Another Reason Why I Will Never Again Be a Knight of Columbus

I know I have a goodly number of readers who belong to the Knights of Columbus, as I used to.  I left the organization years ago over its persecution of members who demanded the organization live up to its founding ideal, and ban membership from public heretics and others not living a “practical Catholic life.”  I can understand why some men want to belong to the KoC, warts and all.

But the organization under Supreme Knight Carl Andersen continues to make highly perplexing decisions.  One is the recently announced change to the 4th degree uniforms.  Whatever one thinks of the old ones, the new ones are decidedly lacking in presence.  It’s a suit coat with a patch and a goofy looking beret, instead of the classic tux and sash look.  Apparently this decision has been met with a great deal of controversy.

More telling, however, was the decision by the KoC to spend millions of dollars bolstering a decidedly left-wing pseudo-Catholic organization in the publication Crux – more or less a vanity vehicle for John Allen and an attempt by deranged Boston Globe management to cash in on what they thought would be the raging popularity of Francis, Bishop of Rome.  Crux has lately been on the attack against those horrid converts to Catholicism, who should really just be constantly on their knees thanking God for permitting us in the Church and just keep our mouths shut and let the left-liberal cradle Catholics do all the talking, thinking, and running of the Church*.

In a particularly ugly bit of spleen-venting, Francis-supporter and super-liberal Austin Invereigh inveighed against a number of Catholic converts by name, including Edwin Pentin and Ross Douthat, accusing them of being possessed of a neurosis.  This was followed up by a half-hearted apology and then a doubling down, repeating the attack in a third piece.  The KoC has, to date, not issued an apology or demanded a retraction, even though they are now part-owners of Crux.  Via Rorate:

The Knights of Columbus made a clear choice when the organization decided to sponsor the faltering “Crux” — founded by the Boston Globe for liberal journalist John Allen Jr (when the Globe thought it could cash in on Francis’ supposed “popularity”) and then, when it came into trouble, propped up by the Knights.

The Knights’ choice was to uphold the liberal and Modernist version of Catholicism in reporting news.

For a few weeks now, Knights-Crux has been on a crusade to crush the credibility of converts to Catholicism. This because the Modernist establishment currently in charge of much of the central government of the Church hates American Catholicism, hates conservative Catholics in the United States, hates the Traditional-friendly general trends of the strongest portions of English-speaking Catholicism, and hates, therefore, informed converts who are so influential in those circles.

The first shot was an article by Austin Ivereigh on “Pope Francis and the convert problem“. Yes, it’s a “problem”, apparently, and as such it will demand a “solution”. The controversy generated by the article was so great that Knights-Crux editor Allen Jr. had to intervene. This “intervention” was just for show, because a few days later, Knights-Crux publishes a new attack on converts, by convert David Mills with the shocking title “Newcomers to the Church should speak less, listen more“.

Why do the Knights of Columbus wish to silence, shame, and persecute Converts? Why do they support this campaign of discrimination of converts in the Church? The leadership of the Knights of Columbus must speak up clearly, or the Crux crusade against converts will remain for all purposes the public and editorial policy of the Knights.

I’m sorry, but there is no benefit the Knights provide that outweighs their coziness with those destroying the (human element of) Church from within.  There is no benefit to me or my family from being associated with this organization, which, whatever its founding purpose and original intent, has gone far astray, and is more concerned with receiving the continued approbation of the great powers in the Church (and, it seems, the culture) than really aiding the workaday lives of individual poor Catholics, which was Fr. Michael McGiveney’s intent.  In truth, the restoration of the Faith is what those poor Catholics – what all Catholics – need most, not politicking and engaging in dubious investments.

I know not all readers agree, and that’s their prerogative.  Please don’t take this post as an attack on you.  Perhaps traditional Catholic men should consider starting their own alternative to the Knights?  That might be a hot one for the parish council meeting, if your parish has such things.

*- They are not entirely wrong on this. I should be ever more thankful to God for making me a part of His Church.  But the reasons why the Crux crowd are on this crusade against conflicts has everything to do with sexular leftist politics/ideology (what one might call the leftists true religion), instead of any concern for converts’ souls.