Knights of Columbus

• 1. Introduction

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  Babe Ruth, Vince Lombardi and John F. Kennedy all belonged to the same Catholic brotherhood. So did the film maker John Ford, the boxer Floyd Patterson and Sergeant Major Daniel Daly, a two-time Medal of Honor recipient. The Knights of Columbus now counts more than 2.2 million members, most of them in North America. Its beginnings were far humbler than that guest list suggests. They trace to one parish priest in Connecticut and a worry about what happens to a family when its wage earner dies.

  How did that worry grow into an insurance operation that sits on the Fortune 1000 list? Why did the Ku Klux Klan invent a secret oath to smear the order's members? What do a shield, a fasces, an anchor and a sword have to do with it? And how does a fraternal society end up with a seat at papal audiences and a stage at presidential-era conventions?

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• 2. A Priest and a Dollar

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  On the 29th of March 1882, at St. Mary's Church in New Haven, Connecticut, the priest Michael J. McGivney founded a mutual benefit society for Catholic immigrants. The Church now honors him as Blessed. His parish was full of working-class families, and he had seen what happened to a household when its main earner died. Government support programs were mostly still unborn. Catholics had few places to turn, because religious and ethnic discrimination kept them out of labor unions and the popular fraternal organizations that offered such help.

  The insurance scheme McGivney devised was blunt and simple. A deceased Knight's widow received a death benefit of $1,000, and each surviving member was charged $1 to fund it. Once the order grew past 1,000 members, that charge shrank in step with the growth. Everyone paid the same regardless of age. Younger, healthier men therefore paid in more over a lifetime than those who joined late.

  Sickness was covered too. A Knight who fell ill and could not work could draw up to $5 a week for 13 weeks, roughly $155 in 2022 dollars. After that, his own council decided what he would receive.

  A reserve fund for times of epidemic was proposed in the earliest days and turned down several times. It was finally established in 1892, and held $12,000 in assets by 1896. In 1897 the funding method changed again. Each member now paid five cents a month for 100 months, so that his total contribution came to $5.

  The first councils were all in Connecticut. From there the order spread across New England and the rest of the country. In the late 1880s and 1890s its leaders gave it a federalist structure, with local, state and national levels of government, so that activity could be coordinated across towns and states. Half a century later, a sharp turn in the bond market would push that careful treasury into some very unexpected real estate.

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• 3. Money With Rules

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  Late in 1953, the Knights of Columbus paid $2.5 million for the land beneath Yankee Stadium. The purchase was the work of Supreme Knight Luke E. Hart. After World War II, interest rates on long-term bonds fell below the level the insurance program needed to sustain itself. Hart answered with lease-back investing. The order bought a property and rented it back to the original owner at a net rent matching the normal mortgage interest rate. Between 1952 and 1962 it bought 18 parcels for a total of $29 million. In 1971 the City of New York took the stadium land by eminent domain.

  Lending to the Church was an older habit. The first loan went to St. Rose Church in Meriden, Connecticut, in the late 1890s. By 1954 more than $300 million had been lent to parishes, dioceses and other Catholic institutions, and the program never lost a cent of principal or interest. The later ChurchLoan program had lent over $500 million as of 2008. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the order set up a $100 million fund. Each diocese could obtain a $1 million secured line of credit to ride out the economic storm.

  As of October 2025, the insurance operation held more than $124 billion of life insurance in force and $29 billion in assets. That puts it on the Fortune 1000 list and 49th among North American life insurers on the A. M. Best list. Products include permanent and term life insurance, annuities, long term care and disability coverage. The program is not sold to outsiders. It exists only for members and their families, and every agent is a member.

  A. M. Best has given it its highest rating, A++, for more than 40 consecutive years. Forbes has listed it among America's best insurance companies since 2022. In 2017 the program paid out over $965 million in benefits. Since the founding, death benefits have totaled $3.5 billion. Of the 1.9 million members and relatives insured, only 3.5 percent let their policies lapse.

  Investments face two tests. A company must first be a sound investment, and then its activities must not conflict with Catholic social teaching. The guidelines cover protecting human life, promoting human dignity, reducing arms production, pursuing economic justice, protecting the environment and encouraging corporate responsibility. Ethisphere Institute named the order a World's Most Ethical Company for five consecutive years as of 2017.

  In 2015 the order launched Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors, which manages $29 billion as of October 2025. It follows the investment guidelines of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The firm also bought 20% of a boutique manager called Boston Advisors, and in 2019 it acquired that firm's institutional management business. That reputation for strict honest dealing mattered, because other people were busy inventing a far darker reputation for the Knights.

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• 4. The Bogus Oath

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  In 1923, the Knights of Columbus offered $25,000 to anyone who could prove that a secret oath attributed to its Fourth Degree was part of any authentic ceremony. The oath was a fake. Around 1915, at a low point for American race relations, the Ku Klux Klan had begun promoting a conspiracy theory. It claimed that Fourth Degree Knights swore to exterminate Freemasons and Protestants.

  The order denied the story flatly and called it libel. Then it went on the offensive, suing the distributors of the false oath. The Klan eventually ended its publication of it.

  The lie was one front in a longer campaign. Since its earliest days the order had described itself as a Catholic anti-defamation society. In 1914 it established a Commission on Religious Prejudices. The commission handed out pamphlets, and lecturers toured the country to explain how Catholics could be loving and loyal Americans. The Fourth Degree, created in 1900 with its emphasis on patriotism, served the same purpose and also staked a claim to being truly American.

  In the 1920s the order set up a historical commission and published books on the contributions of minority groups. The Knights of Columbus Racial Contributions Series had three titles. The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America was written by W. E. B. Du Bois. The Jews in the Making of America came from George Cohen, and The Germans in the Making of America from Frederick Schrader.

  The courtroom was another battleground. The Oregon Compulsory Education Act of 1922 would have outlawed parochial schools in that state, including Catholic ones. The Knights challenged the law in court alongside the ACLU. In a landmark 1925 ruling, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the United States Supreme Court struck it down. Yet the order's own record on race was more tangled than those book titles suggest.

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• 5. The Color Line

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  Historian Christopher Kauffman noted that the Knights of Columbus was the only American fraternal society whose constitution did not bar Black members. That record was tested in World War I. The order was designated the official agency for supporting Catholic troops, and it opened soldiers' welfare centers in the United States and abroad. They were the only racially integrated facilities open to troops. Emmett Jay Scott wrote, "Unlike the other social welfare organizations operating in the war, it never drew the color line." After the war the Knights ran education, occupational training and employment programs for veterans. In both world wars its huts served troops in combat regardless of race or religion.

  Local practice varied. Sheridan Council 119 in Southborough, Massachusetts, was integrated. One of its members, Samuel F. Williams, a Black man, spoke from the stage of the 1896 Massachusetts State Convention. Two future Supreme Knights were in the audience.

  The constitution did not close the door, but the voting rules could. Each local council voted on new members, and as few as four or five negative votes could deny a candidate entry, however large the council. In 1963, Joseph Bertrand, a 1954 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, was blackballed by a Chicago-area council. Gene Liner had nominated him. Liner recalled, "I just watched his face. There were five black balls." Liner resigned his office, along with five other council leaders.

  Church officials and organizations were by then pressing for integration. By the end of the 1950s, Supreme Knight Luke E. Hart was urging councils to accept Black candidates. In 1963 he attended a White House meeting hosted by President John F. Kennedy to discuss civil rights with other religious leaders. After the Bertrand rejection, Hart declared that the next Supreme Convention would revise the process, so that a rejection would need a majority vote of the council's members. The change was made, but Hart died before he could see it take effect.

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• 6. Relief at Scale

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  In his 2025 annual report, Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly said the order gave $197 million and 48 million volunteer-hours to charity projects in 2024. The order calls charity its foremost principle. The habit is old. Starting in 1897, the National Council urged local councils to set up funds for members hurt by the depression of the 1890s, and councils also ran employment agencies and helped the poor and sick. Disaster relief began with a flood in Kansas in 1903. In 2015 alone, the order gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to victims of typhoons and other natural disasters.

  Refugee aid has followed wars. From 2014 to 2018 the Knights gave more than $2 million for food, shelter, clothing and medical care for persecuted Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East. In 2018 they gave $250,000 to help asylum seekers crossing the Mexico-United States border, and later expanded the program.

  Within days of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the order's 2,000 members in that country went to work. They handed out food and clothing at train and bus stations in Lviv to people fleeing toward Poland, then organized buses to the Polish border. In the first three months, Knights in Poland helped more than 300,000 people, about 10% of those who had fled there. Since the war began, the order has delivered more than 8.5 million pounds of relief supplies and provided more than $17 million in humanitarian relief for Ukraine.

  Support for people with intellectual and physical disabilities tops $600 million. One of the largest recipients has been the Special Olympics, where the Knights have been involved since the first games in 1968. In 2023 they gave more than $4 million and helped run nearly 4,000 competitions. That same year they supplied more than 11,000 wheelchairs to the Global Wheelchair Mission, an alliance of independent organizations that delivers mobility aid worldwide.

  The ultrasound initiative has drawn the strongest claims. From 2009 to 2019 the order donated more than 1,000 ultrasound machines to crisis pregnancy centers. Anderson called it "now the greatest humanitarian achievement in the history of the Knights of Columbus." After the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, Kelly called for more support for women facing unplanned pregnancies through the Aid and Support After Pregnancy initiative. The 2,000th machine was installed in August 2025. The order also offers scholarships for seminarians, veterans and students at the Catholic University of America and other Catholic colleges. Behind each of these projects stands a local council, and there are more than 17,000 of them.

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• 7. Councils, Degrees and Emblems

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  The University of Notre Dame Council #1477, chartered in 1910, is the oldest continuously running college council. The college councils program began at the Catholic University of America in 1898 to support the moral, intellectual and spiritual growth of college men. As of 2024 there were more than 340 college councils, and seminary councils count among them. Most councils otherwise meet in Catholic parishes, though some have their own halls. As of 2024, over 50 military councils served bases in North America and around the world.

  A new member is inducted and completes the Exemplification of Charity, which makes him a First Degree Knight. The Exemplifications of Unity and Fraternity lead him to the Second and Third Degrees. A Third Degree Knight holds full knighthood. He may serve as a council officer and attend state and Supreme Council business meetings.

  The Fourth Degree is optional and requires the Exemplification of Patriotism. Its members are addressed as Sir Knight. They belong to Fourth Degree assemblies, which draw men from several councils in an area. There were more than 3,600 assemblies as of 2024. They lead outreach to veterans and active military, and they show that a person can be both a faithful Catholic and a faithful citizen. Some form Color Corps, whose presence at parades, wreath-laying ceremonies and Confirmations makes them the order's most visible arm. In February 2025, Cardinal Timothy Dolan presided over the Fourth Degree's 125th anniversary celebration.

  The order's emblem was designed by Past Supreme Knight James T. Mullen and adopted at the second Supreme Council meeting on the 12th of May 1883. Medieval knights' shields inspired it. A shield sits on a Formée cross, a representation of the cross of Christ. On the shield are three objects. The fasces, carried before magistrates in ancient Rome, stands for the authority any tightly bonded organization needs. The anchor represents Christopher Columbus. The short sword recalls medieval knights. Together with the letters KOC, the shield stands for "Catholic Knighthood in organized merciful action."

  The Fourth Degree has its own Triad Emblem, with a white dove, a red cross and a blue globe. The globe represents God the Father, the cross God the Son, and the dove the Holy Spirit. The red, white and blue match the flag of the United States.

  Women's groups sit outside the order's structure. At the turn of the 20th century two local councils each formed a Daughters of Isabella group. The newer one renamed itself the Catholic Daughters of the Americas in 1921. Other auxiliaries are called Columbiettes, and in the Philippines the ladies' auxiliary is the Daughters of Mary Immaculate. A proposal for women's councils failed in 1896 and was never raised again. For boys, Barnabas McDonald founded the Columbian Squires in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1925. He said its supreme purpose was character building.

  The Supreme Council governs the order and elects insurance members to three-year terms on a 24-member Board of Directors. Senior officers' seven-figure salaries have drawn criticism as excessive. In 1969 the order opened a 23-story headquarters in New Haven.

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• 8. Politics and Rome

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  Richard Nixon addressed the Supreme Convention in 1971, and Ronald Reagan spoke in 1982 and 1986. George H. W. Bush came as vice president in 1984 and again as president in 1992, and George W. Bush spoke in 2004. Bill Clinton sent a videotaped message saying the order's "contributions to the Catholic Church and to your communities merit our applause."

  The IRS classifies the Knights as a 501(c)(8) fraternal benefit society. Unlike a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, such a group may do limited direct political work without losing its tax exemption. Anderson said the order does not become involved in partisan politics, calling that one of its most important traditions. Its public policy work is limited to issue-specific campaigns, usually on Catholic family and sanctity-of-life questions.

  The leaders themselves have spanned the spectrum. Martin H. Carmody and Luke E. Hart were political conservatives. John J. Phelan had been a Democratic politician. John Swift was described as a fairly representative New Deal anti-communist. Francis P. Matthews was a civil rights official and a member of Harry Truman's cabinet. Anderson earlier worked in Ronald Reagan's Office of Public Liaison.

  After the Second Vatican Council, as Catholics gained wider acceptance, the order's anti-defamation role faded. Its leaders began using the order's money to shape the direction of the Church itself, which led to new programs for the Church's expanding social ministries. In the Cold War the order campaigned against socialism, communism and anarchism, and it lobbied for the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance as a religious answer to Soviet atheism. It opposed the persecution of Catholics in Mexico during the Cristero War. Nine Knights were later beatified or canonized for martyrdom in that conflict.

  The order has opposed legalizing same-sex marriage and has been a key funder of local measures against it. It has given over 1 million to the Susan B. Anthony Foundation and other anti-abortion and anti-contraception groups. Church historian Massimo Faggioli believes the scale of the order's philanthropy can "create influence through money, especially in important places like Rome or Washington, D.C."

  Rome has taken notice. Pope John Paul I's first audience with a layman was with Supreme Knight Virgil Dechant. Pope John Paul II met Dechant three days after his own installation. On his 1979 visit to the United States, the Supreme Officers and Board were the only lay organization he received. The Vicarius Christi fund had given more than $57 million to the pope's charitable work as of 2017, and the Knights have supported the Vatican's news operation for decades. In October 2025, Pope Leo XIV met Patrick E. Kelly at the Vatican and addressed the order's annual gathering.

  On the 15th of October 2006, Pope Benedict XVI canonized Bishop Rafael Guízar y Valencia, a Knight. Six other Knights killed in the violence after the Mexican Revolution were declared saints by John Paul II in 2000. In 2011 the order bought the 130,000-square-foot John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., and rebranded it as a shrine after the pope's canonization. About 64,000 pilgrims visit each year, and a first class relic of the pope's blood is on display. The order also opened a 77,000-square-foot history museum in New Haven on the 10th of March 2001. Near its entrance stands the cross held by Jesus on the facade of St. Peter's Basilica, from before a renovation the Knights financed.

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