To celebrate the arrival of an icon of St. Josephine Bakhita commissioned by the Murphy Institute, join us for Mass followed by a presentation by Professor Rachel Paulose on the saint's life, her patronage of human trafficking victims, and its modern day implications.  The icon will be on display to the public for the first time during Professor Paulose's presentation.   

Schedule
12:00pm Mass in St. Thomas More Chapel, MSL First Floor
12:30-1:25pm Presentation and Lunch, MSL Room 321 

Location 
Minneapolis School of Law (MSL)
1101 Harmon Place
Minneapolis, MN 55403

Icon 
The icon of St. Josephine Bakhita was commissioned through Markell Studios, Inc. in Stillwater, MN as a gift to the School of Law from the Murphy Institute and will be installed immediately outside of the St. Thomas More chapel this fall.  The Murphy Institute will host artist Nicholas Markell in the coming months for a program dedicated to the history and symbolism of iconography with more details to be announced soon. 

Markell offers these comments on the icon of St. Josephine Bakhita:
"The word icon comes to us from the Greek eikon, meaning image. Often referred to as theology in color and windows to heaven, icons are a form of sacred art, the content of which is spiritual - they reveal a vison of a ‘Kingdom not of this world.” In the realm of art, iconography is the intersection of art and faith. Icons are images of what is believed.  St. Josephine Bakhita is imaged as transfigured-glorified in Christ. She’s imaged as a dance of illumination, saturated with the light of heaven.  She wears chains, but ones that are broken. Thus, they are no longer a symbol of bondage, but liberation. No longer a limitation or the cause of despair, but of hope. As her left hand points to the Mother of God, who gave her comfort and maternal consolation, her right hand holds a cross, symbolic of the sacrificial love of her Lord Jesus whom she knew died for her and her freedom." 

Speaker
Professor Rachel Kunjummen Paulose, School of Law

When she was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate to serve as United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota in 2006, Rachel Kunjummen Paulose became the first Indian American woman in American history to be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate for any federal appointment.

Under Paulose’s leadership, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota recorded the highest number of prosecutions in its history, reflecting the collaborative hard work of law enforcement partners, attorneys, staff, and civic leaders. Paulose also oversaw landmark prosecutions of white collar crime (including securities, health care, and public corruption cases), narcotics and firearms trafficking cartels, and civil commitment of sexual predators. Paulose tripled child pornography prosecutions, doubled gun prosecutions, and initiated the first ever prosecutions of human trafficking and aggravated identity theft. Paulose has first chaired jury and bench trials in federal court, briefed and argued cases before the federal appellate courts, and investigated multinational companies in complex parallel criminal and civil international proceedings.

Among other positions in public service, Paulose served as a law clerk to Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James B. Loken; Trial Attorney for the Voting Section, Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice through the Attorney General’s Honors Program; Assistant U.S. Attorney; Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General; Special Counsel for Health Care Fraud to the Deputy Attorney General; and Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States. Paulose also served as Senior Trial Counsel at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. Paulose previously worked as a partner at DLA Piper LLP, then the largest law firm in the world, and an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C. Presently, she is a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas.

Professor Paulose has been active in community leadership by serving as a Director of the Yale Law School Fund, Scholarship Judge for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, Eighth Circuit Vice President of the Federal Bar Association, Co-Founder of the Federal Bar Association’s Diversity Committee, Director of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, American Bar Association Standing Committee on Public Education, American Bar Association Standing Committee Member on Silver Gavel Awards, Girls State Governor Advisor (after election as the 1990 Ohio Girls State Governor of the largest such program in
the nation), Director of the League of Women Voters, Chair of the Committee regarding the reappointment of the Federal Public Defender of the District of Minnesota (by request of the judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit), guest columnist for the Asian American Press, and frequent contributing author to the American Bar Association Preview of Supreme Court Cases.

Professor Paulose is a frequently sought commentator. She has provided legal analysis for the BBC, The Washington Post, US