Supreme Knight Blackmon joined faith leaders at annual White House Easter Prayer

The Louisiana Weekly Staff Reports

The Honorable F. DeKarlos Blackmon, Obl.S.B., the Supreme Knight and Chief Executive Officer of the Knights of Peter Claver, was among a group of faith leaders who attended the Annual Easter Prayer Breakfast April 19, at the White House on Tuesday morning, April 19, 2011. The annual gathering is a time of prayer, reflection, and celebration of Easter. After the breakfast, a series of briefings were presented to faith leaders on issues of concern to the religious community.

Pausing to observe Holy Week amid war and policy struggles, President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that the agony of Jesus Christ through death and resurrection puts mere political struggle “in perspective.”

For the second year running, Obama hosted an Easter prayer breakfast at the White House, and the East Room was filled with administration officials and clergy from across the country.

Supreme Knight Blackmon, the youthful leader from Huntsville-Madison, Alabama said last week that he considers it an enormous honor for the Knights of Peter Claver, an inherently Catholic fraternal organization. Blackmon says he “very much appreciates the invitation” as a leader of one of the major Catholic organizations in the country. He went on to say, “As believers and followers of Christ, the Knights of Peter Claver and Ladies Auxiliary are charged with standing up for what is right and just.”

“I wanted to host this breakfast for a simple reason—because as busy as we are, as many tasks as pile up, during this season, we are reminded that there’s something about the resurrection — something about the resurrection of our savior, Jesus Christ, that puts everything else in perspective,” Obama said Tuesday.

“We all live in the hustle and bustle of our work,” Obama continued. “And everybody in this room has weighty responsibilities, from leading churches and denominations, to helping to administer important government programs, to shaping our culture in various ways. And I admit that my plate has been full as well. The inbox keeps on accumulating.”

The youngest Supreme Knight in contemporary times, Blackmon was installed the leader of the century-old Catholic organization in August 2010. An ardent supporter of Catholic education with a background in pastoral ministry and business management, Blackmon is a lay ecclesial minister, serving Saint Joseph Church in Huntsville in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama.

The event included an opening prayer by African Methodist Epis­copal Bishop Vashti McKenzie of Tennessee. Other well-known clerics included Bishop T.D. Jakes and Archbishop Demetrios, leader of the Greek Orthodox Church in America.

The Knights of Peter Claver, Inc. is the nation’s only African-American Catholic fraternal organization. The Order was founded on November 7, 1909 in Mobile, Alabama for men of color who were barred from other organizations in the Catholic Church. The organization’s membership now comprises the Catholic Church at large including clerics and prelates from around the world as well as women and youth. The Order is named after St. Peter Claver, a Jesuit priest from Spain who ministered to African slaves in Cartagena, Colombia during the 1600s. Peter Claver is said to have converted over 300,000 enslaved Africans to Catholicism.

The Knights of Peter Claver is a faith-based fraternal order with units in the United States and South America. The Knights of Peter Claver is based in New Orleans and is a member of the worldwide International Alliance of Catholic Knights.

This story originally published in the April 25, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.