Knights of St. Columba

Last weekend, I went to Jersey for the conclusion of the national conference and Supreme Council of the Knights of St. Columba. The KSC are an order of Catholic men bound together in Charity, Unity and Fraternity to enrich their faith and spirituality by words and actions to proclaim the moral and social message of the Church. They support the mission of the Church and at the same time to work for the spiritual, intellectual and material welfare of their members and families and the local community. This was the first time that the Supreme Council had been held on Jersey and it was clear that people had really appreciated the customary Jersey hospitality. About 150 Knights and their wives were present, including a number of priests and deacons, and also Bishop Tom Neylon, auxiliary Bishop of Liverpool, who is their ecclesiastical advisor. The Knights, who were founded in Scotland, take for their patron the sixth century Irish missionary St. Columba, who settled in Iona and from there went on the evangelise the south of Scotland and northern England. On Saturday night there was a banquet and on Sunday morning in St. Thomas’s there was a solemn Mass of Thanksgiving before delegates headed home. One special dimension was that they had brought a relic of St. Columba with them from Carfin in Scotland. In the photo can be seen Bishop Tom Neylon and Henry Welsh, Supreme Knight, together with the reliquary containing a relic of St. Columba.