About Us

Knights of Columbus, Council 7519 at Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano

2024/25 Officers: Grand Knight: Shane Stafford.

Deputy GK: Russell Lane .

Financial Sect.: Ed Jordan

The Knights of Columbus is a charitable Catholic men’s organization founded in 1882 by Father Michael J. McGivney in New Haven, Conn. Fr. McGivney saw a need for Catholic men to come together in the name of charity to care for the widows, orphans, and needy of the day. As our Supreme website writes “…these men took Christopher Columbus–recognized as a Catholic and celebrated as the discoverer of America–as their patron.”

Fr. McGivney’s vision has remained unchanged into the 21st Century. As Knights, we deepen our faith by putting it into action and by upholding our three founding principles: Charity, Unity and Fraternity.

Charity is at the heart of what we do; it always has been and always will be. For Knights, charity means supporting a variety of charitable causes locally, nationally, and world-wide. We stand unified in our faith as Catholics by supporting and helping our parish, our clergy and, in our case, our Catholic educators. And we do all this while building fraternal bonds between Catholic men: friends, allies, and brothers.

The Knights of Columbus is also a Fraternal Benefit Society that is able to offer its members a variety of financial tools (life insurance, long term care insurance, annuities, etc…)to ensure the safety and well-being of Catholic families while turning premiums into charitable impact. Purchasing any financial tools is completely voluntary and not required for membership.

Our Council at Mission Basilica SJC was founded on March 2, 1980, with the blessing of long time pastor Monsignor Paul Martin, who is now our Council’s namesake. Since then, we’ve grown into a hundred member strong Council with 40 years of experience and service. When Monsignor Michael McKiernan, our current pastor, was assigned to Mission Basilica, he requested that the Knights take special care of Mission Basilica School and thus began our long affiliation with the school.

With MBS, we sponsor the annual Meet & Greet BBQ, the annual Basketball Free Throw contest, our the annual Christmas Poster and Essay contests and our biggest fundraising event of the year is our Annual Golf Tournament to benefit Mission Basilica School’s Tuition Assistance Fund. Our blockbuster 2025 tournament raised over $80,000 for the school’s tuition assistance fund. In the nine years of the tournament we’ve raised nearly $300,000 for the school’s Tuition Assistance Fund.

Together with Mission Basilica Parish, we put on our monthly Pancake Breakfast and our annual Lenten Dinners. Our 2025 Lenten Dinners will allow us to donate nearly $9,500 to various charitable Catholic organizations that promote pro-life resources, college campus life resources, seminary tuition assistance and other local Catholic causes.

Nationally, we participate in the Knights’ Coats of Kids campaign; every Fall we work with Serra’s Pantry food bank to distribute cold weather jackets to any family that needs one. And, internationally, we’ve raised funds for the Knights’ Ukraine Solidarity Fund. The Knights of Columbus was one of the first aid organizations to offer help and comfort to the people of Ukraine within days of the Russian invasion. For more information about our support of the Ukraine Solidarity Fund, please follow this link: https://www.kofc.org/en/news-room/knightline/2024/march/exactly-the-right-thing.html

Our Council is as diverse as the parish we serve; we’re lawyers, doctors, teachers, contractors, small business owners, law enforcement officers, college students and retirees. We’re your church ushers, Eucharistic ministers, deacons, and even Pastors. A lot of us are, or were, Mission School dads and we encourage you to involve your entire family in our charitable works. Our Council officers are elected every 2 years, we look to our members to volunteer in roles large and small and our annual dues are only $50.

Joining online is the quickest, easiest way to join and I promise you that our formal initiation ceremony, The Exemplification of Charity, Unity and Fraternity, that we hold in the Basilica will change your life. We’re not a cult; we’re not a secret society. We’re 2 million Catholic men on a mission to deepen our faith, serve our fellow Man, protect families and defend life in all its forms.

Are you ready to join us? Navigate to our Join Us page to go to our national website and sign up. Or want more information about being of becoming a Knight? Please use our Contact page to send us a message.