Keynote Speaker: Christopher Kauffman,PhD
Professor, Catholic University of America
Editor of the "U.S. Catholic Historian"
Dr. Christopher J. Kauffman holds the Catholic Daughters of the Americas Chair in American Catholic History at the Catholic University of America, and has been the editor of the U.S. Catholic Historian since 1982. He is the author of seven books and editor of two multi-volume studies in American Catholic history, and is currently writing a history of Catholic Relief Services. He is also the recipient of the John Gilmary Shea Award from the American Catholic Historical Association, and former president of the American Catholic Historical Association. As the keynote speaker for “Chronicle of Faith” Dr. Kauffman will be delivering "James A. Flaherty of Philadelphia, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus: Patriotism, anti-Catholicism, and Ethnic Diversity, 1910 - 1925."
Abstract
This narrative opens with Flaherty rising to leadership in the largest organization of Catholic laymen in North America. The most historical expression of his patriotism occurred shortly after the U.S. entered World War I, when Supreme Knight Flaherty wrote to President Woodrow Wilson a brief letter in which he proposed that the Order establish social-service centers in training camps and in areas behind the lines of war. Wilson approved the Knights’ proposal for the centers popularly called “K of C Huts,” which were manned by thousands of Knights who served the troops under the banner “Everyone welcome, Everything Free.” After the war the Order sponsored educational and employment programs for veterans. As a result of this dramatic display of patriotism 400,000 men joined the Order.
James Flaherty was an ardent champion in the struggle against anti-Catholicism on several fronts, ranging from a spurious attack upon the Knights’ loyalty to the Ku Klux Klan’s attack upon Catholicism in the "tribal twenties.” Symbolic of his commitment to ethnic diversity Flaherty endorsed the publication of the K of C Racial Contribution Series, books on Germans, Jews, and African Americans.
A gifted speaker and a committed lawyer in the Orphans Court, Flaherty was well-known in several spheres of life and thought in the Philadelphia scene. Because he was so identified with Catholic culture, Flaherty would be proud to be remembered in this celebration of the Bicentennial of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.