PLACE OF PRAYER AND PILGRIMAGE

Fourth Degree Color Guard lines procession into St. Mary's Church for blessing plaque marking gift of altar as memorial to Father Michael J. McGivney.

On the occasion of the centennial of the Knights of Columbus in 1982, initial steps were taken for the canonization cause. The body of Father McGivney was exhumed from the family burial plot in Waterbury, Conn., and reinterred in a polished granite sarcophagus in St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, where he had founded the Order. There the faithful could visit his tomb, pray for his intercession and invoke his spiritual strength.

Following years of preparation, the canonization cause was officially opened December 18, 1997, in the chancery of the Archdiocese of Hartford, under the care of then Archbishop Daniel A. Cronin, and the Knights of Columbus became the leader or actor of the cause. Dominican Father Gabriel B. O’Donnell was appointed as the postulator (promoter). With approval from the Vatican (“nihil obstare”), Father McGivney was given the title “Servant of God,” the first step toward sainthood.

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