Knights of Columbus
Catholic fraternal service organization
The Knights of Columbus (KOC) is a global Catholic fraternal service order founded by Michael J. McGivney, who was later beatified by the Church. Membership is limited to practicing Catholic men. It is led by Patrick E. Kelly, the order's 14th Supreme Knight.
The organization was founded on March 29, 1882, as a mutual benefit society for working-class and immigrant Catholics in the United States. In addition to providing an insurance system for its members, it has grown to support refugee relief, Catholic education, local parishes and dioceses, and global Catholic social causes. The Knights of Columbus have played an active role in politics ever since its formation, and promote the Catholic view on public policy issues around the world.
The organization also provides certain financial services to the individual and institutional Catholic market. Its wholly owned insurance company, a Fortune 1000 company based on its annual revenue, underwrites more than two million insurance contracts, totaling more than $123 billion of life insurance in force as of 2025. The order also owns the Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors, a money management firm which invests in accordance with Catholic social teachings.
As of 2025, the Knights reported having over 2.2 million members around the world.
The public source identifies “Knights of Columbus” as catholic fraternal service organization. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Knights, Columbus and Catholic.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1046799. VIAF identifies the subject as 154098594. The Library of Congress control number is n50062223. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1882, 1000 and 2025.
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This entry incorporates text from “Knights of Columbus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.