Ping
Posted on 07/31/2004 5:58:49 PM PDT by cpforlife.org
That is good description of how the Knights operate. The only reason for any secrets is to aid in the impact of the lessons of initiation. If told beforehand what was involved the effect would be quite diminished.
In general we would speak to Jesu but we would speak about Jesus.
I don't know much about them either, but I DO know that they are not a "secret society."
If you're going to Dallas, this looks like fun!
Dear ninenot,
LOL. Dallas is for the bigshots. Out of our whole state convention, I think we send less than two dozen delegates and alternates. Out of 25,000 Knights in our state.
We had a related issue come up at our state convention in May. We had two resolutions which urged the bishops to publicly rebuke anti-life Catholic politicians, and consider sanctions against them.
Out of over 140 Councils, one Council objected. A group of college kids north of Baltimore. They were "out-debated." The resolutions passed with two negative votes each (each Council gets two votes).
So, approximately 99.3% of the statewide representatives of the Knights of Columbus in the jurisdiction of Maryland went on record urging sanctions against pro-death "Catholic" politicians. I'll take that result any day. I'm proud to have been an alternate delegate at that convention.
As for denying membership in the Knights of Columbus, that's not so easy. Once a man is a member, it is difficult to take membership away from him. And usually, whether a man may become a member is left to the membership and the Chaplain (always a priest) of each Council.
Only the Chaplain of a particular Council may decide that a man is insufficiently "Catholic" to be a Knight. This is a practical application of the Catholic belief in subsidiarity. So, a Coundil with a less-than-rigorous Chaplain may be lax in its determination of Catholicity. In an organization with over 1.7 million members, and over 10,000 subsidiary Councils, "quality control" gets hard.
Then, there is the insurance thing. Many Knights purchase insurance through the Order. They must retain membership to stay eligible for certain benefits. Revoking the membership of a man with insurance from the Order starts getting us involved with the insurance commissioners in each state.
But mutual insurance was one of the first things Fr. McGivney worked for when he established the Knights of Columbus. When poor, immigrant, Catholic men died young, they often had no life insurance, in part because life insurance companies often refused to sell insurance to poor, immigrant, Catholic men. Fr. McGivney founded the Knights in part to specifically care for the widows and orphans of Catholic men. This developed into the largest fraternal organization insurance program in the world, providing protection for hundreds of thousands of families.
But life is full of trade-offs, and the trade-off of providing Catholic families with high-quality, solid insurance programs is getting involved with government regulation.
We do our best, but sometimes it may seem lacking.
Those who would criticize are ignorant, and verge on anti-Catholic.
sitetest
Ping
I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
Accuracy in scripture significantly reduces the chance of misinterpretation. This passage, of course, is Messianic - having little to do with feminism.
That use explains your post.
Is it just my imagination or are the Knights of Columbus becoming more visible. In the Detroit Archdiocese they have been recruiting a lot and making their presence known. Our parish, which did not have a chapter (is this the right term) for the 9 years I've been there, just started one last year. They have about 50 men involved and we are only about 600 families.
I fully agree that the goal of the Church should be to convert Kerry, and not to drive him further away from repentance and reconciliation. I just pray that the Church is successful in reaching that goal, both for the sake of Kerry and of all of us if he is elected.
This Bible passage was my first encounter with anti-Catholicism and it bothered me because as a convert I had never thought much about the Blessed Mother...sort of like how I was when I was a Protestant. Now at the time this happened I prayed very hard for an answer to the question, "Why would the Catholic Church lie?" It took a few minutes but, part the answer came very quickly. To my immediate request in knowing why the Church had lied I was given a bit of grace to understand that indeed it doesn't matter whether you are referring to Christ in this passage as He shall crush or strike...or to God's mother as "she" shall crush or strike. Jesus came into the world when the Blessed Mother said "be it done to me..." So, in this sense she did "crush" the serpant's head, through her Son, a.k.a. God.
I looked this passage up in three Catholic Bibles:
Douay-Rhiems translates as you said, "He shall crush..."
New American Bible St. Joseph Ed. translates "He will strike..." and
Monsignor Ronald Knox translation "She is to crush..."
I looked then to the notes in the Knox translation and this is what he had to say about it:
For "she" and "her" the Septuagint Greek has "he" and "him"; the Hebrew text also, as it has come down to us, gives "he", or perhaps "it". But most manuscripts of the Latin version have "she", which plainly gives a better balance to the sentence. That the reference of this passage, in any case, is to the Incarnation, is the general opinion of the Fathers.
I have seen the passage translated in at least one other Catholic Bible as "she," sorry I do not remember which one it is, perhaps the Revised Standard. In any case the experience led to further interest in what the Church Fathers had to say about the Blessed Mother. I have a great devotion to her now. I have heard it said that Marion devotion is one of the last things most converts accept.
Good. Thank you. Was that your own initiative, or is their a rule that justified your actions?
There is a rule that members must be "practical Catholics", which means they be be baptised, and that they believe and profess what the Church teaches. There is another rule about being in communion with the Rome; I forget the exact wording. Given the nature of Church teacning on abortion, I interpret those rules to rule out pro-abortion politicians (among a few others). My Grand Knight agreed with me.
I agree the passage works both ways He or she. But I think that passage has a future as it were. I think there is more to come, if for no other reason than Satan has not been crushed just yet. Mary is the prototype Christian and we are called to be in union with Christ. The Latin Mass makes this very clear.
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