A Thanksgiving Open Letter to Catholics of the Crookston, Minnesota, Diocese

To the Catholic People of the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota

Dear Fellow Catholics:

As you know, the day after tomorrow will be the Thanksgiving holiday.  This holiday has become in the American psyche a time to celebrate family, a time when family gathers from far and near to sit around the family table and share a meal of thanksgiving together.  

Forbidden Marriages, and States' Rights: A Story from the Past

Here's a case drawn from my research into my family's roots, which illustrates the kinds of tangles that can develop when one state permits couples of a certain sort to marry, while another state refuses to recognize marriages legally enacted in states permitting couples of a certain sort to marry:

El Alma de Maria: Theological Implications of Jesus's Taking Flesh from Mary

The photo is one Steve snapped recently, of a depiction on a tile of an icon much loved in Spanish-American Catholicism.  Icons depicting the Virgin Mary with a dove as she says her fiat to the angel announcing the divine birth to her or as she holds her holy child are called, in this tradition, El Alma de Maria, the soul of Mary.

GOP's Southern Strategy and Race-Baiting: I Remember When

Integration Protest, 1957, Little Rock, Arkansas

In my mind, it's always 1957 sending the snatches of conversation, the turns of phrase I never hear any longer, back into my head.  Or is it 1964?  They all blur together, those years of the 1957 integration crisis in Little Rock, when Eisenhower had to order the federal troops in to quash our defiance, and 1964, when the defiance defeated by Eisenhower's troops met added humiliation in Johnson's passing of the Civil Rights act.

Gerald T. Slevin: Why President Obama Must Now Act to End Organized Child Abuse

Another extremely important essay by Harvard-trained former Wall Street lawyer Jerry Slevin.  Jerry argues that "it is the right time for President Obama to act" to protect children from childhood sexual abuse, as the Catholic hierarchy clearly remains intent on stonewalling, diverting, and covering up.  What follows is Jerry's essay:

Bilgrimage: Whys and Wherefores of This Blog

A regular reader of Bilgrimage has asked me recently via email who sponsors my blog.  

Colleen Baker at Enlightened Catholicism on Savita Halappanavar Story

Savita Halappanavar

Because I'm away from home and working on a number of non-blogging research projects right now, I'm blogging on the fly, as it were.  And so I didn't see Colleen Baker's outstanding commentary on the Savita Halappanavar story at Enlightened Catholicism when I blogged about this story yesterday.  I want to take note of Colleen's analysis this morning.