The Great & Fake Oath

Great & Fake Oath

I (name), now in the presence of Almighty God the Father, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Blessed St. John the Baptist, the saints, sacred host of Heaven, to you my Ghostly Father, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius Loyola, in the pontification of Paul IV and continued to the present, do, by the womb of the Virgin, the matrix of God, and the rod of Jesus Christ, declare and swear that His Holiness the Pope is Christ's vice-Regent and the true and only head of the Catholic or Universal Church throughout the earth, and that by virtue of the keys of binding and loosing given His Holiness by my Savior, Jesus Christ, he hath power to depose heretical kings, princes, states, commonwealths, and governments and they may be safely destroyed. . . .

"I do further promise and declare that I will have no opinion or will of my own or any mental reservation whatsoever, even as a corpse or cadaver, but will unhesitatingly obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors in the militia of the Pope and Jesus Christ. . . .

"I do further promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly and openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Masons, as I am directed to extirpate them from the face of the whole earth. And that I will spare neither age, sex nor condition, and that I will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women, and crush their infants' heads against the walls in order to annihilate their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly I will secretly use the poisonous cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity or authority of the persons ... at any time I may be directed to do so by the agents of the Pope. . . ."

The Knights of Columbus seem a mild and indeed a charitable organization. It will not therefore be easy for the average person to believe that the above great swear is the fourth degree oath of the Knights of Columbus. There are those, however, who know better, and who have spent thousands of dollars circulating copies of this oath among ignorant Protestants. Aware of this and aware also that the oath has never and will never be a part of its ritual, the Knights of Columbus, meeting in National Conference last week in Cleveland, promised to prosecute six unnamed organizations and persons, for disseminating the bogus information.

The authentic "fourth degree" oath is as follows:

I swear to support the Constitution of the United States. I pledge myself as a Catholic citizen and a Knight of Columbus to enlighten myself fully upon my duties as a citizen and to conscientiously perform such duties entirely in the interests of my country and regardless of all personal consequences. I pledge myself to do all in my power to preserve the integrity and purity of the ballot, to promote reverence and respect for law and order. I promise to practice my religion openly and consistently, but without ostentation, and to so conduct myself in public affairs, and in the exercise of public virtue as to reflect nothing but credit upon the Holy Church, to the end that she may flourish and our country prosper to the greater honor and glory of God.

When the great and fake oath was first penned or by whom, nobody can say. It was circulated first in Chester County, Pa., about 1912; it was read into the Congressional Record during a discussion in regard to the seating in Congress of the Hon. Thomas S. Butler, charged with its circulation in an effort to excite religious antipathies. It is doubtful whether Thomas Butler himself wrote the oath. The career of the bogus oath has been obscure; five years ago it was considered obsolete; recently no less than a million copies have been handed about. The Knights of Columbus offered $25,000 to anyone who could prove it to be part of their ritual. No one bothered to do so.

In Cleveland, last week, the Knights of Columbus involved themselves in deeds of political crime and bloodshed only so far as to ask the U. S. government to lend its "moral pressure and influence" in order to better the "unfortunate and distressing circumstances" of Catholics in Mexico. Also, as is often the case, they paraded and danced.