The overwhelming majority of Down’s Syndrome babies are killed before birth; This Texan girl was blessed enough to make the cut.

By MICHAEL E. YOUNG / The Dallas Morning News
Saturday, October 11, 2008

Never has the selection of a homecoming queen sent so many tears falling so freely.

Kristin Pass, an 18-year-old senior with Down syndrome, became Aledo High School’s homecoming queen Friday to a joyous standing ovation and the flutter of a thousand tissues on a remarkable night for an amazing young woman.

Her grandfather, Dr. David Campbell of Corsicana, escorted her onto the field and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek as Kristin joined eight other young women in the Homecoming Court to await the results of the vote, cast by the 360-plus members of Aledo High’s senior class.

Then came the announcement … and pandemonium.

(more…)

SAN FERNANDO CATHEDRAL in San Antonio, Texas, named after the holy King Ferdinand III of Castile, is one of the oldest cathedrals in the United States. Indeed, there is considerably debate as to precisely which church is the oldest cathedral in the United States. The Baltimore Basilica, recently restored, was the first cathedral to be located in the political entity known as the United States. The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Augustine in the Floridian city of that name was founded in 1594 (making it the oldest parish in the U.S.) but the current structure was not built until 1793, and the church did not become a cathedral until 1870. The core of San Fernando was built from 1738 to 1750, but the nave was replaced in 1868 with one of a neo-Gothic design. It became a cathedral when the See of San Antonio was erected in 1874. So the Baltimore Basilica (or the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to give it its full name) was certainly the first cathedral in the United States, though not the oldest church serving as a cathedral. To add to the fray, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace claims that it is the oldest continuously operating cathedral in the United States, since the Baltimore Basilica is no longer the cathedral of Baltimore, but rather merely co-cathedral to the bizarre art-deco-gothic Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in that city. It’s all quite mad really. Suffice to say, San Fernando is old and it is a cathedral; it’s an old cathedral. (more…)

I will be spending the next few days in Texas, in the city of Saint Anthony. It will be my fifth consecutive Thanksgiving in a foreign land.

I had not noticed that the tabernacle in the brand new Church of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, Texas was a smaller replica of the Ark of the Covenant.

Rather appropriate, considering one of Mary’s titles is ‘Ark of the New Covenant’.

Check out the high altar in the brand new Church of Our Lady of Walsingham in Texas. The church was designed by HDB, formerly known as Cram and Ferguson. They are the firm responsible for the second plan for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine here in New York. (The design most completed of the three so far). A new stained glass window has since been installed behind it, and more glass is to come. Visit the Church’s website here.

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