Dynamic DFW

View of the Texas School Book Depository Building (far left) where it is believed Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK from a sniper's nest on the sixth floor. Photo courtesy the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade pulled onto Elm Street in downtown Dallas, preparing to end what had been a highly successful campaign stop. Suddenly, a shot rang out and the president slumped to the side. A second shot rang out and the scene devolved into chaos as the motorcade sped to get out of the line of fire and onlookers dove for cover or scattered. Autopsies would later reveal that the president was shot twice: Once in the throat and once through the skull . Check out this cool interview with Henry Wade who was the Dallas County District Attorney in 1963. Eye witness testimony, along with amateur videos and photos, led to confusion about where the shots were fired from and whether there was a second shooter. Some say they saw a...

In my last post about Calvary Cemetery, I told the story of Father Jeffrey Aloysius Hartnett, the  first priest ordained in and for the Dallas Diocese, who died of smallpox after walking into a quarantined hospital to provide last rites for the sick and dying. Not being Catholic myself, I wanted to better understand why this ritual was so important that a priest would risk his life to administer last rites. To get some context, I spoke with Dr. Heidi Miller, Associate Professor of Christian Worship with Southern Methodist University’s (SMU’s) Perkins School of Theology. Although she was not familiar with the exact circumstances in Fr. Hartnett’s case, she was able to provide some clarity regarding the significance of last rites at the turn of the century. In the act of performing last rites (now known as the Anointing of the Sick), the priest’s role is to represent the authority of the Church and to stand in for Christ by extending the opportunity for absolution from sin ...