Knights of Columbus Museum, New Haven, Conn.

Bask in the presence of stunning artworks from the Vatican Mosaic Studio, admire galleries of changing religious-art exhibits and vicariously experience the colorful history of the Knights of Columbus.

The new Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven, Conn., is planning to celebrate its grand opening March 10.

Located two blocks from the Knights' Supreme Council International Headquarters, the sleek modernistic building, formerly the site of city offices, has been transformed into a world-class museum. The Knights have done a remarkable job adapting the spacious, airy environment here for artistic and historic displays.

“Everybody Welcome” — this greeting stands out in bold lettering atop the museum's self-guided tour brochure. And welcome was exactly the feeling I got immediately upon entering the spacious lobby and adjoining two-story vestibule. Come to think of it, that feeling came even sooner — to be precise, when I was told admission is free for the first year (until at least April 2002). That's an incredible offer for a museum of this caliber to be making.

High above the main staircase, a huge, 400-year-old copper cross sends an unambiguous signal of the museum's Christian orientation. Once part of the statue of Christ the Redeemer atop St. Peter's Basilica, Pope John Paul II gave it as a gift to the Knights of Columbus in 1986, when the order finished restoring that Roman facade.

The copper cross is one of many artifacts here reminding visitors of the close, working relationship the “K of C” order has with the Vatican. Elsewhere you'll find the splendid papal chair the knights commissioned for John Paul II's 1995 Mass at New York's Aqueduct Racetrack. And a 17th-century statue of a larger-than-life enthroned St. Peter greets visitors at the entrance to the Papal Gallery, which showcases many stirring mementos of the successors of St. Peter.

Another artistic representation of our first pope stands by the mini-theater at the head of the galleries. The theater, for its part, is a good place to “officially” begin your tour as it continuously runs a short introductory film.

McGivney's Glory

Probably the best exhibit to take in first is that in the Father Michael

J. McGivney Gallery. Here you'll get to know the founder of the order. Father McGivney launched the Knights of Columbus in 1882, in the basement of New Haven's St. Mary's Church, to provide insurance benefits to its members and promote the principles of charity, unity and patriotism.

In an adjoining reliquary room, you'll see Father McGivney's burial vestments from 1890. They're in amazingly good condition, having been removed in 1981 when he was re-interred in St. Mary's Church on the 100th anniversary of the Knights' founding.

This gallery and reliquary will prompt you to later take the pleasant three-quarter-mile walk or short car ride past one of New England's oldest town greens to Hillhouse Ave. and the church, magnificently restored by the order, where you can pray at the granite tomb of Father McGivney — whose cause for sainthood is now being examined in Rome.

An interesting footnote: The beautiful rosewood floors in these opening galleries match the flooring in St. Mary's.

Next up is the Columbus Gallery, which allows you to explore the great faith and courage of the explorer who brought the Catholic faith to this side of the Atlantic Ocean. The glazed ceramic tiles on display were brought by

Columbus on his second voyage to build Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Santo Domingo.

Most of one side of the gallery corridors are glass walls that encircle a long atrium at the core of the building. The design allows you to see the terraced courtyard on the ground level and admire a nine-foot statue of Columbus the Evangelizer, who, from this vantage point, looks every inch the triumphant, heroic Christian visionary. The statue was sculpted by the renowned Stanley Bleifeld, who's done three of Father McGivney and is known for the “Lone Sailor” at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington.

The courtyard, by the way, with a memorial to knights of the order who died in World War II, has fountains, bamboo trees, and open skies above. It will make an inviting spot to enjoy a picnic lunch come spring and summer.

Back inside, the Wall of History galleries stretch nearly 200 feet as they chronicle, in artifacts, placards and photos, K of C milestones in relation to U.S. and world history. “Everybody Welcome” — sounds familiar — is the warm invitation visible in one poster-sized photo. It shows a Knights of Columbus hospitality center, one of many they ran for the doughboys of World War I, which set the blueprint for the USO clubs of World War II. I was surprised to learn this, and that the knights ran these even in huts near the front lines to comfort all soldiers — and all for free.

Good Knight

All the knights' compassionate war relief efforts had such a lasting, positive moral impact that, to thank the order, France presented the Knights of Columbus with an exquisitely decorated, enormous porcelain vase, big as a barrel.

Displays like this one teach and fascinate at the same time. To satisfy your appetite for more about the 1.6-million member organization that yearly donates an average $110 million and 55 million man-hours to help the Catholic Church, its different institutions, the family, and the needy, you can linger at a state-of-the-art media information center, where specially configured touch-screen computers make it easy to browse through extensive information.

An adjacent library holds over 400 Columbus-related books, the order's original minutes and membership ledgers. The latter take you back to the 1880s and the San Salvador Council No. 1.

Great things are in place and on tap in the changing-exhibits galleries.

The stunning collection from the Vatican Mosaic Studio, scheduled to be here through June 20, christens these galleries and promises more exchanges with the Vatican museums.

These magnificent reproductions of originals, which date as far back as the fourth century, were created by master craftsmen with the world's best, largest and most variegated collection of stone and glass used in mosaics.

If all you did was come here to see the Madonna of Perpetual Help, Mary as Mater Ecclesiae and the Annunciated, and Our Lady of Guadalupe (owned by the order), you would feel your trip to New Haven was worth the trouble. From feet away, they look unmistakably like oil paintings. Up close, they're a marvel of intricate artistry. At any distance, they're nothing less than inspiring.

Museum director Larry Sowinski, who also co-founded and directed the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City, aspires to make the Knights of Columbus museum the finest of its kind in the entire Northeast.

“It's a wholesome family experience,” he says, “and a brilliant move by the knights. It will go a long way to help people of faith — of all faiths.” In other words: “Everybody Welcome.”

Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.