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First Knights Templar are discovered April 10, 2006 LONDON: The first bodies of the Knights Templar, the mysterious religious order at the heart of The Da Vinci Code, have been found by archaeologists near the River Jordan in northern Israel. British historian Tom Asbridge yesterday hailed the find as the first provable example of actual Knights Templar. The remains were found beneath the ruined walls of Jacob's Ford, an overthrown castle dating back to the Crusades, which had been lost for centuries. They can be dated to the exact day -- August 29, 1179 -- that they were killed by...

ARLINGTON, Va., April 14, 2006 – Six Medal of Honor recipients and the Army Parachute Team, the Golden Knights, were among those gathered at Arlington National Cemetery here yesterday to pay their last respects to retired Army Chief Warrant Officer Michael J. "Mike" Novosel, a Medal of Honor recipient and former Golden Knight. Soldiers from the 3rd U.S. Infantry (The Old Guard) carry Medal of Honor recipient retired Chief Warrant Officer Michael J. Novosel Sr. at Arlington National Cemetery April 13. Novosel, 83, was laid to rest after he succumbed to a long battle with cancer. A former pilot...

My Dragon Fly and Me If I could be a Dragon Fly and wing my way through the sky I would never be shy just me and my Dragon Fly! By moonlight we ride the wind chase the comets tail for fun by day we would hide from the sun our fragile wings would come undone On darkest nights we would use fireflies as our guide we would dip and we would glide through the heavens open wide and scatter diamonds in the night sky my Dragon Fly and me... And we would wing past our lovers silent in...

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, March 20, 2006) – Miss USA Chelsea Cooley soared through the sky at an altitude of 13,000 feet during a tandem skydive with the U.S. Army Parachute Team, the Golden Knights, March 14. The tandem jump was coordinated in conjunction with her USO visit to Fort Bragg, N.C. Millions of people in more than 90 countries watched as Cooley was crowned Miss USA April 11, 2005. A native of Charlotte, N.C., Cooley has spent the past year as Miss USA, championing the causes of breast and ovarian cancer education and research. Cooley has also become a...

Less than six months after Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson announced that the Knights of Columbus would expand to Poland, the Order is beginning to take hold there. A development team led by Supreme Master Joseph P. Schultz, Ronald J. Tracz, administrative assistant to the supreme knight (fraternal affairs), and Wojciech Dadak, a Supreme Council office consultant for Polish affairs, has made two trips to Poland to lay the groundwork in several areas in central and southern Poland, including Krakow and the capitol, Warsaw.

My Dragon Fly and Me If I could be a Dragon Fly and wing my way through the sky I would never be shy just me and my Dragon Fly! By moonlight we ride the wind chase the comets tail for fun by day we would hide from the sun our fragile wings would come undone On darkest nights we would use fireflies as our guide we would dip and we would glide through the heavens open wide and scatter diamonds in the night sky my Dragon Fly and me... And we would wing past our lovers silent in...

PORT COQUITLAM, BC, December 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Two lesbians awarded damages from a BC Human Rights Tribunal for being denied a Knights of Columbus hall rental for their same-sex “wedding” claimed they were completely unaware that the hall was affiliated with the Catholic Church.Pictures of the hall obtained by LifeSiteNews.com reveal its undeniable inclusion in a complex that included Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church and Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic School. Not only do the pictures reveal that the hall is part of the same three-acre parcel of land, but the walls of the buildings are all identical...

First European Councils to be Established in Poland in 2006 As the Knights of Columbus prepares to establish its first European councils in Poland, the organization has unveiled a special section of its Web site in the Polish language. The Polish section of the Knights of Columbus Web site is located at www.kofc.org/polski. Polish becomes the fourth language of the Web site, which has long had sections in English, French and Spanish. Among the 1.7 million members of the Order are approximately 100,000 French-speaking Canadian members, and thousands of Spanish-speaking members in the United States, Mexico and Central and South...

ZEPHYRHILLS, Fla. (Army News Service, Nov. 9, 2005) – An initiative to promote understanding of the U.S. military matched up the Army’s top parachutists with some of Florida’s most influential citizens, during a tandem jump clinic in central Florida last week. Twenty community leaders, educators, and media personalities attended the two-day event northeast of Tampa, where they were given the opportunity to tandem skydive with the U.S. Army’s elite Golden Knights parachute team. Following a morning training class and meeting with the Golden Knights, the civilians were taken up in the Golden Knight’s signature UV-21 Twin Otter, paired up with...

I was born to be a soldier. Not that I was particularly brave or even destined for a distinguished military career, but I think there is something inherent in most Southern boys that predisposes them to the profession of arms. I simply got a bigger dose of it than most.

Appeared in The Catholic Virginian February 4, 2002Frank ParaterMost people in our diocese never heard of Frank Parater. If you were around in the late Sixties, you might recall that the diocese sponsored a camp named for him in Caroline County called Camp Parater. On Oct. 25, 2001, I received a letter from Jose Cardinal Saraiva Martins, the Prefect of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints authorizing me , with a “ nihil obstat” (“nothing stands in the way”) to initiate a process for the “Cause of Beatification and Canonization of the Servant of God, Frank Parater, Seminarian.”...

These days it seems that whenever Hollywood meets history, history gets the squeeze. Last year "King Arthur," "Troy" and "Alexander" were put through the revisionist wringer. Today it's the factually challenged movie "Kingdom of Heaven" whose historical content appears to have been schmushed. "Kingdom of Heaven"'s director Ridley Scott recently took a cue from Cecil B. DeMille and chose the Crusades as the subject of his latest epic. This is the same fellow who brought us "Gladiator" and "Blade Runner," which makes me wonder: How did a talented filmmaker like Scott get stuck with an incoherent script like this? It's...

Deborah Chymyshyn and Tracey Smith found just the hall they wanted to rent for their wedding reception. It was located behind a church in the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam and managed by the Knights of Columbus, an organization they thought was the same as the Elks.That mistake -- confusing the Elks with the Knights -- has taken them into the epicentre of the national debate on same-sex marriage, with Stephen Harper and the federal Conservatives citing the couple as Exhibit A in the Tories' declaration that government legislation unveiled yesterday permitting homosexuals to marry will result in severe assaults...

Return to Wanderer Home Page Issue Date August 4, 2004 Knights Battle . . . To Expel Pro-Abort Politician Members (Special to The Wanderer)  DALLAS — As the American Catholic Church hierarchy contends with notorious pro-abortion Catholic politicians — who publicly defy Church teaching in their political lives while flaunting their Catholicism by receiving Communion — state delegates of the Knights of Columbus are contending with a proposal to expel member Knights in politics who support abortion rights.  This issue has been simmering in the Knights of Columbus for decades. But this year, as delegates meet in Dallas from August 3 to 5...

His Excellency, Archbishop Seah P. O'Malley, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Boston, will be speaking about the sixth chapter of Pope John Paul II's recent encylical, Ecclesia de Eucharista (At the School of Mary, Woman of the Eucharist) at the 2nd annual Knights of Columbus Eucharistic Congress. He will be speaking sometime after 1:45 pm EDT (probably around 2 pm). The entire Eucharistic Congress will be carried live on EWTN. The Eucharistic Congress is taking place at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.

Tens of thousands of people have greeted the Pope on the first full day of what is being seen as his farewell visit to his native Poland. Large crowds clapped and cheered as John Paul II arrived to consecrate the Basilica of Divine Mercy near Krakow, a shrine to Poland's first woman saint. The ultra-modern shrine commemorates a Polish nun canonised by the Pope two years ago. New stamps commemorate the visit Later on Saturday, the pontiff is due to receive President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Prime Minister Leszek Miller at his official residence. The Pope is on his ninth...

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia complained Sunday that courts have gone overboard in keeping God out of government. Scalia, speaking at a religious ceremony, said the constitutional wall between church and state has been misinterpreted both by the Supreme Court and lower courts. As an example, he pointed to a ruling in California that barred students from saying the Pledge of Allegiance with the phrase "one nation under God." That appeals court decision is on hold pending further consideration by the same court, but the Supreme Court could eventually be asked to review the case. Scalia, the main speaker at...

Knights of Columbus to Mark Second Annual Day of Unborn Child in PrayerNew Haven — The Knights of Columbus Supreme Council will host a prayer service at St. Mary's Church, New Haven, in observance of the second annual Knights of Columbus Day of the Unborn Child on Tuesday, March 25, 2003, at 8 p.m. The hour-long service, centered around the recitation of the rosary, is scheduled to be televised live by EWTN. March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, was declared Day of the Unborn Child in a unanimously approved resolution at the 2001 Supreme Council convention in Toronto. Supreme...

ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY STILL BASICALLY INTACT, SAY 2 U.S. BISHOPS Revised Proposal on Clergy Abuse Builds on Dallas Norms, They Contend WASHINGTON, D.C., NOV. 7, 2002 (Zenit.org).- The president of the U.S. bishops' conference contradicted widespread media reports alleging that the Holy See had rejected the policy suggested by the American bishops last June. "Contrary to many news reports," Bishop Wilton Gregory said in a statement, "the Holy See did not reject or even 'soften' this work. In fact, it [remains] the foundation for what will become particular law in the United States." In a letter dated Oct. 14 to Bishop...

The Knights Templar were a monastic military order formed at the end of the First Crusade with the mandate of protecting Christian pilgrims on route to the Holy Land. Never before had a group of secular knights banded together and took monastic vows. In this sense they were the first of the Warrior Monks. From humble beginnings of poverty when the order relied on alms from the traveling pilgrims, the order would go on to have the backing of the Holy See and the collective European monarchies. Within two centuries they had become powerful enough to defy all but...