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The Knights of Columbus (K of C) is a global Catholic fraternal service order founded by Blessed Michael J. McGivney. Membership is limited to practicing Catholic men. It is led by Patrick E. Kelly , the order's 14th Supreme Knight.
Christopher Columbus is the patron and namesake of the Knights.. Taking the name of Columbus was partially intended as a mild rebuke to Anglo-Saxon Protestant leaders, who upheld the explorer (a Genovese Italian Catholic who had worked for Catholic Spain) as an American hero, yet simultaneously sought to marginalize recent Catholic immigrants.
The Knights of Columbus was among the first groups to recruit blood donors, with formal efforts dating to 1937 during the Great Depression. As of 2013, the order had more than 1.8 million member families and 15,000 councils. During the 2012 fraternal year, the order donated $167 million and 70 million man-hours to charity. [7]
The English-based order was permanently established in the United States in 1869 by Albert Gross of Newcastle upon Tyne. At this point, the organization was known as the Knights of the Star of Bethlehem. The Grand Commandery of Pennsylvania was instituted in 1870 and the Eminent Grand Commandery of North America in 1871.
Carl A. Anderson, former special assistant to the President Ronald Reagan (1983–1987) and Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus [37] Martin Patrick Durkin, former U.S. Secretary of Labor; Raymond Flynn, former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See and former Democratic Mayor of Boston [38] John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States [39]
The Knights of Columbus were politically active from an early date. In the years following the Second Vatican Council, however, according to Christopher Kauffman, the Catholic anti-defamation character of the order began to diminish as Catholics became more accepted, and the leadership of the order attempted to stimulate the order's membership to become more aware of the religious and moral ...
The Knights of Columbus Building, in Downtown New Haven, Connecticut, is the headquarters of the Roman Catholic fraternal service organization, the Knights of Columbus.Also known as the Knights of Columbus Tower or The Knights' Tower, the building was designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates and finished in 1969.
Hearn was the founding grand knight of the Coeur de Leon Council of the Knights of Columbus in Framingham, Massachusetts. [2] [5] He served three terms as grand knight from 1894 to 1896, and from 1895 to 1899 was a supreme director of the order.