Queen of All Saints Basilica

3 - Baptistry

The entrance to the Baptistry is a pair of gates decorated with hand wrought bronze grill work. Standing in the very center of the room, raised upon a platform of Rosso Levanto marble is the Baptismal font, itself carved from a single block of rich red porphyry. The room, platform, and font are each octagonal in form and design. Early Christians considered the number "8" a symbol of completion and perfection. The font's cover holds a bronze statue of John the Baptist. Attached to the four angular walls, are custom reliquaries in satin bronze containing the precious relics of numerous saints. 

The windows of the Baptistry tell much history. To the entrance’s left begins with a window of Columbus the Explorer stepping ashore and ends with a picture of the present basilica protected  by Our Blessed Lady. The second window depicts this area's settlement beginning with Father Badin who preached to the Indians on the site of the present city of Chicago; to the historic signing of the Treaty of Chicago in 1835, where the U.S. acquired the territory that would become Chicago, at what is now Rogers and Kilbourne Avenue. Chief Sauganash, the negotiator for the Indians, was one of the earliest settlers of Chicago and it was for him the neighborhood of Sauganash was named.

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