Some Hard Talk about the Knights of Columbus

I want to preface this post by saying that I am sure I will ruffle some feathers here. The Knights of Columbus are an institution that most Catholics hold dear, and that many of us men belong to. Ergo, a discussion of some of the changes coming down the pike is bound to provoke disagreements. I also understand that my own experience with the Knights is my own alone, and that other men have probably have very different stories. And I understand that things on the ground will vary tremendously from council to council. So, with that all said, take what I say with a grain of salt. If your experiences have been different than mine, please share, but don't try to invalidate my experience just because yours may have been different.

While many of us were focused on events going on at Rome in January, it was quietly announced that the Knights of Columbus were engaging in a massive overhaul of their ceremonial. Supreme Knight Carl Anderson made the announcement that the exemplifications of the first, second, and third degrees were being combined into one single ceremony. Furthermore, these ceremonies—which had always been private—are being opened up to the public, being aimed at including the candidates' wives and children to the ceremony as well.

This is the second major change for the Knights in less than a year. Back in summer of 2019, the Knights retired the traditional cape and plumed hat that were emblematic of the Fourth Degree and replaced them with a kind of faux U.S. military dress uniform and a headpiece more akin with military style beret. This change was announced back in 2017 and implemented last summer.

I don't personally have much of a stake in this; I am not a Knight, although I used to be one a decade ago. And I know that Knight councils can vary tremendously from parish to parish in terms of their energy, viability, and ability to attract and retain members. I personally preferred the old regalia, though a lot of Knights I talked to about it said they found the old Fourth Degree regalia a bit silly looking—like play-acting fake nobility or something. I personally don't see how "play acting fake nobility" would be any sillier than play acting fake U.S. military, which is definitely what the new regalia brings to mind. But whatever.

What I find most interesting is the rationale Supreme Knight Carl Anderson offered for the changes. When addressing the change to the new regalia in 2017, the Knights' official press release said that the choice to abandon the old regalia was based on the following factors:

• the aging of our Fourth Degree membership
• the slow growth of the Fourth Degree (fewer than 20 percent of Knights are Fourth Degree members, and only a fraction of that number even serve as honor guards)
• consistent reports that the old regalia presented a barrier to Fourth Degree membership, especially among younger men

I do not understand the reference to the age of the Fourth Degree; are they saying, "The Fourth Degree members are getting old so we'd better give them something simpler to put on instead of this cape and sash and feathered hat?" Or are they saying, "Our Fourth Degree is aging rapidly; we'd better do something to attract more youths." Judging from the subsequent two points, in seems the latter is the tenor of their thinking—unless we change things up, the Fourth Degree is going to go extinct.

Let's put this consideration on the back burner for a moment to look at the explanation Carl Anderson gave for the more recent changes—the elimination of secrecy and combining of the first three exemplifications into a single ceremony.  Again, Anderson says that the changes are necessary because of concerns about declining membership. He stated that the traditional degree system was a "stumbling block to membership" and that secrecy of the ceremonial was "an impediment to joining."

Anderson cited a lack of manpower in local councils to perform degree ceremonies. Some candidates give up, and some never seek second and third degrees.“Last year," he said, "little more than half of the men who took their First Degree also took their Third Degree,” he said, adding that the number of third degree teams is expected to decline in the near future.

Anderson's statements and the press releases on why these sorts of changes are happening has made me think the Knights are essentially in the same crisis mode as the Church at large—and equally clueless about the real problems they need to be addressing.

First, it's okay for men to have men-only meetings that do not include their wives and children. Family life is great and wonderful, but it's definitely acceptable and praiseworthy for men to have male-only gatherings. If we really believe there is a crisis of masculinity in the world and Church (which the Knights most recent promotional video seems to affirm), then encourage occasional male only gatherings. It''s perfectly fine and laudable to have male-only degree ceremonies, etc. that family cannot attend.

Second, the notion that most Knights do not go on to their advanced degrees because their families can't attend with them is vacuous. Fact of the matter is, people make time for things they care about. If something is important to somebody, they find a way to make it work. And most councils bend over backwards to schedule events on days and times most amenable to their members. What Carl Anderson doesn't seem to get is that when a prospective or current Knights says "I would like to attend, but the meetings just aren't at convenient times" what he is usually saying is "This event is not important enough to me to justify taking time away from family, work, hobbies, etc." What he is really saying is "This organization's work and events do not provide enough value to incentivize me to sacrifice on its behalf."

Now, one could hold this thinking up as an example of the "selfishness" of the current generation I suppose—how people are unwilling to "make sacrifices" and put themselves out there for works of charity or fraternal bonds. But I think that would be too simplistic. It's not so much an issue of people being too self-oriented to want to participate; the elephant in the room that is not being addressed is that Knights of Columbus meetings often offer very little to engage their members. Much of this depends on how they are managed, of course, but they can often feel very much like a meeting of your local Planning Commission rather than a band of Catholic men heroically coming together to serve Christ. They can be marked by excessive a profusely dreary tedium. There is often a serious case of buyer's remorse: one signs up for the Knights out of noble motives and the sort of ideals encapsulated in the "Into the Breach" video, and then the reality of KofC meetings is sitting around a table with a bunch of spreadsheets listening to some Boomers quibble for 45 minutes on how to allocate the $27.68 the council netted from its last pancake breakfast. And as you sit there listening to the back and forth, you start to think if attaching yourself to this organization is really the highest and best use of your time.

I should mention, the latest KofC promotional ad is another example of of what I have called "man pandering"—a sort of Tim Allen-esque form of marketing that is meant to appeal to men based on American masculine stereotypes. Working with power tools and sparks shooting everywhere? HELLS YEAH. First responders? HELLS YEAH. Military motifs?  FIST BUMP, BRUH! It's an approach that, while certainly better than the contemporary tendency to feminize everything, still evidences a basic ignorance of the best way to approach Catholic men. "You men like tools and stuff, right? Well here's some power tools. You like guns, don't you? Here's some soldiery stuff." It's like the masculine equivalent of just handing girls princess paraphernalia and pink clothes just because they are girls.

But I digress.

I was one of those First Degree knights who never went on to take the additional degrees. It was not because I couldn't make it to meetings; I could if I really had wanted to. It was not because I didn't want to wear the traditional Fourth Degree regalia—that is probably one of the coolest things about the Knights. It was not because I "couldn't get time" away from my family. It was merely this: I found my experience at the First Degree so unfulfilling that I didn't want to ascend to degrees that would only create more obligations to an organization whose involvement I found unsatisfying at even the lowest levels. I understand my experience is my experience alone, but I have talked to enough current and former Knights who reported similar sentiment that I am sure this is not an uncommon thing.

Essentially, the Knights are like that awkward, mildly annoying acquaintance who says, "Heyyyy want to come hang out Saturday?" And you really don't want to be around this person, but you also don't want to hurt their feelings, so you tell them, "I'm sorry I can't; I am cleaning my garage that day." Maybe you are cleaning your garage, maybe you aren't; but the point is its an excuse to get out of an engagement you really don't want to make. But your awkward and importuning friend can't pick up on your social cues, so when you say you have to clean your garage, he takes it at face value and says, "Oh! How about I come help you clean your garage, and then you will have time to hang out with me?" which of course puts you in a very awkward and uncomfortable spot.

Of course, you are still not going to want to go hang out with this person even if you didn't spend the day cleaning your garage, and more people are not going to join the Knights because the degree ceremonies become public or the regalia changes or the degrees are combined. The fundamental reason membership in the Knights is declining is because men don't see value in belonging to the organization. If they did, they would join. The Knights need a fundamental overhaul, not in how they dress or their ceremonial, but in what they are and what they offer to Catholic men. And Uncle Carl's mentality of "We need to abandon our traditional look because this new things is what the kids are in to" is only indicative of how out of touch the KofC leadership is. Anytime some Boomer is justifying some novelty because "this is what the youths want", run the other way. But, Boomers gonna boom I guess.

But really the problems in the KofC are just a microcosm of the situation in the Novus Ordo world; the new paradigm doesn't work, so we introduce more novelty, the new revolution leads to further disappointment, and then we stand on the ashes of our failure and proclaim victory with promises of an ethereal renewal that's always just around the corner. We've faced challenges in the past and been through hard times and had our hopes frustrated before, but THIS time our programs will work; THIS time we'll finally come into the long awaited spring; THIS time our charge over the top will be successful. The solution to the problems of novelty is always more novelty.