Nihil Obstat

The Fighting Knights

Fr. Michael McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus, must be spinning around in his grave!   His Knights have gotten into politics, publicly fighting one another over supporting a party whose discrimination and distain for Irish and Italian immigrants caused the Knights to come into being 120 years ago.

In the late 1800s, discrimination against American Catholics was widespread. Many Catholics struggled to find work and ended up in inferno-like mills. An injury or the death of the wage earner would leave a family penniless. The grim threat of chronic homelessness and even starvation could fast become realities. Called to action in 1882 by his sympathy for these suffering people, Father McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus, an organization that has helped to save countless families from the indignity of destitution.

The current Supreme Knight in the KofC is Carl Anderson.   He is also the author of A Civilization of Love.

Carl Anderson’s partisan remarks about Catholic vice presidential candidate Sen.  Joseph Biden (D-Delware) ignited a revolt inside the Knights, and lead to the creation of Knights for Obama.   Knights for Obama objected to Anderson’s attempt to deliver the Knights and their families en masse  into the Republican camp.   They are also speaking out forcefully for the Knights to address all the issues under Catholic social teaching – not just cherry-picked to align with the Republican party.

Up until this election, I always had a rather benign but fond  view of “the Knights”– a fraternal association of Catholic men who did a number of things together from their storefront meeting places: raise money for mentally and physically  challenged  children through solicitation at stoplights; sponsor spaghetti dinners and breakfasts for charity, and provide an escort to the bishop in some very fancy costumes.   In short, men getting together to drink and play cards, and also protect and provide for  the most defenseless among us: children.

I visited the Knights of Columbus website.   The only initiatives they mention on their home page have to do with abortion and same-sex marriage.   They also prominently market their  insurance policies, and Carl Anderson photo-ops with bishops and the Pope.

What is not on the Knights’ home page are charitable giving options for children.

There is no mention of the millions of children without health care.   The children that are hungry.   The children that are homeless. Or in foster care. Or neglected. Or have drug problems. Or coping alone with stress in the home. Or boys and girls  on their own, and making a livelihood via prostitition.

Why is that? Where is the voice and the clout of the  national organization for these children?

The Knights can and should speak out against abortion.   But the Knights are a Catholic  organization, not a marketing auxilliary of the Republican party or just those social concerns  that don’t cost money.

The Knights need to have the guts and fortitude to challenge all  politicians and parties on behalf of all children – born as well as unborn. Children that are here…not just egg and embryo.

For example, a year ago, President Bush vetoed   at $35 billion expansion of the current State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

Under the vetoed plan, government-sponsored health coverage would have been expanded from 6.6 million people, mostly children, to include an additional 4 million kids and 700,000 adults. Currently, 9 percent, or 6 million, of the 43 million uninsured Americans are children under 18. SCHIP is available to people who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but are not able to afford private insurance.

Contrast that funding against the $150 billion annually for the Iraqi war. And the billions more in energy company profits the government doesn’t even make a feeble attempt to tax.

The  Knights don’t mention human costs of  the Iraqi war, and all the children it has helped to turn into refugees–in particular, Christian Iraqis.   They don’t rise to defend the Iraqi  children that have been killed, wounded, and maimed in this military venture;  the casualties to pregnant women somehow weren’t  noted in the Defense of Life materials and ads.  

There is also no mention of the 18, 19, 20 year old conscripts from America, mostly poor or working class, that have died in Iraqi or been wounded in this conflict. A lot of them enlisted to get money for college or training for a better life.

Many of these young men and women are immigrants, just like the people who  inspired  Father McGivney a long time ago.