Knights Of Columbus

Open Museum In New Haven

NEW HAVEN (AP) — The Knights of Columbus has opened a new museum in the city of the group’s founding, to showcase history and artifacts from the order’s 119-year-old history.

The $10 million museum opened to the public this month.

The collection includes artifacts from Christopher Columbus’ second voyage to the New World and artifacts of the Roman Catholic church throughout the decades.

A section of the museum is dedicated to the group’s founder, the Rev Michael J. McGivney – a candidate for sainthood – and the struggles of Roman Catholics in the United States and around the world.

“The history of the Knights of Columbus is also the history of the world, through war and peace, through persecution and prosperity,” said Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson.

The museum is located a block away from the Knights’ world headquarters, in a modernistic building that formerly housed the city’s community services agency.

Admission is free throughout the first year of the museum’s opening, to give everyone an opportunity to learn about the Knights, Mr Anderson said. The order is the world’s largest Roman Catholic fraternal organization, with more than 1.6 million members around the world.

A tour of the museum begins with a six-minute film about the museum.

Visitors then can tour a gallery on the life of Rev McGivney, who was born in Waterbury. Rev McGivney founded the Knights with a group of Catholic men in 1882, as a way for families to support one another in times of crisis.

To provide for widows and orphans, each member of the Knights of Columbus was to contribute $1 to the family of a deceased member. Rev McGivney hoped the membership would reach 1,000 people.

This system has evolved into the insurance program the Knights of Columbus run today for members of the group.

Rev McGivney died in 1890 at the age of 38. The Knights of Columbus is advancing Rev McGivney’s cause for sainthood.

The vestments in which Rev McGivney was originally buried are displayed at the museum. His remains were disinterred in 1982 and are now in a vault at St Mary’s Church in New Haven, where the Knights were founded.

Artifacts related to Christopher Columbus, for whom the order is named, include two ceramic tiles carried on Columbus’ second voyage in 1493 that were used in the Chapel of the Holy Rosary in Santo Domingo.

Also on display is a wood and copper cross from 1614 that used to be part of the statue of Christ the Redeemer atop St Peter’s Basilica. Pope John Paul II gave the Knights the cross in recognition of their help raising money for a restoration of the basilica.

An exhibit of mosaics from the Vatican studio can be seen in the museum’s gallery for visiting exhibits.