By Jonathan Liedl, EWTN News, May 8, 2024
Jonathan Liedl is senior editor for the Register. His background includes state Catholic conference work, three years of seminary formation, and tutoring at a university Christian study center. Liedl holds a B.A. in Political Science and Arabic Studies (Univ. of Notre Dame), an M.A. in Catholic Studies (Univ. of St. Thomas), and is currently completing an M.A. in Theology at the Saint Paul Seminary. He lives in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. …
The National Eucharist Pilgrimage’s ‘Marian Route’ highlights how the Church in the Midwest has had an overflow impact that belies the region’s lowly status.
Midwesterners are used to being overlooked. After all, this is the part of the U.S. known as “flyover country” by coastal denizens. Even the region’s most prominent metropolis, Chicago, is known as “The Second City,” a nickname that originated as a put-down, made by a visiting journalist from the nation’s “first city,” New York.
To put it in familial terms, the Midwest is the nation’s disregarded middle child, less elite than the elder East, not as cool as the younger West, and far more unassuming than the charming (though sometimes-rebellious) South. …