Righteousness and Responsibility

(The Following Was a Short Statement I Delivered At Our Local Knights of Columbus Meeting)

“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Matthew 5:10-12

There is only one Church founded directly by Jesus Christ, and that is the Catholic Church. This isn’t a divisive claim, but rather a statement of historical and theological fact. The Catholic Church alone preserves the full seventy‑three‑book biblical canon recognized by the early councils of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage. The Catholic Church alone maintains the unbroken line of apostolic succession through the Bishop of Rome. And for nearly two thousand years, the Catholic Church has carried forward the faith, the sacraments, and the authority established by Christ himself.

I was once told by a friend that “the Devil isn’t particularly creative, he’s just patient.” When evil seeks to oppose God, it does not invent its own rituals — it imitates and distorts the Catholic ones. If you have heard of “The Black Mass,” then you likely know that it exists as both an inversion and a perversion of the Holy Mass; it has no equivalent in other Christian denominations. And when someone is in true need of an exorcist, they instinctively turn to the Catholic Church, because it is the Church that Christ entrusted with sacramental authority. They don’t seek out Pastor Kevin from New Life Full Gospel Church. These realities are not meant to diminish other Christian denominations, but they do highlight something of paramount importance: the forces of darkness recognize the Catholic Church’s unique sacramental power, even when the world does not.

And to drive this point home, those demons, those forces for evil do not stand against the Church because we venerate Mary, or because we petition the saints, or because they don’t understand our traditions, or because our Priests “dress like Wizards,” according to Joe Rogan. Once again, they stand against us because we were meant to be the source of moral guidance for the world by Christ’s authority, and Christ tells us in John Chapter 15 verses 18 through 19 that “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world… the world hates you.”

And so I say all of this not to create division among Christian denominations, nor to condemn the world, but to clarify something essential about who we are as Knights of Columbus. We are not simply Catholics who attend Mass on Sundays and call it enough. We are men who have freely pledged ourselves to the principles of Charity, Unity, Fraternity, and Patriotism — in that order. We are men who desire to serve Christ by serving others. We are men who believe that the problems of this world are not solved by chasing after worldly desires, but by engaging in real, tangible acts of love — one neighbor, one family, and one community at a time. And because of everything I’ve said above — because we belong to the Church Christ founded, the Church whose sacraments and authority are uniquely targeted when evil seeks to oppose the good — we are called to carry the responsibility of stewardship. In other words, the buck stops with us.