Knights of Peter Claver celebrate in Mobile
MOBILE – The Gulf Coast Conference of the Knights of Peter Claver and Ladies Auxiliary moves home to the cradle of Claverism to celebrate the centennial of its founding. The organization’s 62nd annual conference will be held at the Renaissance Riverview Plaza Hotel April 30-May 3.
Noel Andry, chairperson of the planning committee, says members will have an opportunity to visit the sites of the founding of the organization.
Claude Davis, a Fourth Degree member from Huntsville, Ala., says, “I always have enjoyed the fellowship and spiritual aspects of the Knights of Peter Claver conferences and conventions. I try to attend every year, and the conferences are always so deeply moving.” Davis looks especially forward to the conference liturgy.
Archbishop Thomas Rodi of Mobile will be principal celebrant of the Mass on Saturday, May 2, in the historic Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Mobile.
Father Giles Conwill, a priest of the Diocese of San Diego, will be homilist at the Mass. The chair of the Department of History at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Father Conwill’s teaching fields include U.S. history, Western Civilization, the Black Church, Ancient Africa, and African-American Catholics.
The Gulf Coast Conference is comprised of units within the (arch)dioceses of Mobile, Birmingham, Biloxi, Jackson, Atlanta, Savannah, Charleston, Raleigh, Pensacola-Tallahassee, Orlando, St. Augustine, St. Petersburg, and Cartagena in Colombia, South America.
The Knights of Peter Claver was founded Nov. 7, 1909, in Mobile. Over 700 subordinate units are located in the United States and one unit in Columbia, South America. Presently headquartered in New Orleans, the organization is comprised of over 18,000 members.
