saxitoxin wrote:I just found, on a blog, the oath of the Knights of Columbus! Here's part of it ...
That is not an oath of the Knights of Columbus. This is from a source that suggests that the assassination of Lincoln was a result of Jesuits. As a result I would generally consider it anti-Papist Know Nothing garbage. Probably the precursor to Chick Lit. So without that, let's look at the Godless Wikipedia.
Knights of ColumbusPersecution by the Ku Klux Klan
Not long after the establishment of the Fourth Degree, during the nadir of American race relations, a bogus oath was circulated claiming that Fourth Degree Knights swore to exterminate Freemasons and Protestants, as well as flay, burn alive, boil, kill, and otherwise torture anyone, including women and children, when called upon to do so by church authorities.[32][33] "It is a strange paradox", according to some commentators, that the degree devoted to patriotism should be accused of anti-Americanism.[34]
The "bogus oath" was based on a previous oath falsely attributed to the Jesuits more than three centuries earlier.[35] The Ku Klux Klan, which was growing into a powerful force through the 1920s, spread the bogus oath far and wide as part of their campaign against Catholics,[36] and in the 1928 Presidential election a million copies were printed to hurt Catholic Democratic candidate Al Smith. The oath was even read into the Congressional Record by Thomas S. Butler,[37] and refuted by the Committee of Public Information, a war time propaganda agency of the US Government.[34]
Among other statements made by the Klan, it was claimed that Knights were only loyal to the pope and that they advocated for the overthrow of the United States government.[38] Across the country, local, state, and the Supreme Councils offered rewards to anyone who could prove that the oath was authentic.[39] No one could, but that did not stop the Klan from continuing to publish and distribute copies. As it was believed that this "violent wave of religious prejudice was actuated by mercenary motives", and that publication would stop if fines were imposed and jail time assessed, numerous state councils and the Supreme Council began suing distributors for libel.[38] It did, but the Order did not wish to be seen as if they were motivated by a "vengeful spirit", and so asked for leniency from judges when sentencing.[38]
To help combat this misconception of what the Fourth Degree was about, the actual oath taken by Fourth Degree members was also submitted to various groups of prominent non-Catholic men around the country for them to examine, many of whom made public declarations attesting to the loyalty and patriotism of the Knights.[40] After examining the actual oath, a committee of high ranking California Freemasons, a group singled out for violence in the bogus oath, declared in 1914:
The ceremonial of the Order [of the Knights of Columbus] teaches a high and noble patriotism, instills a love of country, inculcates a reverence of civic duty and holds up the Constitution of our Country as the richest and most precious possession of a Knight of the Order.[41]
32 Kauffman 1982, p. 171.
33 Egan & Kennedy 1920, p. 120.
34 Egan & Kennedy 1920, p. 121.
35 Kauffman 1982, p. 169.
36 Kauffman 1982, p. 276.
37 "Great & Fake Oath". Time. 1928-09-03. Archived from the original on 2008-04-01. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
38 Kauffman 1982, p. 277.
39 Kauffman 1982, p. 278.
40 Egan & Kennedy 1920, p. 122.
41 Egan & Kennedy 1920, p. 127.
