clarifies that whether one is a Democrat or Republican or an Independent, one ought to be working diligently to defend religious liberty.”
“Because, if religious liberty is compromised or violated, then a very unjust society emerges and that is not in anyone's interest of any party or of any political stripe,” the archbishop said.
Ultimately, he noted, the Pope's strong encouragement of the group “strengthens our resolve to continue fighting this battle which is not only legal and administrative, but also cultural and moral.”