New Haven celebrates McGivney’s beatification
NEW HAVEN – The bells of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church rang out and the faithful knelt in silence as a portrait of Father Michael McGivney slowly unfurled on the edifice of the Gothic church Saturday.
The faithful from around the country gathered to celebrate the beatification of McGivney, who founded the Knights of Columbus in New Haven.
“It’s extraordinarily moving,” said Fr. Patrick Brisbee, the associate chaplain at Providence College. “I’m just so overcome by all the graces. It’s an incredible moment to participate in.
It’s a homecoming. It’s the sort of thing that just brings you to tears.”
McGivney, who became an assistant priest at St. Mary’s in 1877, founded the
Knights in 1882 in order to promote faith, charity and civic virtue among Catholic men.
McGivney’s tomb is in the rear of St. Mary, which is undergoing renovation and is closed now because of the pandemic.
Pope Francis announced Wednesday that he recognized a 2015 miracle attributed to McGivney’s intercession, beatifying him. A second miracle is required to elevate McGivney to sainthood.
The miracle attributed to McGivney was the healing of a fetus that had “a condition totally incompatible with life,” said Supreme Knight Carl Anderson, CEO of the Knights of Columbus. “The child was born and the condition was no longer there.”
With beatification, McGivney is called “blessed.”
The faithful viewed the Mass of beatification, live streamed from the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, on large screens inside and outside St. Mary’s Church.
Following the reading of the official beatification proclamation from Pope Francis, read by Cardinal Joseph Tobin of New Jersey, the portrait was unfurled, followed by a procession into St. Mary’s.
A relic, a part of McGivney’s backbone, was carried into the church and placed at the altar. The relic is encased in a glass and gold vessel.
Throughout the ceremony, members of the Knights of Columbus honor guard were posted in front of the venerable relic and McGivney’s sarcophagus “as a sign of respect,” said Scott Criscuolo , co-district marshal for the Connecticut District 4th Degree Knights of Columbus.
“His faith for those that were struggling in the late 1800s carries on today,” he said. “In our organization we help people. We help everyone in our church and in community that need it, the homeless and veterans and it’s his legacy that keeps us going.”
Brisbee explained why the relic was important.
“Since the earliest days, the Christian community gathered in the catacombs to pray on the bones of the dead, so in the Catholic community we carry on that custom by continuing to pray with the mortal remains of our blessed and our saints,” Brisbee explained.
Once inside the church many proceeded to the altar, knelt and prayed in front of the relic.
Face masks and social distancing were strictly adhered to during the ceremony, with a limited number of guests welcome.
While McGivney’s beatification comes during the coronavirus pandemic, he died of pneumonia during the Russian flu pandemic of 1889-90, at 38 years old.