The Knights of Columbus

The Knights of Columbus

Introduction

The Knights of Columbus is a worldwide, Catholic, fraternal service organization.  Founded in 1882 by a young priest, the Venerable Fr. Michael McGivney. The Knights contribute their time and energy worldwide, dedicated to service to the Church and local communities, along with actively promoting and defending our faith in family and life issues, vocations, and through Catholic education.  The Knights are guided by four core principles of charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism.  The Church’s leadership has recognized the Knights as being good for the Church, good for Catholic men, and good for families. 

The Knights are the “able and willing” assisting those in need within and beyond our organization.  Mutual aid and assistance are offered to sick, disabled, and needy members and their families.  Social and intellectual fellowship is promoted among members and their families through educational, charitable, religious, social welfare, war relief and public relief works.

History

The Knights of Columbus was founded by a young Catholic priest, Fr. Michael J. McGivney, who held the first meeting in the basement of St. Mary’s Church, in New Haven, Connecticut, on Oct 2, 1881.  Fr. McGivney and the first members were bound together by the ideal of Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of the Americas, the one whose hand brought Christianity to the New World.  Their efforts came to fruition with the incorporation of the Knights of Columbus as an Order, on March 29, 1882.

Now, the Knights of Columbus has grown from several members in one council to more than 12,000 councils and 1.6 million members worldwide in countries including United States, Canada, the Philippines, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, Guatemala, Guam and Saipan.

As the Order has grown, its benevolence has increased.  The Order continues to break all of its previous records for charitable contributions and volunteer service.  In the past decade, the Knights have raised and donated nearly $1 billion to numerous charitable causes and volunteered nearly 400 million hours of service.  Last year alone, the Knights donated more than $125 million and more than 60 million volunteer hours to charitable causes.

Structure

The heirarchy of the Knights of Columbus works in tiers similar to governing bodies.

There is the local council level where members participate and operate. Our council is Fr. Leduc Council #7061

Each Council falls into a District within their province or state. The District is supported by the provincial or state representatives called District Deputies. Currently we fall under District 14, shared by four other councils, all from the city of Edmonton. At times District lines are redrawn and we can have brother councils in our district from other places. This is dependant on the logistics of how many district deputies there are and where they are from. The District Deputy is a tremendous resource to the councils and acts as a direct line of communication to the State level board.

The Provincial level board is refered to as the State Council. Our State Council represents all of Alberta and NWT. They help deliver programs from the national level and work to motivate the local councils to deliver effective programs. All of the members of the State Council come from local councils across the province and territory. There is an annual general meeting with representatives all of the councils in the State to review what has been accomplished and what is upcoming, as well as to elect the members of the State Board.

Finally there is an international board of directors based out of New Haven, CT that we call Supreme. They administer the councils around the world in every country that there are Knights of Columbus.

There is a branch of the Knights of Columbus that provides insurance and investment services to the membership. Each State level has a dedicated insurance agency that assists membership within that State territory. For members of our council, contact the Grand Knight or Financial Secretary to find out who the insurance agent is for our council.

There is a tremendous value in sharing the information, practices, rescources, recognition and donation work from the small local councils right up to the broad branch of Supreme. There are thousands of amazing men around the world working within the Catholic faith, accomplishing some incredible things for our communities. The humble start from Fr. McGivney has become a worldwide phenomenon.

For more information about the Knights Of Columbus and its workings, please refer to www.kofc.org or contact us at info@leduckc.ca