Ask a group of men what the Knights of Columbus is, and the answers will probably be familiar.
It is a Catholic fraternal organization.
It is a charitable organization.
It supports parishes, seminarians, families, the unborn, people with intellectual disabilities, and communities in need.
It brings Catholic men together in fraternity and service.
These answers are all true. But they describe what the Knights do more than what a Knight is. That distinction matters.
Organizations are often defined by their activities: meetings, fund raisers, meals cooked and served, events sponsored, volunteer hours recorded on a log. Those things are necessary. They are visible results of a Knight’s efforts. But the deepest purpose of the Knights of Columbus should not be found on a spreadsheet or judged by how busy an annual calendar is.
It must be found in the men themselves.
The real question is not just: What does a Knight do? It is: What is a Knight called to become?
More than a membership roster
A danger in every great institution is that membership tends to become nominal; a routinary experience. A man pays his dues. He attends an occasional meeting. He helps at an event. He wears the symbols of the Order. Perhaps he advances through the degrees and receives the honors associated with membership. These things have their place. But none of them, by themselves, captures the essence of knighthood.
The Knights of Columbus was founded because Catholic men needed one another. Families needed protection, care and solidarity. Widows and children needed assistance. The Church needed faithful laymen willing to stand publicly as Catholics, without fear of public opinion. Men needed fraternity rooted not merely in common interests, but in a common faith. The KoC is not a social club after all.
A Knight should therefore understand his membership not simply as participation in an association or men’s social gather, but as an invitation to live his Catholic vocation more deliberately.
The Order does not replace the Church. It does not replace the parish, the family, the sacraments, or the individual Christian vocation. Rather, it should help a man live all of them more faithfully.
Charity
Charity is the first principle of the Knights of Columbus. That is significant. Charity is not merely philanthropy; it is a theological virtue. Writing a check can be charitable. Serving a meal can be charitable. Organizing a fundraiser can be charitable. But Christian charity goes much deeper. It asks us to become men capable of recognizing Christ in another person.
A charitable Knight should gradually become a charitable man. That means generosity when nobody is keeping track. It means patience with an aging parent. Fidelity to one’s wife and children (for those who are married and have children). Concern for a struggling brother Knight. Respect for the poor. Attention to the lonely man standing unnoticed after Mass. Forgiveness when resentment would be easier. Courage when another person’s dignity is being ignored.
If charity exists only at the council event, we have misunderstood it. The charitable works of the Order should train us for a charitable life.
Unity
Our second principle, unity, is equally demanding. We live in a culture that profits from division. Political division. Social media division. Class, ideology, geography, race, generation, and even disagreements within the Church can become reasons to regard one another with suspicion. But the Knight should be different.
Unity does not require pretending disagreements do not exist; or Kumbaya moments all the time. Catholic men can disagree about prudential matters, personalities, policies, and strategies. But a Knight should learn how to disagree without ceasing to recognize a brother or creating scandal in the process. That is a deeply Christian discipline.
Unity means remembering that what binds us in Christ is greater than the countless things the world uses to separate us. Our council meeting room should therefore become a school of communion. Men of different ages, professions, backgrounds, temperaments, and experiences stand beside one another and call one another brother Knight. Those words should mean something.
True fraternity
Fraternity takes unity one step further. Friendship is often based on compatibility. Fraternity is based upon obligation. A brother is someone whose welfare becomes, in some measure, our concern. This is one of the great gifts the Knights of Columbus can offer modern men, plagued by individualism;
Our culture has produced extraordinary technological connectivity while many men experience profound isolation. Men can have hundreds of contacts or Facebook ‘friends’ and very few brothers. The Order offers another possibility.
Within the Knights, the successful businessman and the retired policeman can serve beside the young father and the tradesman. The lifelong parishioner can welcome the man who has only recently returned to the Church. Generations can learn from one another.
This fraternity should extend beyond meetings. When a brother is sick, we should notice. When a brother loses his job, we should care. When a brother’s wife dies, he should not grieve alone. When a young father is overwhelmed, older men should be available to him. When a brother begins drifting from the faith, someone should know him well enough to recognize it. That is fraternity in practice, not in promise.
Care for our nation
Patriotism, the principle especially associated with the Fourth Degree, also deserves deeper reflection. Catholic patriotism is neither nationalism nor indifference to one’s country. It is gratitude joined to responsibility towards our blessed country. A Catholic man can love his country while recognizing that no nation is perfect and no political order is ultimate. Our first allegiance belongs to God. Precisely because of that allegiance, the Catholic citizen should desire justice, peace, virtue, human dignity, religious liberty, and the common good within his nation.
A Knight’s patriotism should therefore be visible not merely in colorful ceremonies, but in citizenship characterized by integrity. He should love his country enough to serve it, defend what is noble within it, acknowledge what requires correction, and work peacefully for its good.
The Knight at Home
Perhaps the most important test of knighthood occurs far from the council meetings. It occurs at home. A man can hold office in his council and still neglect his family. He can volunteer constantly and still fail to pray. He can speak eloquently about Catholic values while treating people poorly. He can defend the Church publicly while failing to cultivate holiness privately. Christian knighthood cannot be divided that way.
The first people who should experience the fruits of a Knight’s formation are the people closest to him. His wife should encounter greater fidelity. His children should encounter greater presence. His parents should encounter greater gratitude. His coworkers should encounter greater integrity. His parish should encounter greater service. The stranger should encounter greater charity. And God should encounter a man increasingly willing to surrender himself to grace. Otherwise, knighthood risks becoming a costume we wear rather than a life we live.
A Vocation Within a Vocation
Strictly speaking, membership in the Knights of Columbus is not a sacramental vocation like Holy Orders or Matrimony; but it should not be an annual subscription either. There is something profoundly vocational about authentic knighthood.
The Latin word ‘vocatio’ means a calling. Every baptized Christian has already been called: called to holiness, called to discipleship, called to participate in the mission of Christ. The Knights of Columbus can become one concrete way in which a Catholic layman answers that larger call.
For one man, that may mean learning generosity. For another, leadership. For another, return seriously to prayer. For another, discovering fraternity after years of isolation. For another, defending life. For another, serving his parish. For another, becoming the father his children need. And for another, simply learning that Catholicism is not something practiced for one hour on Sunday, but a way of inhabiting the world.
This is why the future of the Knights cannot depend solely upon recruiting more members. It must depend upon forming more Knights. There is a difference. Membership can be recorded. Formation can only be lived.
The Essence of the Knight
So, what is the true essence of the Knights of Columbus? It is not the meeting. It is not the banquet. It is not the fundraiser. It is not the uniform, the title, the office, the ceremony, or the membership card. All of these may serve the mission. None of them is the mission itself.
The essence is the Catholic man being formed through charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism into a more faithful disciple of Jesus Christ; and then carrying that formation into his family, parish, workplace, community, and country. The measure of the Order’s success, therefore, cannot ultimately be how busy our councils become. It must be what kind of men our councils produce.
Men who pray.
Men who serve.
Men who keep their promises.
Men who defend human dignity.
Men who accompany their brothers.
Men who love their families.
Men who strengthen their parishes.
Men who serve their communities.
Men who understand that faith demands something of them.
A Knight should not merely belong to the Knights of Columbus. He should learn to live as a Knight. That, my brothers, is more than membership. It is a vocation-shaped way of life.
Reynier Lezcano, 4th degree Knight
Council 9888; Assembly 3155