Political activity of the Knights of Columbus
"[8] The Knights' progressive credentials were rooted in their "efforts to shake the country free from any prejudice ... to create conditions which will give every American a chance to obtain decent money ... to eliminate poverty ... [and to foster] interreligious dialogue and interracial understanding.
[14][1] According to Supreme Knight Flaherty, the war provided an opportunity to present the Order "in a most favorable light,"[17] and to show that Catholics could also be good patriots - avoiding the suspicion that their loyalty lay with the Holy See in Rome.
After the November 1926 cover showed some knights carrying a banner of liberty and warning of "The Red Peril of Mexico," the Mexican legislature banned both the Order and the magazine.
[19][a] The delegation did not ask for a military involvement in Mexico, but did express their concerns that the present situation was a result of actions taken by previous American administrations, including the provision of arms to Mexican president Plutarco Elías Calles.
[19] The order subsequently smuggled into Mexico pamphlets in English and Spanish denouncing the anti-clerical Mexican government and its policies,[21] provoking efforts at the border to stop the flow.
[22][23] So much printed material was smuggled into Mexico that the government directed border guards be aware of women bringing Catholic propaganda into the country hidden in their clothes.
[29] The Knights supported the embargo on all arms into Spain,[30] and appealed to Will H. Hays, chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, to ban or label as propaganda (pro-Marxist and anti-Catholic) loyalist films.
[40][39] Shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Knights' museum showcased Vatican artifacts highlighting the efforts of Pope John Paul II for world peace.
[44] In 1914, the order paid the salaries of David Goldstein, who was born Jewish but converted to Catholicism after reading the pro-labor papal encyclical Rerum novarum, and Peter W. Collins, the general secretary of the Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, to lecture around North America.
As part of the crusade, several hundred radio stations played segments produced by the order on the alleged evils of communism and the harshness of life in Russia.
"[57] By the end of July 1931, a total of 43,128 unemployed people had been placed into jobs, in addition to those placements made by local councils who were working under the auspices of other organizations.
"[75] In 2016, the Knights provided funding to the dioceses of Ciudad Juárez and El Paso to facilitate Pope Francis' visit to the US-Mexican border which highlighted the plight of migrants from majority-Catholic Mexico, and the need therefore to work for "just immigration laws.
[78] The Supreme Council called on the administration to "equitably balance the legitimate rights of persons to emigrate in order to seek better lives for themselves and their children, with the duty of governments to control migration into their countries so that immigration policy serves the common good.
Civil rights activist and author Emmett Jay Scott praised the Order, saying that "to its credit," and "unlike the other social welfare organizations operating in the war, it never drew the color line. ...
[85] Given the history of slavery and early development in the U.S., most African-Americans were Protestant, but Church officials and organizations encouraged integration and criticized the segregationist practices within the Order.
[85] At the 1964 Supreme Convention, membership rules were overhauled after the blackballing of a black applicant led to national news coverage the previous year.
[23] The pair also asked them "to help lead our country away from the precipice of violence and toward a future of honest and open civil discourse and respect for the dignity of each person.
[93][94][95] It was promoted by groups such as the Knights of Pythias, the Federation of Patriotic Societies, the Oregon Good Government League, the Orange Order, and the Ku Klux Klan.
[97] Roger Nash Baldwin, an associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union and a personal friend of then–Supreme Advocate and future Supreme Knight Luke E. Hart, offered to join forces with the order to challenge the law.
[98][95][99] The case became known as Pierce v. Society of Sisters, a seminal United States Supreme Court decision that significantly expanded coverage of the Due Process Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment.
[100] The Knights of Columbus "promotes the dignity and the irreplaceable value of the family founded on the Church's understanding of marriage as the faithful, exclusive, and lifelong union of one man and one woman joined in an intimate partnership of life and love.
[103] In 2012, the Knights and its local councils contributed $1 million to support similar ballot campaigns to effectively block same-sex marriage in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington.
[131] In addition, local councils set up phone banks and letter writing campaigns to oppose the measure, which would have diminished the Knights' ability to make charitable contributions.
[1] The Order played a role in the early stages of the movement that eventually led to the decision by the US Congress to add the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954.
[138][139] Similar lobbying convinced many state legislatures to adopt 12 October as Columbus Day, confirmed by President F. D. Roosevelt as a federal holiday in 1937.
[144] Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Rabbi Mitchell Rocklin said that the senators approach amounted to a "religious test" such as is precluded by Article VI of the Constitution.
Rabbi Rocklin said: "The line of questioning Buescher faced about his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus sets a troubling precedent of intolerance—one that is unconscionable in principle and terrible in practice for people of all faiths who seek a role in public service.
"[145] Micklin noted the anti-Semitism experienced by Justices Louis Brandeis and Benjamin N. Cardozo, and further state, "It is even more absurd for senators to imply that a judge, who cannot propose or enact legislation, would be incapable of setting aside his religious beliefs when interpreting our written laws.
[146] In the 1950s, the Knights successfully lobbied President Eisenhower to not invite Josip Broz Tito, leader of Yugoslavia, to visit the United States in view of his jailing of Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac.
[149] In Massachusetts, the State Council passed resolutions in the early 1960s calling on the Catholic Church to prevent the spread of communism in Latin America and opposing communist China from joining the United Nations.
