USCCB President Coakley Baptizes Naturalism as Patriotism at Knights of Columbus Conclave
The National Catholic Register (EWTN News) reports that “Archbishop” Paul Coakley, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), addressed the 144th Supreme Convention of the Knights of Columbus in Denver on August 4, 2026, delivering a discourse on “the virtue of patriotism.” Coakley attempted to distinguish “authentic patriotism” from “distorted nationalism,” rooting the former in the Fourth Commandment and the Thomistic virtue of piety, while presenting it as a form of “gratitude” and “familial love extended outward.” He cited the Catechism of the Catholic Church and St. Thomas Aquinas to argue that patriotism is a religious virtue subordinate to God, compatible with Christian conscience, and expressed through civic engagement and voting. The Knights of Columbus, he noted, enshrine patriotism as one of their four pillars. This address is not a defense of the Social Kingship of Christ but a baptism of Masonic naturalism, substituting the Reign of Christ the King with the religion of the fatherland, thereby confirming the USCCB and the Knights as instruments of the conciliar sect’s apostasy.