Talk:Knights of Columbus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Featured article star Knights of Columbus is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.
Main Page trophy This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on August 1, 2006.
Catholicism Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Catholicism, which collaborates on articles related to the Roman Catholic Church. To participate, edit this article or visit the project page for details.
Featured article FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the Project's quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the Project's importance scale.
WikiProject Secret Societies This article is within the scope of WikiProject Secret Societies,
a WikiProject which aims to improve all articles related to Secret Societies.
Featured article FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the assessment scale.
Low This article is on a subject of low-importance within Secret Societies articles.

This article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.


Peer review This Philrelig article has been selected for Version 0.5 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia. It has been rated FA-Class on the assessment scale (comments).
Archive
Archives
1, 2


New comments at the bottom please. --SarekOfVulcan 17:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Company

Is the Knights of Columbus a publicly traded corporation? It is listed as 950 on the Fortune 1000.

I doubt that. Veronica Mars fanatic 11:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe that it is incorporated for the management and operation of its members-only life insurance arm, but it is certainly not publicly traded. Nor is it a for-profit organization per-se. Its life insurance arm must be run like any other life insurance firm, so there is a quasi-profit intent there. Lwnf360 (talk) 06:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV/Lack of substantiation

Some serious POV rv and at least one unsubstantiated and quite dubious statement tagged as unreferenced. If not referenced timely it will be removed as well. Wikipedia is not to be used for propaganda purposes by any side. Veronica Mars fanatic 11:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

You should cite which sections/statements you believe violate [POV]. Keep in mind that this was a featured article. Lwnf360 (talk) 06:55, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Year of founding versus meeting date

This Growth of the Knights of Columbus gives Oct. 2, 1881 as the first meeting date. But, on the The Life and Times of Father Michael J. McGivney lists the founding date as per his article here (which is the incorporation date). Which date should be used in both this article and that of the priest? Plus, somewhere on the site, I saw that they celebrated the 100 year anniversary in 1982 which lends credence to the 1882 incorporation date. Morenooso 04:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The founding date is the one that's considered to be the official date, because that's the point where the organization was officially recognized as such by external powers. I'm sure that they had several meetings prior to actually forming and founding the council, but the Knights have always considered 1882 the year they were founded in... 24.242.251.187 05:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Popular Culture section

There was an edit made, in good faith, removing this section from the article. According to WP:POPCULTURE this should be done by integrating the information into the rest of the article if necessary. To prevent edit wars, there should first be consensus on the talk page to enforce this action. To avoid this, I have started this section to discuss incorporating these items into the main article body. If there is concensus that this information is truly superfluous, only then should it be deleted. Jim Miller 21:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The section contains nothing but moronic, pointless trivia. What the WP:POPCULTURE essay says is "Items in trivia sections worthy of mention should be integrated into the rest of the article." Do you seriously think that any of the drivel currently in this section is "worthy of mention"? Garbage like this generally gets added to an article by "drive-by editors" who think they're making a contribution by adding some meaningless little scrap of trivia. Since such editors rarely visit the article again, there is little chance of an edit war. The only warring going on is being caused solely by your misplaced concern about edit warring. Quit fretting over nonsense and be bold. RedSpruce 16:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I happen to be one of those who believes that the Popular culture sections in articles can be useful, and don't see the point in removing them on sight. I find them to be good indicators of the subject place in the public consciousness at points in time. However, I am only waiting for a consensus to take place before seeing it removed. I know the original Trivia section was added after this was made an FA, however I don't believe in this case it takes away from the article. If I wanted to remove anything it wouldn't be this.Jim Miller 22:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The last two movie references seemed relevant as they addressed characters or areas being affiliated with the KofC. The first two didn't seem to add anything. I'd be in favor of adding these two back -

  • In the 2006 movie The Departed, Irish mob chief Frank Costello, played by Jack Nicholson, claims that the Knights of Columbus were extremely powerful in Boston, particularly among the Italians of the North End.
  • In the 1973 movie The Sting, J.J. Singleton refers to Doyle Lonnegan as "an Irishman who doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, and doesn't chase dames. He's a grand knight in the Knights of Columbus, and he only goes out to play faro."

Ultimate ed 17:58, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Ultimate ed, those two pop culture references seem sufficient enough to retain. Clint (talk) 06:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fourth Degree requirements

The article currently states that a Knight must be a First Degree member for a year before he can join the Fourth Degree. Perhaps someone can back me up, but I thought that was changed to six months a few years back. Anybody else heard this? --Umrguy42 23:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

  • that is true... a first degree can be a forth degree in a year PROVIDING he has completed the second degree and third degree beforehand. i know this because i am a first degree knight AnthonyWalters 23:40, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, that's not quite true. The requirement is one year, but Supreme has been giving district masters the authority to reduce it to six months on a case by case basis. If a candidate for the fourth degree does not have one year of service but does have six months, he has to apply with the master prior to the degree to receive the exemption. SK Gentgeen, Faithful Captain, Portola Assembly #49 00:28, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reference formatting

Ok, how's that look? Did I mangle anything too badly?--SarekOfVulcan 19:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Secret society?

Are the knights really a secret society? The degree ceremonies had an amount of secrecy around them, but since the old third degree ceremony was done away with there really aren't any "big secrets" anymore. I ask this because Wikiproject Secret Societies has taken an interest in this article and I think they will find it is a touch beyond their scope. Is there a Wikiproject Fraternal Organizations? The knights have more in common with the Elks Club then they ever will with Skull and Bones. -- SECisek (talk) 20:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not a stretch to see KofC as at least within the scope of the project, as (1) the ceremonial is kept secret (although I take it that no throats are cut), (2) it was a Catholic response to Freemasonry, and it is seen as a Catholic version of the Freemasons, (3) a number of conspiracy theories around the Knights were promulgated - especially during the 1928 Presidential election and (4) there used to be far more secrecy in the KofC than there is now. In short it doesn't need to be a secret society to come under the project. JASpencer (talk) 13:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I'll have to disagree, in part, about this statement: it was a Catholic response to Freemasonry. It was Catholic response to friendly/beneficent societies. Groups such as the Oddfellows, which were, by the church, lumped in with the Masons, offered things that the Masons did not, namely, death benefits, monetary support during times of sickness (when unable to work), all as part of the subscription to those groups - they were mutual aid societies, which the Masons were not. Additionally, one should look at the Red Knights, which drew their membership from the Sarsfield Guards militia unit, as well as the Ancient Order of Foresters (permission to affiliate with this latter group was denied to Fr McGiveny, by his superior, Bishop Lawrence S. McMahon) There is a decided difference between Masonic pledges of aid to distressed brethren, and the mutual aid societies' direct use of membership fees allocated to specific types of aid, and this difference is the main one (IMO) between fraternal organizations and beneficent/friendly societies.--Vidkun (talk) 17:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I think a project can define their own scope, just thought I would comment. -- SECisek (talk) 17:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

No, it's perfectly reasonable to ask. I just think that you deserved an answer. JASpencer (talk) 17:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Knights of Columbus Oath

This was a forgery that was put out in the early twentieth Century which basically said that the KofC were going to murder Protestants in their beds. Has it been covered here? It;s not there at the moment, would anyone object to me entering it in? JASpencer (talk) 18:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

JA, I think I would have a problem with it in that putting the full text here would lend some credence to the validity of that oath. I've seen the false oath, and took the real ones, i know they are different, but, should we put EVERY bit of slanderous propaganda about every group, on that group's page? That being said, I also recognize that it IS verifiable that someone claimed this oath was the KofC oath, but has there really been anything put out disproving it? I think, if there hasn't, yet WE know it's a false oath, it's an undue weight issue.--Vidkun (talk) 18:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Well the point is that the oath was put around, and apparantly believed both in the period before the first world war (when it was read into the Congressional record) and the 1928 Presidential election. So it was an important part of the Knights' history.
There's a Time article here that has both the bogus and what they claim to be the real oath sworn in 1928.
JASpencer (talk) 19:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
One thing that puzzles me, how did a neopagan become a Knight of Columbus? JASpencer (talk) 19:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't, at the time, Neopagan. I am no longer a Knight, although it would have been an interesting quandary had I been an insurance member, instead of an associate member.--Vidkun (talk) 19:29, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I've seen the bogus oath, too. It is worth mentioning but printing out in full or part is giving it undue credit. -- SECisek (talk) 19:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not interested in printing it out in full, but some mention of the kerfufle may improve the article. JASpencer (talk) 19:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Wikiproject

Would anyone else be interested in forming a Knights of Columbus Wikiproject? Between the potential of interesting material for thousands of councils, roles, titles, and concepts regarding the Knights of Columbus, I think one of these would not only be necessary, but extremely helpful to someone wanting to know more about the Knights than we can practically keep on a single wikipedia page. Clint (talk) 06:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you get it started, let me know, I'll be happy to sign up as a Fourth Degree member here in Missouri... umrguy42 16:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)