The Mayflower and the Santa Maria

From its humble beginnings in a New England church rectory in early 1882, the Knights of Columbus with its nearly two million members has become the world’s largest lay Catholic organization in the world. One of its main purposes was to provide mutual support for its members, practical benefits at a time when health insurance was non-existent. As anti-Catholics questioned their loyalty, another purpose of the order was to show that Catholics were as patriotic as other Americans. They pointed out that America was discovered by a Catholic. Historian Christopher Kauffman comments: “Just as the heirs of the pilgrims invoked the Mayflower as the Protestant symbol of their identity as early Americans, so the Knights invoked the Santa Maria as the symbol of their self-understanding as Catholic citizens.” An early member of the Knights declared that as Catholic descendants of Christopher Columbus, Catholics were “entitled to all rights and privileges due to such a discovery by one of our faith.”