Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly addresses the Knights of Columbus’ convention in Orlando, Florida on Aug. 1, 2023. / Knights of Columbus website
Orlando, Fla., Aug 2, 2023 / 08:45 am (CNA).
Addressing more than 2,000 Knights of Columbus Tuesday afternoon, Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly urged the assembled to stand strong as men of faith amid new challenges facing the Catholic Church today.
In his speech to Knights, along with several cardinals, bishops, priests, and religious at the 141st Supreme Convention at Orlando World Center Marriott in Orlando, Florida, Kelly emphasized the need for Catholic men to continue standing for the faith and for the weak and vulnerable.
In the face of what he called “new anti-Catholic bigotry,” Kelly said that Catholic men “have a duty to protect families,” most especially the widowed and orphaned.
Recalling the Knights’ principles of “first in faith and charity,” Kelly highlighted the order’s efforts in response to post-Dobbs attacks on unborn life, support for those affected by the war in Ukraine, and response to a growing “epidemic of loneliness” that has particularly impacted young men in America.
Inviting men to greatness
Kelly pointed out a 2023 study from the U.S. Surgeon General that “reported that we are living through an epidemic of loneliness and isolation.”
“I submit that the Knights of Columbus offers a cure,” Kelly said. “In this time of loneliness, we offer fraternity. In this era of isolation, we extend the hand of friendship. And in a world that offers apathy and anger, we invite men to lives of meaning and mission.”
“In this age of mediocrity, the Knights of Columbus invites men to greatness: to sacrifice themselves for the good of others; to commit to a higher call with a band of brothers; and to stand strong in the breach, side by side, instead of being swept away by the culture, one at a time,” he said.
Supporting Ukraine
Kelly emphasized the Knights of Columbus’ support for Ukrainians impacted by the ongoing war and pledged the Knights’ continued support.
“Within 36 hours of Russia’s invasion, we established the Ukraine Solidarity Fund,” Kelly said. “Eighteen months later, we have raised over $21 million. I cannot think of another time in our history when so many gave so much, so fast.”
He thanked all the Knights who have been a part of the order’s relief efforts in Ukraine, calling them “the hands and feet of Jesus Christ.”
“Ukraine is becoming a nation of heroes,” Kelly said.
Addressing Ukrainians whose lives have been upturned and devastated by the war, Kelly said: “You are not alone. We are with you. And the Knights of Columbus are not going anywhere.”
‘Stand for the truth because it’s right’
Recalling the recent Dodgers scandal, in which the Los Angeles Major League Baseball team honored an anti-Catholic hate group called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence with a “community hero award,” Kelly said that Catholic men are called to defend the faith even more vigorously in the face of such bigotry.
“I was shocked to see a professional baseball team honor an anti-Catholic hate group that masquerades as nuns,” Kelly said. “This group mocks Our Lord and Our Lady in the foulest ways. And they insult the courageous women religious who have dedicated their lives to prayer and service. I can think of no more blatant example of the new anti-Catholic bigotry.”
While Catholics have taken criticism for their work upholding religious freedom and the sanctity of life, Kelly urged the Knights to never back down from defending the truth of the Catholic faith.
“There is nothing hateful about the sanctity of marriage, the reality of biological sex, or the humanity of the unborn child,” he said. “And the Knights of Columbus will never apologize for defending the truth.”
“We stand for the truth because it’s right — even when it leads to ridicule and scorn,” Kelly said.
Standing for life
Kelly acknowledged that “the fight for life is far from over” and that struggle has even grown in importance with new efforts to undermine the right to life in states across the country.
“Life will be on the ballot in many states over the next two years,” Kelly said.
“This November,” he went on, “Ohio will vote on whether to put the so-called right to abortion into its constitution. Radical activists are already pouring millions of dollars into this battle. They think it will be the beginning of the end of the pro-life movement. But we will prove them wrong.”
Highlighting the Knights’ Aid and Support After Pregnancy Program, Kelly shared how the Knights have supported pregnant and parenting mothers since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Through the program and other efforts, the Knights have donated 1,745 ultrasound machines and raised $6 million for pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes across the country.
Rather than backing down from the fight for life after the overturn of Roe, Kelly urged Knights to stand stronger on the life issue than ever before.
Kelly said that the Knights remain dedicated to not only making abortion illegal but also unthinkable. He mentioned the Knights’ efforts to reach younger generations with the pro-life message, pointing out how the order teamed with the Sisters of Life to put on the first-ever “Life Fest,” which took place in January the morning of the national March for Life and was attended by more than 4,000 youth.
Our goal is the same,” he said, “win more hearts, change more minds, and enshrine the right to life in the laws of the land.”
“Think back to where we were, just a few years ago. The powers that be said Roe was settled law. They said it would never be overturned. But the pro-life movement kept the faith. And we carried the day,” Kelly said. “Since the end of Roe, nearly half of our states have taken new steps to protect life. And as I stand before you today, 14 states have ended abortion altogether — and more are on the way.”
[…]
To avoid criticism among Catholics, he will, on rare occasion, allow his moodiness shift towards his distaste for abortion and make the stupid, insensitive to troubled women, hitman statement. But he’ll never forcefully call upon the whole world for its total elimination. That might cause him to lose face with global elitists and their lapdogs in the media.
“Morally inadmissible,” but also still admissibly moral(!). Just thinkin’, now, about the prisoner whom St. Therese prayed for conversion, and how he did convert and kissed the crucifix moments before losing his head to the guillotine. So, maybe conversion is sometimes about timing and certainty: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully” (Samuel Johnson).
“And in the light of the Gospel, the death penalty is unacceptable. The commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ refers to both the innocent and the guilty.”
Really?
Where was the Holy Spirit for the last twenty centuries in regard to this if only now this papacy has the ‘truth’. Christ promised that the Third Person would guide His Church in all truth. It took all these centuries for this to evolve for the ‘inadmissible’ claim under the gravity of death?
Christ upheld the Mosaic Law which included capital punishment. If the original Commandment had said, ‘Thou shall not kill’, even accidents, war, and self defense would be in violation as such a literal declaration did not provide exceptions.
The God of the Old Testament would indict even Himself with all the killing in that period often directed at the behest of the Almighty.
Murder and killing.
Feser and Bessette handily defeated that professor and his ilk, cheerleaders for all things Francis, who refused to acknowledge the difference.
This works for me but I have to believe that there may be rare exceptions where capital punishment may be the only way to protect society.
If we distrust the secular state in smaller matters we should distrust it also in greater things like the power of life and death. Outside of self defense, our lives should be in the hands of God, not the government.
SO according to Pope Francis, the Bible, Tradition, all the Church Fathers, all the Doctors of the Church, and all 265 previous Popes got it wrong on the death penalty, but somehow he got it right. That is pure narcissism not based on authentic Catholic moral theology.
When St. Pope John Paul II rendered the need for the death penalty “very rare, if not practically non-existent” (Evangelium Vitae, 1995, n.57; or now morally “inadmissible” but still admissibly moral), this guidance served largely as a segue to the immediately following section (surely intended to all of the members of the European Union which prohibits the death penalty but then permits abortion):
“If such great care must be taken to respect every life, even that of criminals and unjust aggressors, the commandment “You shall not kill” has absolute value [!] when it refers to the INNOCENT PERSON [italics]. And all the more so in the case of weak and defenseless human beings, who find their ultimate defence against the arrogance and caprice of others only in the absolute binding force of God’s commandment” (n. 58).
And, yet, in the United States we now have duplicitous clericalists (e.g. Cardinal McElroy) pontificating, instead, that sacrilege against the Eucharistic Presence, by notorious Aztecs, should not be a “litmus test” preventing their indiscriminate participation in the Church’s sacramental life.
The Big Picture, in our fallen world, is that elimination of the death penalty would foster a much broader culture of life for everyone, such as the unborn as noted by Pope St. John Paul II (my above comment). But, when he added the words “very rare,” perhaps he also had an intuition about other kinds of situations–such as a later case in a maximum-security prison in Washington State…
A prison guard was murdered by a prisoner already serving a life sentence. What disincentive, or further penalty for outcomes like this? Only sequential or concurrent life terms?
If the death penalty is totally disallowed as a disincentive for homicides and mass shootings in the general population, then perhaps the penalty at least can remain on the books for the protection of prison guards or other prisoners? (Perhaps a footnote in the next edition of the amended Catechism!)
The Catholic Church & The Death Penalty
8 Factual Errors: 2018 CCC 2267 amendment
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2022/02/7-factual-errors-2018-ccc-2267-amendment.html