The Moral Bankruptcy of the Knights of Columbus

As many readers know, I was raised Roman Catholic and was an altar boy for a 10 years and went on to join the Knights of Columbus achieving the 4th Degree eventually.  But I ended up leaving both the Knights and the Catholic Church when it became sickeningly obvious that both the Church hierarchy and the leadership of the Knights of Columbus suffered from shocking moral bankruptcy after the sex abuse scandal exploded in the Archdiocese of Boston over a decade ago.  As we all now know, the Church hierarchy from the Pope on down engaged in what can only be described as a global criminal conspiracy to enable, aid, abet and protect sexual predator priest who have left a trail of victims worldwide numbering in the hundreds of thousands.  As for the Knights of Columbus, not a peep has been said against the Church leadership from an organization founded to aid and protect widows and children.  Instead, the Knights have slavishly groveled and brown noised to the Church hierarchy (former Bishop Timothy Daly who was documented to have threatened and intimidated victims and their families under Cardinal Law remained the Supreme Chaplain for the Knights until his retirement despite his known wrong doing against victims of child rapists).  With its wealth and unrivaled power in the Catholic Church, the Knights could have been a force for reform and a house cleaning of those who enabled and protected sexual predators.  Instead, the Knights have aligned themselves with those who ought to be behind bars (including Benedict XVI) and have become the Church's principal fundraiser for the Church's anti-gay jihad against normal, well adjusted gays who merely want full CIVIL legal rights. The Minneapolis Star Tribune looks at the sick upside down values of the Knights in the war against LGBT citizens.  Here are highlights:

In Minnesota, the Knights of Columbus are best known for hosting charitable free-throw contests, collecting pennies to support seminarians and conducting Tootsie Roll drives to aid people with disabilities.

Less well known is that members of the nation's largest Catholic fraternal organization are quietly positioning themselves to be a powerful and potentially decisive force in passing the marriage amendment, which would amend the state Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

The state branch of the Knights has spent months raising money, staffing phone banks and leading seminars urging people to vote for the measure. The Minnesota Knights of Columbus are following a battle-tested formula used in several other states that passed marriage amendments. The local chapters quietly provide fundraising and crucial organizational infrastructure while the national organization pumps millions of dollars into major groups masterminding the effort to block laws around the country allowing same-sex marriage.

In the last four years, the group has given at least $3.6 million to groups leading marriage fights across the country. Now the group is trying to make its mark in Minnesota, and has directly given more than $130,000 to the fight.

The Minnesota chapters so far have given at least $31,000 to pro-amendment groups. The national headquarters has given another $100,000. But the group's 43,500 Minnesota members could prove far more valuable. In a race shaping up to be decided by a razor-thin margin, a committed bloc of thousands of energized, like-minded voters could make all the difference.

Several longtime Catholics who oppose the marriage amendment said they were surprised and troubled by the Knights' involvement in the marriage issue. They said they only knew the group for its charity work, locally and abroad.

Now they are crushed to learn the group is at the forefront of the anti-gay marriage effort and that some of their contributions might have gone to the cause.

"I don't think it is at all clear to the congregations," said Greg Seivert, a lifelong Catholic from Mendota Heights. When he was growing up, Seivert said, the Knights "were a charitable group that did the work of charity and mercy. This strikes me as a very different role. I would be very leery of contributing in any sort of way with their involvement in this political brouhaha."

The bulk of the national group's significant financial firepower comes not from its 1.8 million members, but from its lucrative and highly rated life-insurance business, Knights of Columbus Insurance.

Sharon Groves, director of the Human Rights Campaign's religious and faith program, said the group's secrecy is most troubling. The myriad entities shuffling money around to marriage-related groups makes tracking the group's contributions nearly impossible, she said.

"The Knights are really an organization pulling the wool over the eyes of many Catholics," Groves said. "They do a lot of important work, but people are being sold a bill of goods, thinking that all this work is helping the needy when really it is going toward some pretty sinister stuff."

The next time you see a Knights of Columbus fundraiser, walk on by and give your hard earned money to an organization that protects children rather than the monsters who have allowed so many young lives to be damaged or ruin - or ended by suicide.