What a beautiful chance the Knights of Columbus in Stratford, Ontario had to show Premier Bob Rae recently what they thought of him, and his pro-abortion policies.

 

But they muffed it.

 

The Knights of Columbus, a large international Catholic men’s organization established over a hundred years ago, have recently had an identity crisis.

 

In the United States they have failed to kick out openly pro-abortion legislators on the grounds that they “don’t want to be holier than the church.”

 

Screened

 

When I joined the Knights of Columbus years ago, I was screened for membership.

 

A lot more was asked of me than filling a pew on Sunday.

 

I was told that Knights were supposed to be role models for other Catholics, in the vanguard of the Church, and to be ardently loyal and think with the church on moral issues. A Knight pledged himself to do battle for the Church’s teachings.

 

Interviewed in early May, the Grand Knight of the Stratford KOC, Tony Vigar, a well-spoken insurance salesman, admitted that a mistake was made in renting the knights of Columbus hall (the best one in town) to pro-abortionist Premier Bob Rae for a fund-raiser.

 

In Hindsight it was a bad idea, he admitted.

 

He said a girl does the booking and they did not learn about the rental until over 60 days later. By then their legal People told the Knights that it was too late to cancel the agreement.

 

However, he did not want to put the blame on her.

 

Obligation

 

Vigar claimed that some felt an obligation to rent the KOC hall to Rae because the provincial government of the time (not the NDP) had provided generous financing for the hall on the grounds that it was going to be a community centre.

 

“A mistake was made renting it to Rae, but you have to remember it was a delicate situation,” said Vigar.

 

“This is a small community and we have to tread carefully. This is not like Toronto where you have 2 million people and you don’t have to worry about offending people. We cater to the community that we are serving.

 

“We would have to close our Council down if we alienated them. Stratford is a heavily unionized NDP area with a pro-abortion NDP member, Karen Haslam.”

 

“And I suspect a lot of Catholics voted for her, too. After all”, he added, “would you rather have a possible pro-life NDP MPP or throw your vote away on an FCP (Family Coalition Party) candidate?”

 

“There are only 8,000 Catholics in Stratford, including the farmers, out of a total population 25, 000,” Vigar said.

 

“There are just two Catholic parishes in Stratford. In going ahead with renting the hall to Premier Rae, we tried for damage control—at least to try and get as much positive value out of it as we could.

 

We planned to out up pro-life posters in the hall but this wasn’t done.

 

“Sure, we could have locked the door and kept Bob Rae out – but what good would that have done? However, the Board is going to set a policy so that this won’t happen again.”

 

A dozen Knights

 

“There were only a dozen Knights from the Stratford area out there picketing,” Vigar noted. Most of the picketers came from Toronto and Kitchener.

 

“Sure, we had to call the police – things were getting out of hand. One guy picketing is a ‘little eccentric’, and I’m sorry that some words were said.”

 

The author is a third-degree Knight.