Charlotte-area Catholics invited to join Knights of Peter Claver

CHARLOTTE — The Church’s largest and oldest Black Catholic lay-led organization is putting down roots in Charlotte.

The Knights of Peter Claver, an international Catholic fraternal service order founded in 1909, has created a charter to form a new unit in Charlotte.

Council 411 (for men) and Court 411 (for women) for the Charlotte region will be based out of Our Lady of Consolation Parish, and its spiritual advisor is pastor Father Basile Sede.

Over the coming weeks, Catholics across the Charlotte region are invited to apply for membership. While the organization has Black Catholic roots, people of all races and ethnicities are welcome. It also invites young people to join its youth divisions, the Junior Knights and Junior Daughters.

Organizers will be available after the 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. Masses at Our Lady of Consolation Church on Sunday, Aug. 27, to answer questions and accept applications.

Edward Marsh, a 1988 graduate of Charlotte Catholic High School and OLC parishioner, will serve as Grand Knight for the new council.

Mary Adams, an OLC parishioner and longtime member of the Ladies Auxiliary from when she lived in New Orleans, where the Knights of Peter Claver are headquartered, will serve as Grand Lady.

Marsh and Adams said they plan to visit parishes in the Charlotte area to spread awareness about the Knights of Peter Claver and solicit new members.

Applications will be taken until the end of September, and then in October the council/ court will be inaugurated.

The new Charlotte council/court will be the second in North Carolina, joining Council/ Court 388 in Raleigh.

The order is named after St. Peter Claver, a Jesuit priest from Spain who ministered to Africans enslaved in Colombia in the 17th century. He routinely met docking ships to provide food, medical aid and spiritual instruction to slaves, ultimately baptizing an estimated 300,000 over four decades.

Today members of the order work to further his legacy, reaching out to underserved communities and promoting human rights, providing scholarships, spearheading education and health initiatives, participating in Catholic charitable appeals, and finding other ways to live the Gospel message.

Headquartered in New Orleans, the order has over 18,000 Catholics in 400 councils and courts in the United States, operating in nearly 60 archdioceses and dioceses. Notable members have included Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the Church’s first African-American cardinal; Cardinal Raymond Burke; and Olympian track-and-fielder and Congressman Ralph Metcalfe.

The order is one of two U.S.-based members of the International Alliance of Catholic Knights, along with the Knights of Columbus.

— Catholic News Herald

For details

Learn more about the Knights of Peter Claver Council and Court 411 at www.kopcolc.com, or email knightsofpeterclaver@kopcolc.com.

Fundraiser planned

The new Knights of Peter Claver and Ladies Auxiliary Council/Court 411 is already busy –helping organize a fundraiser to benefit Our Lady of Consolation Parish’s capital campaign to renovate its campus and accommodate growth.

The “Legends of Soul” concert featuring Stephanie Massey will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 27, in OLC’s Parish Life Center, 1235 Badger Ct., Charlotte, N.C. 28206.

It is being co-sponsored with OLC’s Perpetual Hope Gospel Choir.

For tickets and details, go to www.kopcolc.com

Who was St. Peter Claver?

A native of Spain, young Jesuit Peter Claver left his homeland forever in 1610 to be a missionary in the colonies of the New World. He sailed into Cartagena, a rich port city washed by the Caribbean. He was ordained there in 1615.

By this time the slave trade had been established in the Americas for nearly 100 years, and Cartagena was a chief center for it. Ten thousand slaves poured into the port each year after crossing the Atlantic from West Africa under conditions so foul and inhuman that an estimated one-third of the passengers died in transit. Although the practice of slave-trading was condemned by Pope Paul III and later labeled “supreme villainy” by Pope Pius IX, it continued to flourish.

Father Claver’s predecessor, Jesuit Father Alfonso de Sandoval, had devoted himself to the service of the slaves for 40 years before Claver arrived to continue his work, declaring himself “the slave of the Negroes forever.”

As soon as a slave ship entered the port, Father Claver moved into its infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and exhausted passengers. After the slaves were herded out of the ship like chained animals and shut up in nearby yards to be gazed at by the crowds, Claver plunged in among them with medicines, food, bread, brandy, lemons, and tobacco. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God’s love. During the 40 years of his ministry, Claver instructed and baptized an estimated 300,000 slaves.

Father Claver’s apostolate extended beyond his care for slaves. He became a moral force, indeed, the apostle of Cartagena. He preached in the city square, gave missions to sailors and traders as well as country missions, during which he avoided, when possible, the hospitality of the planters and owners and lodged in the slave quarters instead.

After four years of sickness, which forced the saint to remain inactive and largely neglected, Father Claver died Sept. 8, 1654. The city magistrates, who had previously frowned at his solicitude for the black outcasts, ordered that he should be buried at public expense and with great pomp.

He was canonized in 1888, and Pope Leo XIII declared him the worldwide patron of missionary work among black slaves.

His feast day is Sept. 9.

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