The McKnight Family- Image: @backwaterfoiegras/Instagram A Catholic father of five, who runs a small farm in Louisiana, is under fire afte...
A Catholic father of five, who runs a small farm in Louisiana, is under fire after his social media post defending Catholic values. The controversy has taken a financial toll on the family farm as some of his largest customers have left.
Ross McKnight, the owner of Backwater Foie Gras, wrote on Instagram ,”The push to have every mainstream value and holiday represented in some way in our Louisiana ought to make no sense at all to any Louisianais or Louisianaise, unless recognized as a forward offensive by an ever-encroaching enemy that has sought for generations to destroy our unique culture which is so intimately tied to our Catholic identity.”
“The attempted coup of the month of June is part of that offensive, but I can suggest some antidotes to a false pride:
1. As is our tradition, enthrone the Sacred Heart in your home this month, and place your family under the protection of the furnace of Christ’s most merciful love.
2. Wear the Sacred Heart as a badge wherever you go! If you know your history, you’ll know that it was meant to be the livery of France (and was that of the Vendéens)!
3. Pray the Rosary for the conversion of souls. Pray it in French.
4. Check out my most recent journal entry on our website.
For God and the King! For God the King! Pour Dieu et Le Roi ! Pour Dieu Le Roi !”
View this post on Instagram
After the post, McKnight shared an update indicating they have now lost two-thirds of their restaurant business.
“Dear Friends of Backwater Foie Gras,
It would be difficult to miss the fact that we are Catholics who sincerely hold what Holy Mother Church teaches.
Subsisting upon the realities of the Faith instills certain motivations and desires, one of those well-ordered desires being to make beautiful things, hence the very existence of our foie gras farm.
Recently, we received two texts from two restaurant owners who have decided that they’ve had enough of our Catholicism based on our latest Instagram feed post and have cancelled their large, recurring orders.
One of these restaurant owners had a long-standing relationship with us.
While we’ve never required our customers to pass a litmus test before serving them, it seems our values, which come from lives lived as Louisiana Catholics, are considered unacceptable by some.
We count it a privilege to have lost much.
It is an honor to participate, through the suffering of our family, in the triumph of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
We have already seen Divine Providence working through all of this, and we have already seen that business we lost by rejecting pride beginning to be restored – in no small part by fellow Catholics who have reached out to support us and to share in the great victory that it is to suffer for and with Christ the King.
Already many chickens have been purchased or spoken for.
I have also received communications from a very well-known chef who wants to buy as much as we can provide.
This to say: the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus will grow and be established throughout the world no matter the obstacle, and God cares for our well-being. He is a good General, and He knows how to maintain His troops.
We are grateful! – And we will remain, as always, irreformably Catholic.
Pour Dieu et Le Roi,
Ross
‘If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you.’
– John 15:18-25″
According to The Federalist, “Harrison Weinhold, a friend and supporter of the McKnights, told The Federalist that the family lost between $6,000 and $10,000 in monthly revenue due to the canceled orders. Since the family only runs a ‘tiny artisanal operation,’ according to McKnight, that amount could potentially threaten the livelihood of the family.”
My good friend Ross McKnight of Backwater Foie Gras is a rad trad cath farmer here in Louisiana. Ross posted this fairly innocuous post about “pride” and the month of the Sacred Heart. Within hours of posting he lost dozens of restaurant accounts in New Orleans 🧵 pic.twitter.com/QFYS4rM8OL
— Swampist (@swamp_ist) June 8, 2023
Weinhold notes in his Twitter post that the restaurant owners who canceled the orders “are not from Louisiana” and “are the exact transplants that ruin the culture of a once great community, and are the type of virtue signaling leftists that are more than happy to persecute and ruin the lives of a native son and his family in the name of celebrating pride.”
McKnight told Fox News, “If we’re fighting a battle, there’s no ground behind this particular battle. So this is where we have to stand, because there’s nothing behind it. There’s nothing. You know, once this battle is over, and we lose, if it is that we do lose, then there’s nothing else behind it. So we have to fight.”
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