While the recent scurrilous questioning of district-court nominee Brian Buescher’s membership in the Knights of Columbus by Senators Mazie Hirono and Kamala Harris, with Senator Hirono suggesting that Mr. Buecher should resign the organization if appointed, may be viewed as yet another example of cynical political correctness, it is indictive of a much more ominous shift in contemporary American politics. In Senators Hirono and Harris’ questioning of Mr. Buescher’s membership in our nation’s largest Catholic Fraternal Organization can be heard the not so faint echoes from some of the darkest days of out Nation’s past when voice was freely given to claims that Catholics could never be loyal Americans and discrimination was rife.
Ironically, it was attitudes such as those expressed by Senators Hirono and Harris that gave rise to the creation of the Knights of Columbus in 1882. In a time prior to the creation of the social welfare net and when Catholics were barred from most labor and fraternal organizations by their faith, Fr. McGivney established the Knights as a mutual benefit society as a means to provide insurance to care for the widows and orphans left behind if the main income earner died. Today the Knights are the largest Catholic fraternal organization in the world and is renowned for its charity, charity that benefits Catholics and non-Catholics alike. On 2017, the Knights donated over $185 million directly to charity and performed over 75.6 million-man hours in volunteer service. This is the “extremist” organization that Senators Hirono and Harris believe should disqualify a candidate for public service.
Anti-Catholicism rooted in the canard that a person cannot both be a Catholic and a loyal American has a long history in American politics.
Senator Hirono’s suggestion that Mr. Buecher should resign his membership in the Knights of Columbus is nothing short of a circuitous yet blatant assault on Article VI, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution which states “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States”. Since the principles of the Knights are only the extension of Catholic teachings, Senator Hirono’s suggestion that Mr. Buecher to end his membership with the Knights “to avoid any appearance of bias” is a short step away to asking people of faith to renounce their beliefs “to avoid any appearance of bias” .