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By Gretchen Keiser
A $1 million investment research fund to improve all aspects of
Catholic education will be established by the Knights of Columbus.
The education fund was approved by the Knights at the
98th annual meeting of the Supreme Council of the fraternal
organization of Catholic men. Representatives of the 1.3 million member
organization met in a five-day convention in Atlanta.
The Knights also went on the record opposing abortion funding, the
Equal Rights Amendment and pornography.
A resolution on the education fund followed Supreme Knight Virgil
C. Dechant’s annual report, in which he said the fund was urgently needed
to support research that would lead to improvement of Catholic education at all
levels.
“In the barren desert of today’s secularist society
Catholic schools stand out more clearly than ever as oasis of commitment to a
Christian way of life,” he said.
The resolution cited the need for research to solve increasing
problems of funding, and administering Catholic schools and in obtaining
thoroughly prepared teachers to staff them. It also said that Confraternity of
Christian Doctrine programs need refinement to make them effective conveyors of
religious commitment as well as of religious information, and said that
seminaries and novitiates demand in-depth study in the light of recent Vatican
documents.
Research projects, to be supported by earnings from the fund, will
be selected by the National Catholic Educational Association, assisted by an
advisory panel of bishops and scholars representing the United States and
Canada and subject to the concurrence of the Knights of Columbus board of
directors.
The Supreme Council also adopted a resolution opposing the use of
public money for abortion and calling for the adoption of a right-to-life
amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The resolution stopped short of mentioning the recent adoption by
the Democratic Party of a platform plank supporting federal funding of
abortion. However, the resolution called upon “all public officials and
all candidates for public office to take serious note of our deeply felt and
firmly held position on these vital issues.”
After some debate about making specific reference to political
parties, the Council decided that “the resolution is clear enough,”
said Elmer Von Feldt, public information officer for the Knights of Columbus.
The resolutions were adopted in a closed-door session of supreme officers and
418 delegates representing jurisdictions throughout the United States, Canada,
Mexico, Puerto Rico, Guatemala and the Philippines.
Specific reference to the Democratic Party’s plank on
abortion was made during the convention by Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan. In
his homily at the opening Mass for 2,500 delegates and family members,
Archbishop Donnellan recalled Pope John Paul II’s proclamation of the
sacredness of all human life. When “a major political party” adopts a
platform plank which calls for federal funding of abortion, Archbishop
Donnellan said, “we shall stand up to proclaim our belief that the right
to life is a basic human right which should have the protection of law and that
abortion is the deliberate destruction of an unborn human being, and therefore
violates this right.”
John Murphy, supreme advocate of the Knights of Columbus, said the
archbishop’s homily was “in part responsible” for the thrust of
the pro-life resolution, and its specific mention of candidates.
In other resolutions adopted at the convention, the Knights
opposed the Equal Rights Amendment and the registering and drafting of women,
and urged defeat of “so-called homosexual equal rights laws.”
A resolution on pornography called upon local Knights to
coordinate their efforts with “existing agencies which have developed the
expertise to curtail it.” The resolution urged councils in the United
States to become active institutional members of Morality in Media in New York
City; Canadian councils to associate themselves with Canadians for Decency in
Willowdale, Ontario; and the councils in Mexico to join with Alianza por la
Defensa de la Familia, in Guadalajara, Mexico.
The group also called for measures to ensure that any Middle East
settlement includes guarantees of free and open access for people of all creeds
to Jerusalem and its environs.
Other resolutions expressed appreciation to the Canadian
government for that country’s actions permitting American diplomats to
escape from Iran and called for prayers for release of the American hostages
and for flying the U.S. flag as a symbol of national unity. The Knights also
voted to invite Pope John Paul II to attend the 100th annual meeting
of the Supreme Council in Hartford, Conn., in 1982.
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