| Fr. McGiveney would not approve |
Despite being expressly asked not to do it by their pastor who may also very well be the council chaplain, the Council 3548 of Knights of Columbus in Norfolk have decided to have a politician as the grand master of their St. Patrick's Day Parade. The politician happens to be our governor, Terry McAuliffe, who has Irish blood and lists his religion as Catholic. He's also a homophile and a proponent of abortion. Fr. Beeman, the pastor of their parish, Holy Trinity specifically asked the Knights not honor any political figure as grand marshal lest the church be seen as a supporter of the politician's policies. At the very least, he asked the Knights not honor someone who's public behavior is at odds with Church teaching. You can read about this in Fr. Beeman's letter to the parish: here.
The Knights are supposed to be a helping presence in their parish. They are supposed to be obedient to the pastor. Instead, the relationship between the council and the parish has been severed. The regular members had nothing to do with this, the problem lies with the Grand Knight and his advisers if they were for this too. Hopefully at the end of his term, a new GK can be elected and the Knights can beg to be taken back at the parish. In the mean time, my husband's brother knights have given scandal and shown willful disobedience to their pastor in a matter of morals. They've also shown disloyalty to Fr. McGiveney's founding principles.
Mary Anne at Les Femmes, and the Restore DC Catholicism blog, have more of the sad details.
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