Men After God’s Own Heart

July 1, 2024

Adopted by hundreds of councils Orderwide, Cor invites men to draw closer to Christ through prayer, faith formation and fraternity

By John Burger

July 1, 2024

Past State Deputy Michael Yeo (left) and Jamey Guerrero, state director of evangelization and faith formation, join other men in praying the rosary during a Cor event hosted by St. Joseph Council 9846 in Port Moody, British Columbia, on June 4. (Photo by Sandra Leung/Yaletown Photography)

In early June, Jamey Guerrero had an unexpected encounter at a Cor gathering in the metro Vancouver area. As the director of evangelization and faith formation for the British Columbia and Yukon Knights of Columbus, Guerrero has seen firsthand the fruits of the Order’s initiative to foster prayer, faith formation and fraternity among Knights and other men in Catholic parishes. But at this particular event, hosted by St. Joseph Council 9846 in Port Moody, Guerrero met a man, a non-Catholic, who had just moved to town.

“He had been reading about the Catholic faith and recently decided to go to his first Mass,” Guerrero explained. “At that Mass, the Cor coordinator invited the men of the parish to attend.”

The gathering included a screening of an episode of the K of C video series Into the Breach: The Mission of the Family.

“That’s where it clicked for him,” Guerrero said. “Meeting other men of faith and discussing how we can step into the breach in today’s society was a much-needed help for him.”

Guerrero gave the man his contact number, offering to stay in touch and support him through his faith journey.

“This is what Cor is all about,” Guerrero said. “This new believer needed community to help him know God, and Cor was there to help.”

Launched by the Supreme Council as a pilot program in 16 jurisdictions in early 2023, Cor expanded Orderwide later in the year, after the 141st Supreme Convention in Orlando, Florida.

“In this new era, forming Catholic men must be our top priority. … We need men who say ‘yes’ to their God-given vocation. We know what happens when men respond in faith,” Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly affirmed in his annual report to the convention. “Cor will deepen our relationship with Christ, making it easier to profess and defend what we believe.”

More than 600 councils now hold regular Cor gatherings, and 4,000 have expressed interest. Participating councils have begun to see spiritual fruits and a renewed interest in the Knights as a result of the initiative.

Speaking to state deputies during their recent organizational meeting in New Haven, Connecticut, the supreme knight said, “Based on what we’ve already seen, Cor has the potential to become a major contributor to the Order’s growth.”

HEART SPEAKS TO HEART

Cor is organized around the three pillars of prayer, formation and fraternity and is designed to help Catholic men build a more intentional relationship with Jesus Christ. The name is drawn from the motto of St. John Henry Newman, Cor ad cor loquitur — “Heart speaks to heart.”

Councils are free to determine how best to tailor the three Cor pillars to the needs of the council and parish.

In Port Moody, British Columbia, St. Joseph Council 9846 has used the Into the Breach video series as a stepping stone into Cor.

“I always start with a video from that series, which is just amazing,” said Grand Knight Mark Pan, who is also a K of C field agent. “We talk about masculinity, fatherhood, evangelization. All of this gets men to start opening up about the challenges they face at work or within their own families.”

Pan sees himself as just a facilitator, noting that it is the Holy Spirit who touches the men’s hearts.

“And I see that it happens,” he said, “because how often do you get guys talking about stuff like this?”

Father Nicholas Stano, chaplain of Concord (Mass.) Council 287 and St. Irene Council 13848 in Carlisle, speaks during the councils’ joint Cor gathering May 21. (Photo by Bryce Vickmark)

On the other side of the continent, members of St. Irene Council 13848 in Carlisle, Massachusetts, and Concord Council 287 have been having similar conversations at the joint Cor activities they launched last fall. Their Cor events begin with a fraternal gathering, often a dinner, followed by an episode of the Into the Breach video series and discussion.

“I think a lot of the conversations were lying just beneath the surface. Now those questions have been broached, and the conversations can be had,” said the councils’ chaplain, Father Nicholas Stano.

The 30-year-old priest noted that a lot of Catholic men are concerned about the crisis of faith in modern society, citing children or grandchildren who have fallen away from the Church.

“One of the things that a lot of guys really started to understand was that we need to approach the issues that plague our society, our families, our parishes, from a different angle,” he said. “Let’s not just focus on the negative. Let’s focus on what it means for us to courageously step into this breach together. Let’s see this as mission territory — our opportunity to live out our faith. And this is attractive to a lot of guys.”

“It’s about being active in desiring heaven for ourselves, our family, our communities. Cor can help us all connect to what is most important — becoming a saint. It’s the desire Christ has on his heart for us.”

District Deputy Mike Bello, who attended four of the Cor sessions this year, said that the men involved were highly engaged.

“I felt at the beginning of the year when it was introduced that it would really be a game changer for a lot of councils,” Bello affirmed.

Father Stano noted, “A lot of guys came week after week, inviting new guys to join us as well, which is great. Because we were pretty explicit that this is not exclusive to the Knights.”

Grand Knight Robert Norton of Concord Council 287 observed that after the last Cor gathering of the fraternal year, several men asked him, “What are we doing next year?”

“There’s definitely interest in keeping Cor going,” Norton said. “There’s definitely a hunger.”

Perhaps this is because, as Father Stano explained, Cor helps men to live out their baptismal call to holiness: “It’s about being active in desiring heaven for ourselves, our family, our communities. Cor can help us all connect to what is most important — becoming a saint. It’s the desire Christ has on his heart for us.”

DYNAMIC FAITH FORMATION

Faith formation plays a pivotal role in Cor, as generations of Catholics have received different levels of religious education over the years.

Christopher Lovera (center), grand knight of Bishop Maurice F. Burke Council 4031 in Cody, Wyo., shares a laugh with other members of the Cor group at St. Anthony of Padua Parish on June 4. (Photo by Tami Weingartner)

“How many Catholics really understand the catechism, understand the relationship between sacred tradition and sacred Scripture?” said Christopher Lovera, grand knight of Bishop Maurice F. Burke Council 4031 in Cody, Wyoming.

Council 4031 has made education the focus of its Cor program, which is built on the foundation of an existing men’s group at St. Anthony of Padua Parish. With the help of the parish’s deacons, the men had already been deepening their formation by watching videos from well-known evangelizers like Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester or listening to podcasts like Father Mike Schmitz’s The Catechism in a Year.

“When Cor came out, I was like, ‘Wow, this is showing a lot more that we could be doing as well,’” Lovera said.

Council 4031’s Cor gatherings usually begin with a breakfast prepared by Knights, followed by what Lovera likens to a course, with upwards of 25 men participating.

“It’s almost like a theology class, learning more about what Catholicism is,” Lovera explained. “Our meetings are also quite structured, with a deacon or a priest participating 95% of the time.”

Lovera’s three sons are members of Council 4031, but when one of them, Paul, began studying at the University of Wyoming, he couldn’t make it to council events. Yet he wanted to participate in Cor and share it with his peers, so he decided to adapt the initiative and take it online.

“I’m doing Zoom meetings with the younger generation,” said Paul Lovera, 22. “We are helping each other go to church, helping each other actively participate in Mass, not just going through the motions but actually understanding the readings.”

Members of the Cor group hosted by St. Martin Council 14566 in Myszyniec participate in Eucharistic adoration at Holy Trinity Basilica in June. (Photo by Mirosław Brodzik)

Knights in Myszyniec, Poland, see that same desire to go deeper among the men of their parish, Holy Trinity Basilica. Scores of men, mainly between the ages of 30 and 60, have been participating in the monthly Cor gatherings that St. Martin Council 14566 began holding last November. Some of them are Knights, but most are not.

“They are devout men who are not satisfied with just weekly Mass; they want something more, to educate themselves, to learn,” said Deputy Grand Knight Tomasz Kurpiewski.

Father Zbigniew Jaroszewski, the parish priest and longtime K of C chaplain who leads the gatherings, explained, “Especially in our times, there is a great need for formation of men and fathers, who are the pillar of the family.”

With Scripture, including the Men of the Word Bible study, as the primary resource, the men have discussed topics ranging from charity to the defense of human life to the role of men in various religions and cultures. When the Holy Trinity Basilica hosted the relics of the recently beatified Ulma family, “family” was chosen as the theme of Cor that month.

“Our main goal has been to engage Catholic men and integrate them, to revitalize their involvement in the life of the parish,” said Robert Pietrzak, the council’s director of evangelization and faith formation. “We called it pre-evangelization.”

A number of participants have inquired about joining the Order.

“They knew that Cor was organized by the Knights,” Kurpiewski said. “They discovered that the Knights are good men, with families, with normal jobs, who like to meet and have fun and also talk about the Lord.”

For Father Jaroszewski, the Knights’ work to engage men through prayer, formation and fraternity is serving a vital role.

“Cor is a solution for a very a common issue — men who are not active in the Church,” he said. “This is an answer to the Church’s needs today.”

*****

JOHN BURGER writes for Aleteia.org and is a member of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Council 16253 in New Haven, Conn.

Curtis Martin, pictured here in 2015, is CEO and founder of FOCUS and a member of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Council 7502 in Northglenn, Colo. (OSV News photo/Terry Wyatt, courtesy FOCUS)

Men After God’s Own Heart

HEART SPEAKS TO HEART

DYNAMIC FAITH FORMATION

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