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The Catholic Historical Review 88.1 (2002) 157-158



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Book Review

Patriotism and Fraternalism in the Knights of Columbus:
A History of the Fourth Degree


Patriotism and Fraternalism in the Knights of Columbus: A History of the Fourth Degree. By Christopher J. Kauffman. (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, A Herder and Herder Book. 2001. Pp. xix, 174. $19.95.)

This volume, a centennial history of the Knights of Columbus Fourth Degree, brings to completion Kauffman's authoritative studies of the Knights. Previous volumes marked the centennial of the association itself and dealt with its organizational and ceremonial aspects. This volume focuses exclusively on the elite Fourth Degree, the most distinctive and memorable of the fraternal's parts. This work, like all its predecessors, bears the unmistakable hallmarks of Christopher Kauffman's scholarship: voluminous research, careful attention to detail, judicious judgments, inclusion of photographs and illustrations, effective incorporation of recent research, and interpretive elegance.

The Fourth and highest Degree of Columbianism is distinctive in its devotion to patriotism, a focus additive to the unity, charity, and fraternity of the organization's earlier parts. By so focusing, Kauffman is able to place the Fourth Degree Knights into a larger interpretive context. Their activities, rituals, and projects relate in some fundamental way to patriotism. Over the decades of the twentieth century, although the patriotic focus has remained constant, the specific activities have varied widely.

The Fourth Degree, as interpreted by Kauffman, was at its inception an expression of a counter-nationalism that might today be called multicultural. After briefly exploring the roots of U.S. Catholic patriotism generally, Kauffman contextualizes the founding consciousness of the Fourth Degree as symbolic and commemorative of an American Roman Catholic understanding. In doing so, they were performing a valuable anti-defamation function as well as asserting claims to Americanism.

By reaching back beyond the Pilgrims and Jamestown to Columbus, Catholics were appropriating American history and memory and using counter-symbols. French and Spanish explorers and missionaries, the Ark and the Dove and Catholic figures such as the Calverts, the Carrolls, and John England gave Catholic Americans a prior claim to belonging.

Though not always utilized with scrupulous historical accuracy, the counter-symbols and narratives served American Catholic purposes well. Neither willing to sacrifice their Roman Catholic faith nor to allow it to be seen as any impediment to less than full participation in American life, members of the Fourth Degree countered one challenge after another. Responses varied from [End Page 157] legal action and litigation to publication programs to citizenship contests and educational programs.

Particularly challenging for the Knights were fundamental changes in American society starting in the 1960's. Challenges to their Americanism and loyalty had ceased; yet that very loyalty put the Knights at odds with countercultural and left-of-center political forces. It became natural in a sense for them to emphasize the Roman part of their Catholicism and its expression centered increasingly on Pope John Paul II and Vatican benefactions and projects.

True to their past, they retained a lively interest in the history of the organization as well, resulting in funding of Kauffman's studies. They could hardly have chosen a more capable scholar than Kauffman. Thanks to him the Knights of Columbus will be long recognized for much more than insurance, benevolence, and fraternalism.

 



David L. Salvaterra
Loras College

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