Recently in Knights of Columbus Category

[This is the last in a series looking at my decision to leave the UCC and what's next for me. Return to the first post.]

A Knights of Columbus Field Agent?

Yes sir! Yes ma'am! The Knights of Columbus was founded in 1882 by the Venerable Servant of God Father Michael McGivney. Fr. McGivney had his own seminary studies interrupted by the premature death of his father, forcing him to return home to work for the survival of his family. Later, as a young priest, he witnessed first-hand what was happened to the families in his parish if and when the primary breadwinner died. Emotionally, it's hard to lose a family member, but financially, it can be downright cruel.

Fr. McGivney at one point volunteered to be a count-appointed guardian to a boy whose family couldn't prove to the court that they had the means to support him. (At that time in Connecticut, families had to prove their income potential after the husband passed away. If they couldn't prove enough potential, the courts would move to break apart the family to try to keep the family as financially solvent as possible).

Between that and seeing a need for a way for Catholic men to have a sense of belonging, he founded the Knights of Columbus as a fraternal benefits society to give men both a brotherhood of which to be a part as well as to help ensure the welfare of widows and children if one of the members died.

As a Field Agent, basically, I would see to further enact Fr. McGivney's vision of financial security to Catholic families if the unthinkable happened for a geographical area within Austin. I will be assigned a number of councils (the local, parish-level organization) and will meet with those families to help them assess their financial needs with a particular emphasis on life insurance, annuities and long-term care insurance.

In other words, I'm not about what you should invest in or not nor other things like that, but rather to help with the questions of: What would happen if one of us passed away? What is a safe vehicle for retirement? What happens if the stock market crashes the year before I retire--can I plan for that? What happens to my family if I need some type of long-term care (rehab hospital, nursing home, home health care, etc)?

The Knights of Columbus offers to members various products to help find solutions to those questions and my job will be to personally help members figure out what they need and to get it.

Additionally, I will be a resource to my councils to help them in other ways related to the Knights and to help introduce men to the Knights of Columbus.

Vanessa and I are excited about this new opportunity and I'm honored that I will be welcomed into so many homes around Austin. I'm looking forward to being able to do some good for families. If you have any questions about this all, leave a comment, give me a call or shoot me an e-mail.

Thank you all for your prayers for our family as I transition into this new role.

I'm a few days late on this one, but for the year ending December 31, 2008, the Knights of Columbus has set an all-time record for money donated and time volunteered.

While the Knights of Columbus, as a national organization, as local councils and the men as individuals are all far from perfect, we are men dedicated to charity.

Fulltext of the press announcement below:

The Knights of Columbus announced June 12 that it set new all-time records for charitable donations and volunteer service hours in 2008. Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson released the results of the Order's annual survey in a presentation to its board of directors and state leaders, meeting at its international headquarters in New Haven.

The results of the Knights' annual Survey of Fraternal Activity for the year ending December 31, 2008, indicate that, despite the economy, total charitable contributions reached $150,036,865 - exceeding the previous year's total by more than $5.1 million. The figure includes $32,295,376 donated by the Supreme Council, and $117,741,489 in contributions from state and local councils assemblies and Squires circles.

The survey also indicated that the quantity of volunteer service hours to charitable causes by Knights grew to 68,783,653 - an increase of 87,885 hours compared to the 2007 total. There were more than 413,000 Knights of Columbus blood donations during the year and, among the most common service programs, Habitat for Humanity received 156,295 K of C volunteer hours.

The Knights of Columbus has been promoting a Year of the Volunteer and sponsored a summit on volunteerism, A Nation of Neighbors Helping Neighbors, in New York Feb. 27, to promoted increased participation and collaboration in volunteer efforts from individuals and organizations.

Cumulative figures show that during the past decade, the Knights of Columbus has donated more than $1.325 billion to charity, and provided nearly 626 million hours of volunteer service in support of charitable initiatives.

Last night, I attended my first actual Knights of Columbus meeting, transferred and was formally accepted into Council 10131 at St. Ignatius Parish in Austin.

I say first actual because I went to a couple of meetings when the UT council attempted to revive themselves, but by no means were those meetings formalized. The experience reminded much of Lambdas before I was involved in leadership. The guys obviously cared a lot about what they were talking about, except there were a few more guys and the age range was quite wide.

The older guys, instead of being around for 5 years, had been around for 50 years. While this is quite normal for the Knights of Columbus, after working in campus ministry for the past four years, it is nice to know that the leaders of today will be around tomorrow to help the next crop.

This is one of the steps of married life.