By OSV News
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — The Memorial Day weekend included key highlights along all four routes of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. The eastern route's perpetual pilgrims — young adults walking the full route — visited New York with Masses, Eucharistic adoration and processions through Central Park and Midtown Manhattan, before processing into the Diocese of Brooklyn via the Brooklyn Bridge May 26. On May 27, the pilgrims boarded a boat in New York Harbor with Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who, from the water near the Statue of Liberty, blessed the city with the Eucharist before the pilgrims continued on to the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey. In St. Paul, Minnesota, an estimated 7,000 Catholics joined the pilgrimage for a 4.5-mile procession led by Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda from the St. Paul Seminary to the Cathedral of St. Paul. On the pilgrimage's southern route, pilgrims spent the weekend in the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas, where Catholics walked in a mile-long procession after Sunday Mass celebrated by Bishop W. Michael Mulvey at the Corpus Christi Cathedral May 26. That route's perpetual pilgrims continued May 27 to the Diocese of Victoria, where they spent the evening praying at Presidio La Bahía, an historic Spanish colonial fort that played a significant role in the Texas Revolution. Western-route pilgrims attended events in the Dioceses of Reno, Nevada; Baker, Oregon; and Boise, Idaho. The four routes' perpetual pilgrims are traveling to Indianapolis, Indiana, for the National Eucharistic Congress July 17-21.
OSV News photo/Gregory A. Shemitz, The Tablet