• In Strunk, Nebraska, a contingent of Knights encircled the Bozo Theater that was playing Tumid Awaking, a C film.
• In Lumber Falls, Colorado, the Knights were able to stop a druggist from selling smut magazines (Lust Panty, Groin, Man's Rape) by sending in "emetic-stuffed children, who vomited copiously on the magazine rack."
• In Armbruster, Pennsylvania, is a plaster cast of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem that gives the order its name. Every October at the annual convention the Knights don suits of genuine steel armor and mark down the streets chanting "Ha-Du-Ku-Ba-Saïd-Na." (Rumors of people getting hurt at these rallies were probably started by the POAU).

Whited sepulcher is a phrase from the Bible (Matthew 23:27) where Jesus says to the Pharisees: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead [men's] bones, and of all uncleanness." The term Whited means the same thing as "whitewashed," and the phrase describes a hypocrite, meaning the men were respectable on the outside but rotten on the inside.

Bellairs's Catholic Action may be akin to the Catholic Worker Movement, founded in 1933. Army of Truth may refer to a line in a popular hymn ("An army of Youth under a banner of Truth, we are fighting for Christ the King...."), which Bowen is reminded of and thinks it's possible John was referring to as well. "It has a very bright, bouncy tune, and the words achieve supreme heights of silliness. The first time I heard it, I was filing out of a church in Taunton, Mass., whither my high school had been summoned to hear an address by our spiritual leader, the Bishop of Fall River. The much smaller local girls' high school was also in attendance, and their choir, which supplied music for the occasion, burst into this anthem as we were leaving. My friend and I cracked up at lines like 'On Earth's battlefield, never advantage we'll yield, as dauntlessly on we swing...' Someday I'll sing it for you - you really need music for the full effect."

The POAU was an organization called Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State - "opposed to various Catholic political initiatives like trying to get tax support for parochial schools," says Bowen. Myers adds that its leader was Paul Blanshard, who wrote an alarmist book called American Freedom and Catholic Power. "There's no doubt that in the twentieth century, up through the 1950s, was an era of great ascendancy for the Catholic Church, as the various Catholic ethnic groups, first the Irish, then the Germans, Italians, Poles, et al expanded greatly in numbers and prosperity, and their educational levels equaled or exceeded the average of Americans as a whole. The last I heard of Paul Blanshard, he was invited to attend Vatican II as an observer, and he duly did. I don't know if he or the POAU are still around or not, but they have certainly faded from public consciousness."