IWKnights Corner (Bulletin Insert) for November 4, 2018

Did you know this about the IW Knights of Columbus?

Earlier this year, in August, the Knights of Columbus staged our annual convention in Baltimore.  Recently Supreme Knight Carl Anderson released a video report of the Order’s accomplishments and plans for the future which he presented to the attendees.  The following text is Supreme Knight Anderson’s opening remarks delivered on the video (runtime 23 minutes+).  The links to the video presentation and/or the complete text are available on our Facebook page or Web Site (see addresses below).

“My brother Knights, it was the summer of 1873 and a young man was at a crossroads.  With his father’s blessing, he had left home for school some months before filled with hopes and dreams.  But now his father was dead, and he was back at home.  He had no money for tuition. He had a mother and younger brothers and sisters to support.  His only option was to find a job.

But the Holy Spirit intervened. Powerful people became aware of the young man’s plight.  They saw in him character.  They saw in him a deep faith.  And most of all, they saw in him promise — the promise of a man on a mission.

So, they arranged for a scholarship, a concept little known at the time.  And on Sept. 14, 1873, Michael McGivney of Waterbury, Conn., entered St. Mary’s Seminary, just a few miles from here.

Four years later, he was ordained by Baltimore’s Archbishop James Gibbons in the Cathedral of the Assumption.

Father McGivney had arrived in that rare 19th-century American city — a city where Catholicism was accepted, even popular.  In fact, it was the birthplace of the Catholic Church in the United States.  It was America’s first diocese and the home of our first American bishop, John Carroll, whose family lived at the intersection of faith and liberty in the new nation.

The bishop’s cousin, Charles Carroll, was the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, and he became one of our nation’s first senators. Bishop Carroll’s brother, Daniel, signed both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.

So at a time when Catholics in the colonies were ostracized or outright attacked, the Carroll brothers and their cousin stood firm in their faith.  They believed that religious freedom for all was the bedrock of freedom in the New World.”

Find the links to the entirety of this article and to the video presentation at either www.IWKnights.com/bulletin or at facebook.com/IWknights 9981 and NOW on Twitter at twitter.com/IwKnights.

Links Related to this week’s column:

• ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SUPREME KNIGHT
  BALTIMORE, MARYLAND • AUGUST 7, 2018 (10/1/2018)
  • http://www.kofc.org/en/columbia/detail/136-annual-report-of-the-supreme-knight.html

• Celebrating the Knights
  Knights of Columbus online article   (10/3/2018)
  • Founded by a young parish priest now on the path to sainthood, the Knights of Columbus has helped strengthen men, their families, their parishes and their communities since 1882. Today, there are more than 1.9 million members of the K of C doing good across the world......