Fifty years after the Knights of St. Peter Claver and its Ladies Auxiliary started at St. Felicitas and St. Ailbe parishes on the South Side, members are celebrating the way the organization has cemented their ties to the church, to one another and even within their own families.
Knights of St. Peter Claver Council 181 — the men’s group — and Court 181 — the women’s group — started at the same time. They now also sponsor groups of junior knights for boys and junior daughters for girls, and they have never stopped giving their time, effort and energy to their community.
“We call ourselves a noble order, and I really believe that in spirit we are,” said Dedra Delaney. “The ladies’ motto is ‘friendship, unity and Christian charity, and those are the things we live by.”
Delaney, the grand lady of Court 181, joined the group a decade ago, following in the footsteps of her mother, a founding member.
The Knights of St. Peter Claver were formed as a fraternal organization open to all Catholic men in 1911, and the Knights of St. Peter Claver Ladies Auxiliary was formed in 1922 and recognized as its own division four years later; the ladies auxiliary is celebrating its centennial this year.
At its founding in Mobile, Alabama, the knights were started for Black Catholic men specifically, but the group is open to all Catholic men. The group’s patron, St. Peter Claver, was a Spanish Jesuit who spent his life serving enslaved Africans in Columbia.
They are perhaps most recognizable when they “turn out” in their regalia for ceremonial occasions, including St. Peter Claver Day in September and Founder’s Day in November.
The order now has units across the United States, with 20 active groups in Chicago and its suburbs, Delaney said.
While the men’s and women’s groups have separate leadership and function independently, they frequently collaborate and support each other’s projects, leaders said.
Court 181 has raised over $500,000 in scholarship money for Black students with the James P. Lyke African American Male Image Awards, which have taken place each of the past 32 years. Their junior daughters — the division for girls 7 to 18 — have started a cotillion for young women as well.
Court 181 also operates a monthly food pantry and helps support a home for victims of sex trafficking and a domestic abuse shelter, among other projects. Council 181, the men’s group, helps support Kolbe House Jail Ministry, especially its efforts to help people released from incarceration, and a supportive shelter for men.
Members of Court and Council 181 also are active and involved parishioners at St. Katharine Drexel Parish.
“Our main mission is to serve the church and the community,” said John Buchanan, now in his third term as grand knight of Council 181. “We have members of just about every ministry at the church.”
He serves as a member of the finance council, as a member of the bereavement team, and as an extraordinary minister of Communion and minister of care, he said. But before all that, he joined the Knights of St. Peter Claver at the suggestion of his pastor when he converted to Catholicism as an adult.
“At that time, it was the main men’s group at the church,” Buchanan said.
Before that, he said, he attended various Protestant churches but never joined any groups.
“It helped me to be involved with people who wanted to do things,” he said.
Yvonne Jones, a past grand lady who has also held many other offices, said it was similar for her.
“When I first joined St. Felicitas back in 1969 or 1970, I would go to Mass and go home,” she said. “It was Father [Howard] Tuite who encouraged me to become a lector, and then a Eucharistic minister and a minister of care.”
She joined Court 181 when her son was a junior knight, she said, and she was also invited to become part of the organization.
“It gave me confidence,” she said. “It just has enhanced my faith and given me the courage to get up there. I don’t think I would be the person I am today or the Catholic I am today without it.”
Diane Asberry’s children also led her to join the Clavers. She was impressed, she said, by what her children were doing in their respective groups.
“My children were junior knights and junior daughters,” said Asberry, principal of St. Philip Neri School. “I really liked the things they were coming home with, the projects they were working on.”
Asberry was a teacher and Girl Scout leader when she joined, and she went on to work with the junior daughters locally, then regionally.
Now she often works with the court and council at St. Josephine Bakhita Parish, which sponsors St. Philip Neri School.
“Clavers work with Clavers all over,” she said.
Being a part of the Claver family has helped her grow in faith, Asberry said.
“Claver has only enhanced my faith,” she said. “My passion is young people. I’ve been teaching for almost 50 years. Claver gives me the opportunity to work with young people on different levels, especially with spirituality.”
“It gives me a way to live out my faith,” Delaney agreed. “The fellowship and the sisterhood is a bonus. There are a lot of dedicated church members who are not Clavers, but I don’t think they have that bond. It has been fulfilling to be a part of a group of women who support each other.”