Archbishop William Lori, Supreme Chaplain of the Knights of Columbus./ Knights of Columbus
Washington D.C., Jun 11, 2021 / 16:03 pm
Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, Supreme Chaplain of the Knights of Columbus, called on the Knights not only to “support” but also to “be in the forefront” of a national Eucharistic Revival project to be presented to the U.S. bishops next week.
At his address during the Knights of Columbus state deputies meeting in New Haven, Connecticut on Friday, Archbishop Lori previewed a proposed three-year Eucharistic Revival project of the U.S. bishops which would launch in 2022.
Lori said the project would take place at “the parish, diocesan, and national level to help all those whom we serve to recover, to reclaim, and to recoup their faith in the Eucharistic Lord and their resolve to participate in Holy Mass without fail every Sunday.”
The bishops’ proposal also includes a national Eucharistic Congress in 2024, to be attended by 100,000 Catholics who would then act as Eucharistic missionaries.
“Bishops in other countries have undertaken similar efforts,” added the Supreme Chaplain. He called on the Knights present to lead the effort in their communities.
“It is incumbent upon us as Knights of Columbus, upon you as lay leaders in the Church, not only to support this effort but also to be in the forefront of advancing it, especially by bearing witness to the centrality of the Eucharist in your own life and in the life of your family, and in the life of the Church,” Lori said.
“Surely,” said Archbishop Lori, “we could do nothing that would please Blessed Michael McGivney more than this!” Blessed Michael McGivney, the organization’s founder, was beatified last fall at the cathedral in Hartford, Connecticut.
The Knights of Columbus is the world’s largest fraternal organization. Leaders from every U.S. state and around the world attended Friday’s meeting in New Haven, the site of the organization’s founding. It was the Knights’ first national in-person meeting since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
In addition to the joint installation of Supreme Knight Kelly and all attending state deputies – a first for the Knights – the meeting also included the installation of new Deputy Supreme Knight Paul G. O’Sullivan. In another historic first for the Knights, Patrick T. Mason, a member of the Osage Nation, was installed as the first Native American supreme secretary of the Knights.
“In the meantime, let us as leaders of the Knights of Columbus unite heart and soul around the Eucharistic Lord, around the sacrament of our charity, unity, and fraternity, just as we have taught to do by our Blessed Founder for whose canonization we pray more earnestly than ever!” Archbishop Lori said in closing.
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Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly speaks with EWTN News President and COO Montse Alvarado on Thursday, July 11, 2024, regarding the organization’s decision to cover mosaics by the accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik in chapels in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut. / Credit: EWTN News
Rome Newsroom, Jul 11, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
The Knights of Columbus announced Thursday they will cover mosaics by the accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut, a dramatic move that represents the strongest public stand yet by a major Catholic organization regarding the former Jesuit’s embattled art.
The 2.1-million-member lay Catholic fraternal order said July 11 it would use fabric to cover the floor-to-ceiling mosaics in the two chapels of the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington and in the chapel at the Knights’ headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut — at least until the completion of a formal Vatican investigation into the Slovenian priest’s alleged abuse.
Patrick Kelly, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, told EWTN News Thursday the opaque material would be installed “very soon” but gave no firm timetable. The Knights said in a statement released Thursday afternoon that the artwork may later be more permanently hidden with a plaster covering after the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issues its ruling on Rupnik.
The decision by the Knights to cover the sprawling works, which envelop both spaces, was made at the end of a comprehensive, confidential review process that included consultations with sexual abuse victims and those who minister to them, art historians, pilgrims to the shrine, bishops, and moral theologians.
“The Knights of Columbus have decided to cover these mosaics because our first concern must be for victims of sexual abuse, who have already suffered immensely in the Church, and who may be further injured by the ongoing display of the mosaics at the shrine,” Kelly said in the statement.
“While opinions varied among those consulted,” he said, “there was a strong consensus to prioritize the needs of victims, especially because the allegations are current, unresolved, and horrific.”
Kelly reiterated that point in his interview with EWTN News.
“Our decision process really came down to multiple factors. But the No. 1 factor was compassion for victims,” Kelly said. “We needed to prioritize victims over anything, any material thing. So that was our primary consideration.”
The first segment of Kelly’s interview with EWTN News will air on “EWTN News Nightly” Thursday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET. Additional comments will air on “EWTN News In Depth” on Friday at 8 p.m. ET.
Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly speaks with EWTN News President and COO Montse Alvarado on Thursday, July 11, 2024, regarding the organization’s decision to cover mosaics by the accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik in chapels in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut. Credit: EWTN News
Once a renowned artist Rupnik, whose mosaics are featured in hundreds of Catholic shrines, churches, and chapels around the world, was expelled from the Jesuits in June 2023.
His expulsion followed a long review of what the society called “highly credible” accusations of serial spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse of as many as 30 religious sisters by the priest spanning decades. Some women allege Rupnik’s abuse sometimes happened as part of the process of creating his art at the Centro Aletti, an art school he founded in Rome.
The Vatican announced in late October 2023 that Pope Francis had waived the statute of limitations in the Rupnik case, allowing the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to do a canonical investigation into the abuse allegations.
There has been no further communication from the Vatican about the inquiry, and it is unclear whether Rupnik may still be living in Rome despite having been given priestly faculties in a diocese of his home country of Slovenia last year.
Growing public outcry
What to do with Rupnik’s once widely-praised works, colorful mosaics characterized by grand, flowing figures and large eyes, has proven to be a divisive question in the wake of the numerous allegations against him, which first came to public attention in December 2022.
While some want to await Vatican judgment before dismantling and replacing Rupnik’s works, much of it made in collaboration with other artists of the Centro Aletti — a Rupnik-founded art school and theological center in Rome — the public outcry for the removal of his art has intensified.
The Knights also announced several immediate changes that would be enacted at the shrine in solidarity with abuse victims, including providing educational materials about the mosaics, making clear that their display during the consultation process “was not intended to ignore, deny, or diminish the allegations of abuse.”
Every Mass at the St. John Paul II National Shrine will now also include a prayer of the faithful for victims of sexual abuse, and saints with connections to abuse victims, such as St. Josephine Bakhita, will be specially commemorated.
The group said it became aware of the allegations against Rupnik in December 2022 — and noted that the artist, while under investigation, remains a priest in good standing in the Diocese of Koper, Slovenia.
“This decision is rooted in a foundational purpose of the Knights of Columbus, which is to protect families, especially women and children, and those who are vulnerable and voiceless,” Kelly said in the July 11 statement.
The “Redemptor Hominis” chapel of the National Shrine of St John Paul II in Washington, DC, is decorated with mosaics by Fatherr Marko Rupnik. Credit: Lawrence OP|Flickr|CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The St. John Paul II National Shrine is a pastoral initiative of the Knights of Columbus, established in 2011, and designated a national shrine by the U.S. Catholic bishops in 2014.
Rupnik’s mosaics were installed at the shrine in 2015. The Holy Family Chapel at the Knights’ headquarters has featured Rupnik’s art since 2005.
Highlighting the John Paul II shrine’s mission of evangelization, the supreme knight said, “the art we sponsor must therefore serve as a stepping stone — not a stumbling block — to faith in Jesus Christ and his Church.”
Rupnik has not made any statements since the allegations came to light.
An eye on Lourdes
The Knights’ move to conceal the mosaics follows just a week after the bishop of Lourdes, France, said that despite his personal feelings that Rupnik’s artwork at the renowned Marian shrine there should be removed, he has decided to wait to make a final decision due to “strong opposition on the part of some.”
After forming a special commission in May 2023, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes announced July 2 that more time was needed “to discern what should be done” about Rupnik’s mosaics at the Marian apparition site, because his belief that they should be torn down “would not be sufficiently understood” and “would add even more division and violence” at this time.
As a “first step,” the French bishop said he had decided the mosaics will no longer be lit up at night during the shrine’s nightly candlelight rosary processions.
In his interview with EWTN News, Kelly said the Lourdes bishop’s intent to make a decision of some kind this spring galvanized the Knights to act at this time.
In his July 11 statement, Kelly thanked the Lourdes bishop for his “thoughtful decision” and said it “both informed and confirmed us in our own decision-making. Shrines are places of healing, prayer, and reconciliation. They should not cause victims further suffering.”
Emphasizing the importance of discernment based on mission and context, the supreme knight said: “Every situation is different. In the United States, Catholics continue to suffer in a unique way from the revelations of sexual abuse and, at times, from the response of the Church. It is clear to us that, as a national shrine, our decision must respect this country’s special need for healing.”
The Knights of Columbus was founded in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1882 by Blessed Michael McGivney, a parish priest. Dedicated to the advancement of the group’s key principles — charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism — its members in 2022 provided 50 million service hours and nearly $185 million to charitable causes in their communities.
National Catholic Register Editor-in-Chief Shannon Mullen contributed to this story.
Pope Francis listens as Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly describes Knights of Columbus efforts to assist Ukrainians, April 11, 2022. / Credit: Vatican Media
CNA Staff, Aug 8, 2024 / 14:46 pm (CNA).
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Joe and Tiffany Ampe, with 11 of their 13 children, accept the International Family of the Year award from Supreme Knight Patrick E. Kelly at an awards session prior to the 142nd Supreme Convention in Québec City on Aug. 5, 2024. Joe Ampe, a Kni… […]
3 Comments
We read: “The bishops’ proposal also includes a national Eucharistic Congress in 2024, to be attended by 100,000 Catholics who would then act as Eucharistic missionaries.”
All well and good, but what about the 40,000 priests already front and center? And already with years of seminary training and, by definition (!), serving as extensions of the bishops (not as congregational “presiders”).
Many solid priests have already (!) said from the ambo what needs to be heard from the USCCB regarding Eucharistic coherence, and it takes less than five minutes of straight talk.
But, yes, the Knights and others have a valued support role. One does hope, however, that parishes are not to be reduced further to sheltered workshops for 100,000 (half-formed?) liturgists and DREs who are now looking to be rehired as paid (?) missionaries, post-COVID.
What is the fit, really, between ordained priests and missionaries?
After reading your comment I need not add, since you’ve said it all. Especially on the issue of Eucharistic coherence and wanting episcopal leadership.
Evidence of a broad strategy of culture change is heartening (Archbishop Lori’s remarks). Eucharistic reverence based on an interior life of “coherence” as manifested in the public lives of all of us. (Certainly including those of an Aztec mentality, for whom partial birth dismemberment is “sacred ground,” i.e., puppeteer Pelosi, 2013, vs. Moses, Exodus 3:11.)
From a very broad historical and “cultural” perspective, even Muhammad—who DENIED the divinity of Christ—still went countercultural in his Arabian setting when he forbade the sand dune burial of unwanted female babies (Quran 6:141, 152; 16:60-1; 17:31-33; and 81:3). So, today’s modernity?—the “choice” of either the dumpster or “medical research.”
For us, then, in post-Christian and now cancel-culture America, we are to REMEMBER that the sacramental life of the EUCHARISTIC PRESENCE (and Eucharistic Adoration) is inseparable from the alarming historical fact of the INCARNATION, that Christ then said “This IS my body…Do THIS in remembrance of Me,” and that the convert St. Augustine explained himself in a very, very few words about the WORD: “I believe, that I might understand.”
To repeat an earlier “comment,” Cardinal Joseph Siri explained OUR PRESENT MOMENT this way:
“This fundamental truth of the reality of the Incarnation constitutes a general criterion through which all subjects, questions, themes regarding the whole economy of Redemption must be seen and understood. Thus, the mystery of the Church, its origin and its constitutional reality are founded on the Incarnation. The question of the relations of the Church with the world [!], the question of the natural and the supernatural [!], the question of the essence and meaning of the sacramental reality [!], the question of the vocation of man and his mission in history [!], the question of the rapport of the individual and humanity with history and eternity[!], all questions [!], as much in what concerns the knowledge of God, as in the means and ways of salvation [!], have a common denominator: the Incarnation of the Word of God by Mary and the Holy Spirit” (Cardinal Joseph Siri, “Gethsemane,” 1981).
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We read: “The bishops’ proposal also includes a national Eucharistic Congress in 2024, to be attended by 100,000 Catholics who would then act as Eucharistic missionaries.”
All well and good, but what about the 40,000 priests already front and center? And already with years of seminary training and, by definition (!), serving as extensions of the bishops (not as congregational “presiders”).
Many solid priests have already (!) said from the ambo what needs to be heard from the USCCB regarding Eucharistic coherence, and it takes less than five minutes of straight talk.
But, yes, the Knights and others have a valued support role. One does hope, however, that parishes are not to be reduced further to sheltered workshops for 100,000 (half-formed?) liturgists and DREs who are now looking to be rehired as paid (?) missionaries, post-COVID.
What is the fit, really, between ordained priests and missionaries?
After reading your comment I need not add, since you’ve said it all. Especially on the issue of Eucharistic coherence and wanting episcopal leadership.
Evidence of a broad strategy of culture change is heartening (Archbishop Lori’s remarks). Eucharistic reverence based on an interior life of “coherence” as manifested in the public lives of all of us. (Certainly including those of an Aztec mentality, for whom partial birth dismemberment is “sacred ground,” i.e., puppeteer Pelosi, 2013, vs. Moses, Exodus 3:11.)
From a very broad historical and “cultural” perspective, even Muhammad—who DENIED the divinity of Christ—still went countercultural in his Arabian setting when he forbade the sand dune burial of unwanted female babies (Quran 6:141, 152; 16:60-1; 17:31-33; and 81:3). So, today’s modernity?—the “choice” of either the dumpster or “medical research.”
For us, then, in post-Christian and now cancel-culture America, we are to REMEMBER that the sacramental life of the EUCHARISTIC PRESENCE (and Eucharistic Adoration) is inseparable from the alarming historical fact of the INCARNATION, that Christ then said “This IS my body…Do THIS in remembrance of Me,” and that the convert St. Augustine explained himself in a very, very few words about the WORD: “I believe, that I might understand.”
To repeat an earlier “comment,” Cardinal Joseph Siri explained OUR PRESENT MOMENT this way:
“This fundamental truth of the reality of the Incarnation constitutes a general criterion through which all subjects, questions, themes regarding the whole economy of Redemption must be seen and understood. Thus, the mystery of the Church, its origin and its constitutional reality are founded on the Incarnation. The question of the relations of the Church with the world [!], the question of the natural and the supernatural [!], the question of the essence and meaning of the sacramental reality [!], the question of the vocation of man and his mission in history [!], the question of the rapport of the individual and humanity with history and eternity[!], all questions [!], as much in what concerns the knowledge of God, as in the means and ways of salvation [!], have a common denominator: the Incarnation of the Word of God by Mary and the Holy Spirit” (Cardinal Joseph Siri, “Gethsemane,” 1981).