Viva Cristo Rey!
Proud to Be a Brother Knight
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
The Mexican martyrs deserved a better movie than For Greater Glory. Too many rookie screenwriting mistakes that nobody caught before filming. That said, what a powerful story.
The fact that the film was made, warts and all, is remarkable. It would seem that the moral condition of the country continues to use some improvement.
The timing of the movie was providential, if my memory serves me well.
For Greater Glory came out as we faced a possible mandate from Obummer’s HHS. Representative Bart Stupak’s (R) MI. helped to usher in Obama Care, and with it a tax penalty for not having aborticifants included within an employer insurance program for his employees. Hobby Lobby, Little Sisters of the Poor, fought it and won, agian, if I’m remembering this correctly.
The point is that Religious Freedom was under attack by a hack Chicago organizer who couldn’t come up with his college credentials,( because they didn’t exist in the first place..)I digress, sorry.
I thought the timing was perfect for that movie.
Stand Up For Religious Freedom grassroots movement secured Bishop Hebda, a half-dozen priests and over 300 Catholics protesting the HHS mandate in June of 2012 on Traverse City Michigan’s busiest thoroughfare.
Viva Christo Rey.
To all the Martyrs.
Thanks be to God for you and pray that your courage enters into our hearts, and that if pressured we too would be fearless in the face of tyranny. Gods will be done.
As a Past Grand, I am still both confused and angered by the antipathy shown to Knights’ Councils in some parishes by either the priest or the parish council.
Our church had an “influencer” (GenZ, female, overweight, never married) on the parish council who was decidedly anti-Knight. When our Communications Director, who was also on the PC, let it be known that if no longer wanted, we’d take our fish frys, chili suppers, pancake breakfasts, homecoming-game burger bars, seminarian charitable drives and 4th of July parking proceeds and just go be a council without parish, that voice was quickly stymied.
Modern parish governance is idiotic. Because the real responsible party for the parish (the priest!) Is moved like a nomad, this shadow government erects itself in the parish to make up for the gap. Leave a priest in his parish for good and we will have more of the stability that has been lacking in the “reformed” Church.
PS- to those when cite bad parish priests, that is a failure of the bishop to do his job – a related problem. Also, the bishop has much more control over a priest than the wayward layperson.
Bruised Optimist, ..I wish we had enough strong bishops and faithful priests to make that workable.
WK Aiken, I found involvement with the Knights…comparatively frustrating. During my time as FS, we did various fundraising efforts and promoted prayer. .. I still never quite felt that we’d done much to promote the faith. Or at least, we never did much to promote greater understanding of the faith’s teaching. It’s one thing to raise lots of funds; its another to live faith vigorously. ..It’s another thing to provide for a well-offered Mass.
Granted, my parish offers the traditional rite Mass, so much of that tends to be provided by the pastor’s direction. Even so, ..we had rather little request from the finance council or the pastor to provide for anything. I frequently found it tough to be believe we had accomplished much.
The Knights of Columbus provided ultra-sound machines to pregnancy centers for pregnant women to see their babies. Planned Parenthood used the machines to kill the babies and forbid the mother to see her child. That is life affirming.