The Knights of Columbus: An Illustrated History [Hardcover]

Andrew T. Walther (Author), Patrick Korten (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 30, 2011

Originally conceived as a mutual aid society, the Knights of Columbus was dedicated to helping local Catholic families in need. Well over a century later, this organization has over 1.7 million members, and has extended its reach to embrace people around the world. Through fascinating text and photos, The Knights of Columbus tells the story of an organization that, through war and peace, has remained “the strong right arm of the Church,” bringing help and hope to people everywhere.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Andrew T. Walther is the Director of Media Relations for the Knights of Columbus. He currently serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations.

Patrick Korten is Vice President of Communications for the Knights of Columbus.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Square One Pub (January 30, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0757003087
• ISBN-13: 978-0757003080
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,022,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, But Incommensurate, August 2, 2011

By 

Peter P. Fuchs (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Knights of Columbus: An Illustrated History (Hardcover)

One of the highly incommensurate aspects of the Knights of Columbus' self-presentation nowadays is that the Rev. McGivney was responding to a deep-seated Catholic desire to provide for "widows and orphans" by way of a Catholic fraternal benefit society. Let us be clear, McGivney himself was a mensch, and had very decent desires for those of his faith community. But let us also be clear that the Catholic Church was quite conflicted about the whole matter. In fact the dominant attitude was one of skepticism towards the whole idea of providing for the suddenly dispossessed by way of a fraternal benefit mechanism, period. As surprising as it seems today, even almost incredible, the dominant view of the Catholic Church was to argue that such assistance constituted an occasion for the lessening of heroic piety. That is, again as incredible as it seems, that sudden need should NOT be systematically aided because it was a lessening of the spiritual lessons required for proper piety. Of course, in today's light, it all seems incredible. But this is what many Catholics believed, and what the hierarchy definitely believed at the time. . McGivney was indeed heroic in bringing a more humane, decent vision to his faith community. But Catholics are eager to forget these odd contradictions today, and not learn the lessons from them. If there is any doubt about this matter, one can find it well-enunciated in Hugh Patrick Smyth's The Catholic Church and Secret Societies. This truly terrible book seems to tar all fraternal benefit mechanisms under this awful logic. Of course the work received an Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, and thus total official approval of its themes, because it enunciated the dominant Catholic view overall at the time. The Knights of Columbus were indeed more advanced in their faith community, and deserve credit. . The only historical lesson to be drawn from this tis that many dominant views of the Catholic Church about the basic facts of human decency have been changed over time. And the bizarreness of anathematizing helping "widows and orphans" by fraternal benefit mechanism for equally bizarre "spiritual" reasons shines a great light on the bizarreness of those obvious virtues of love and mutual care that they anathematize today.