The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1919-08-16
ADDRESS BY HEAD OF CATHOLIC
UNIVERSITY AT CONVENTION
OF KNIGHTS. OF, COLUMBUS IN
BUFFALO,, N. ", AUGUST 5..t-

The Buffalo Cathedral was
thronged with delegates, visiting
knights and local members, where
pontifical Mass was. begun at o'clock.
Bishop Shahan spoke as follows:
The Sermon.
What more inspiring spectacle
could an American Catholic heart con-
template than the body of men which
fills today the broad spaces of this
great cathedral? Gathered from every
part of the United States, you repre-
sent at once the immensity and
grandeur of this thrice-happy land
and the unity and power of the re-
ligion of Jesus Christ as it is taught
and lived in the Catholic Church
But imposing as are your numbers
and incalculable as is your influence,
civil and religious, they fall into the
background as we reflect on the new
and glorious significance of this years
meeting.
Two years ago you took your ap-
pointed place in the mighty national
host which arose like one man in
defense of our imperilled American
freedom, and you went down as
body into the bloody arena of human
ity's last and greatest conflict.
Caught Commanding Spirit.
Founded in peace and devoted to
the arts and works of peace, you
caught easily the high commanding
spirit OF this nation of freemen, young,
rich, populous, prophetic through all
its mighty frame of the liberty it had
begotten in the world, and to it's last
hbre hostile to all oppression and
injustice the world over. Our Presi-
dent called every American to a cru
sade against the last of the ancient
autocracies, and promised the world
in our name that not one of them
should survive the conflict he was
loosing. Since that memorable call
the Knights of Columbus have shared
generously all the activities of this
mighty nation, fused so quickly into
an irresistible unit of courage and
force. Your sons have filled our army
and our navy and your daughters
have filled the places vacated by their
brothers.
You have accompanied our brave
young men to the front, and provided
for them every possible comfort in
the stress of battle and every relaxa-
ton in it's intervals. In this great
war not armies but whole nations
faced one another organized to the
last detail and inspired by every ap-
peal that the hearts of men could
grasp.
Order Esteemed by World.
But, dear brother knights, just be-
cause we seem to, be entering upon
a new order of American life, we may
rightly ask ourselves how we may
utilize the great asset of esteem and
respect which the whole world now
gladly pays to our order as the ma
tions emerge from the smoke and din
OF five years of death and destruction.
Five years ago we We're a vigorous
Catholic organization, but we had not
made our way to the great American
heart. Today the magic symbol of
our order evokes a blessing from mil
lions of American men who have come
to learn the inexhaustible depths of
it's charity, it's loyalty and it's human
ity. Five years ago we were but
vaguely known and often misunder-
stood outside of our own country.
Today the same magic symbol is read
and understood and blessed by men
in every country of Europe, from with
in the blessed shadow of Peters dome
to the crowded marts of London and
the anxious spaces of Dublin.
Lives Ideals Of Order.
The genuine knight of Columbus
lives no longer to himself. He lives
to all the high ideals of his order, but
as they have been gloriously inter-
preted on worldwide scale and
amid all the vicissitudes of our human
kind driven every way. by the sway
ing fortunes of war. More than ever
must he be a man. of irreproachable
Catholic life, for he, is now observed
of the whole world, and he carries in
his person the esteem or dislike of
Catholicism, and often of religion it
SELF In his person has been consum-
mated the unique union of Catholic
| faith and life with the American
l.spirit, and on him individually de-
pends, it's happy perpetuation. The
Roman citizen in the wilds of Britain
bore, with him the honor of the. great
city and the crusader held himself
responsible to- every man for the pub
lie honor of his Divine Master Even
so the Knight of Columbus symbolizes
today in the world the Catholic lay
man as he has grown up and devel-
oped in the United States, in condi-
tions and amid circumstances found
nowhere else, and for that reason he
| is read anxiously by all manner of
men to whom our Catholic faith and
| life are as a sealed book. SO long as
they look only to the priesthood for
an answer to the deepest riddle. of
their souls. But they understand well
their own kind and order of men, and
amid the business Of the day and the
movement of affairs, amid the secular
concerns of office and bank and fac
tory, or in the hour of social relaxa.
ton, they now behold in the knight