By Andy Telli
Catholic News Service
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — After 142 years, the Knights of Columbus is pulling down a veil of secrecy that has surrounded its initiation ceremonies in an effort to better showcase the order’s core principles and its drive to help Catholic men become disciples.
Since its founding in 1882, the initiation ceremonies for the first three degrees of Knights membership — focused on the principles of charity, unity and fraternity — have been separate and open to members only. The fourth degree, dedicated to the principal of patriotism, was added later and this initiation also is secret and for members only.
But starting this year, the Knights have adopted a new ceremony. Called the Exemplification of Charity, Unity and Fraternity, it combines the initiation for the first three degrees into a single ceremony open to family, friends and fellow parishioners.
The fourth-degree ceremony will remain unchanged and will continue to be open to members only.
The Knights of Columbus is a fraternal organization of Catholic men that was founded by Father Michael McGivney, a young priest serving at Saint Mary Church in New Haven, Connecticut. Father McGivney is a candidate for sainthood and has the title “Venerable.”
Today, the order has more than 2 million members worldwide who are involved in charitable and service works.
“Secrecy has to be understood in the context of the 19th century,” Supreme Knight Carl Anderson said. “There was incredible bigotry against Catholics,” with the anti-Catholic Know-Nothings in control politically in New England at the time, and the Ku Klux Klan later became a powerful political force across the country, he said. “There was some appeal to secrecy.” Also at the time, the idea of progressing through the degrees as a journey toward Knighthood was popular.
But today, those features have proved to be an impediment to men joining, particularly young men, Anderson said.
By opening the ceremony to the public, “families and friends can see what we’re all about and hopefully decide I or my brother or my husband should join,” Anderson said.
“We need to impress on the members the importance of charity, unity, fraternity, how they are linked, and how in Father McGivney’s vision of Christian discipleship … charity, unity and fraternity become a path of discipleship for the Catholic man,” Anderson said.
The script for the new degree calls for the ceremony to be conducted in a church or similarly appropriate location, with a priest or deacon participating. The expectation is that the new ceremony can be held after a Mass when the congregation can be invited to stay and watch.
at the bottom and then tap “Add to Home Screen”
