Recently in Knights of Columbus Category

Hard to believe that 15 years have passed since John Paul's post synodal exhortation Ecclesia in America. It is a remarkable document in my opinion, even though it touches on many very serious problems that we need to face from Alaska to Argentina. We hear nothing of this document these days. Every so often we hear a reference to it when a hierarch wants to say something intelligent about the situation at hand in America. Perhaps we could go back to EA with fresh eyes. What is clear is to work on ways for greater communion and solidarity with the Christians across the boarders.

We need to continue to answer the thematic of the "Encounter with the living Jesus Christ: The way to conversion, communion and solidarity in America." We can't set tight with only what John Paul gave us to think on, and to work on. The strength of the Church in America rests not merely on our own solution to the matters at hand but also to our persistent call to holiness.

To honor the publication's anniversary events have been scheduled in Rome from 9-12 December. Among the presentations/dialogue we have:

• the event in Guadalupe as the origin of evangelization in the New World
• the post-Synodal Exhortation: prophecy, teaching and commitment
• the Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in America with the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, star of the new evangelization and mother of the civilization of love
• the meaning of the Year of Faith
• Scenarios and proposals for communion and co-operation between Churches of the Americas and for solidarity among their peoples.

Happy to see that Carl Anderson, supreme knights of the Knights of Columbus was chosen as one the presenters for today's conference. He gives gravitas coupled with reasonableness. You may want to listen to Carl Anderson's interview with Vatican Radio it is here.

It is indeed an honor for the Knights of Columbus to have the opportunity to help organize this conference on Ecclesia in America - together with the Pontifical Commission for Latin America - under the patronage of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

As a lay organization that has been in the United States, Canada, Mexico - and other parts of Latin America - for more than a century, we are particularly aligned with the vision presented in Ecclesia in America, and are working with the Church in our hemisphere on the project of the New Evangelization.

In re-reading Ecclesia in America 15 years after the close of the Synod for America held here in Rome in November and December 1997, three things stand out to me as particularly important to our discussion here and at the conference next week.

Introducing the 2010 Gaudium et Spes recipient tonight the Supreme Chaplain, Bishop William Lori, quoted the opening words of the Vatican II document by the same name reminding us that: "The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ" (Gaudium et spes, 1).

Lori continued by saying that faith is more cherished when challenged which has been particularly true for the people of Cuba and certainly for the honoree tonight, Jaime Lucas Cardinal Ortega y Alamino, 73, Archbishop of San Cristobal de la Habana.

Steadfast in his witness to Jesus Christ with apostolic zeal and courage, Cardinal Jaime Ortega was ordained priest in 1964 (he celebrated his 46th anniversary on August 2); he's been a bishop for 31 years and a cardinal for 15. In 1998, Cardinal Ortega welcomed Pope John Paul II to Cuba which paved the way for warmer relations between the Church, Cuba and the world. Himself imprisoned for his Catholic faith he's been an outspoken advocate for the oppressed and poor. In November, Cardinal Ortega will open new the San Carlos y San Ambrosio National Seminary to train men for the priesthood in Cuba. Jaime Lucas Cardinal Ortega y Alamino is the 8th recipient of the Knights of Columbus Gaudium et Spes Award.

This award was established by the Knights in 1992 to recognize those people who made outstanding contributions to both the Church and to society. The award is a gold medal with an honorarium of $100,000. The intellectual and spiritual orientation of this award is based on the belief that Christians and all people of good will ought to be united, that is, to live in solidarity with all of humanity with its joys and trials. The hope of the Church for all of her children to live a life of total self-giving for Christ and our sister and brother. All of life, as the Vatican II Council Fathers exhorted, ought to "be aroused to a lively hope --the gift of the Holy Spirit-- that some day at last they will be caught up in peace and utter happiness in that fatherland radiant with the glory of the Lord" (GS, 93).

The citation is here and Cardinal Ortega's address can be read here.

Past Gaudium et Spes recipients:

• Mother Teresa of Calcutta, 1992
• John Cardinal O'Connor, 1994
• James Cardinal Hickey, 2000
• William Cardinal Baum, 2001
• Patriarch Michel Sabbah, 2002
• Jean Vanier, 2005
• Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, SDB, 2007

Taking Pope John Paul II's various exhortations throughout his pontificate (and that of the teaching of Pope Benedict) the Knights of Columbus takes seriously the exercising the ministry of charity as part of an overall method in bringing the Kingdom of God. Making Christ known through works of charity, the Knights of Columbus anchor their mission in the words of the Second Vatican Council where the Council Fathers stated:

the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven. They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope and charity. Therefore, since they are tightly bound up in all types of temporal affairs it is their special task to order and to throw light upon these affairs in such a way that they may come into being and then continually increase according to Christ to the praise of the Creator and the Redeemer" (Lumen gentium, 31).

Some of the ways in 2009 in which the laity cared for the temporal affairs of society through the work of the KofC whose principles are charity, unity and fraternity:

• $151 million in charitable giving
• the promise of giving all Haitian children needing prosthetic limbs as a result of the earthquake, about a 700 to 800 children in need
• 69 million in volunteer hours
• $17 million for youth programs
• Support of Project Rachel initiatives
• $1.6 million coupled with local and state councils to purchase 53 ultrasound machines
• $1.6 million to Pope Benedict for his charitable work
• $4.3 million given through the McGiveny Scholarship support of vocations since 1992
• $887,000 given over 13 years through the Dailey Scholarship
• RSVP gave $2.8 million in 2009 and in 28 years it gave $47 million to seminarians
• various church loan programs
• Villa Maria Guadalupe, a retreat house owned by the Knights and administered by the Sisters of Life in Stamford, CT
• collaboration in purchasing a handicap bus for VA patients without legs in order to get out of the hospital
• various faith-based and evangelization programs in the US, Mexico, Canada and the Philippines

MOST notable are the four Knights who died in the past year in Iraq and Afghanistan, giving their life for the nation.

What unites the KofC is faith Christ and we are our brother's keeper.

Vivat Jesus!

The Zenit.org news agency gave its readers a previously unpublished letter sent by Pope Pius XII to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on Aug. 30, 1943, after the Allied Forces bombed Rome. The letter surfaced from the archives of the Knights of Columbus given that it has worked in Rome since 1920. The KofC has recently opened a retrospective exhibit of its work for the Church and humanity in Rome. An unexpected gifts. Why? Because the letter to Roosevelt shows that Pope Pius did advocate for the needs of the defenseless in a dark period of history and that neither Italy nor the Church were free to freely act. Also, the exhibit shows the kind solicitude the KofC has had and continues to have for the work of Christ and the Church.

Your Excellency,

Recent events have naturally focused the world's attention for the moment on Italy, and much has been said and written on what policy she would or should now follow for her own best interests. Too many, we fear, take for granted that she is entirely free to follow the policy of her choice; and we have wished to express to Your Excellency our conviction that this is far from true. Of her desire for peace and to be done with the war, there can be no doubt; but in the presence of formidable forces opposing the actuation or even the official declaration of that desire she finds herself shackled and quite without the necessary means of defending herself.

If under such circumstances Italy is to be forced still to bear devastating blows against which she is practically defenseless, we hope and pray that the military leader will find it possible to spare innocent civil populations and in particular churches and religious institutions the ravages of war. Already, we must recount with deep sorrow and regret, these figure very prominently among the ruins of Italy's most populous and important cities.

But the message of assurance addressed to us by Your Excellency sustains our hope, even in the face of bitter experience, that God's temples and the homes erected by Christian charity for the poor and sick and abandoned members of Christ's flock may survive the terrible onslaught. May God in His merciful pity and love hearken to the universal cry of his children and let them hear once more the voice of Christ say: Peace!

We are happy of this occasion to renew the expression of our sincere good wishes to Your Excellency.

From the Vatican, August 30, 1943

Pius PP XII

Yesterday, May 3rd, marked the 10th Anniversary of the entrance into eternal life of John Cardinal O'Connor.

Many of you were able to be present -and others were present through EWTN--and shared prayer with us for the Cardinal's eternal peace and God's mercy. In case you want see the video coverage, you may watch it here and I suspect that EWTN will run the program again.

At the end of the Mass, Archbishop Timothy Dolan launched and introduced a new effort of the Knights of Columbus and the Sisters of Life called the National Prayer for Life Campaign. 

Please join us in praying this prayer every day and give it to others; all of us are hoping that it spreads throughout our nation so that a Culture of Life may be fully restored!