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There has been much in the news lately about politicians who claim to be devout and ardent Catholics even though they openly hold positions contrary to clear and consistent Church teaching. Many of us have hoped for some time that our Bishops would stand up for the faith and unequivocally hold these pols accountable. It is one thing for a politician Catholic politician to oppose the Church's teaching, entirely another when a Catholic priest, a pastor, does the same thing. Meet Father Dan Holland of St. Pius X in Rochester NY. Father writes to his parishioners in the weekly bulletin...

For this I sadly tip my biretta to Ten Reasons  o{]:¬(I want you to read this in light of certain entries on this blog about the whole ghastly wymynpriest thing (except for what "that blonde" had to say, of course. Father Joan In June of this year, Bishop Matthew Clark of Rochester appointed the notorious dissenter Sister Joan Sobala as pastoral administrator, i.e., de facto priestess, over the tradition-friendly St. Anne Church. The Women’s Ordination Conference calls her a person "key to the survival and success of the movement for women’s ordination." A now former parishioner shares her account of...

MoveOn.org tried to stage one of their pitiful made-for-the-evening-news events here in Rochester. Their goal? Blame Bush, McCain and the GOP for high gas prices. The Olmsted County GOP caught wind of it and within 48 hours staged one of the most fun coups ever. MoveOn activist Lyle (didn't catch the last name) was befuddled by the strong GOP counter-protest for drilling domestic oil. On the KTTC six o'clock news broadcast he could do no more than stutter when asked if he knew that there was going to be a counterpoint to his protest. He did manage to claim that...

ROCHESTER, MN (KTTC-TV) -- A local business that is clashing with Police could lead to a liquor license lost. They have a long list of police calls and a self-admitted problem with gang violence. Now, the future of Westfire Grille, is very close to burning out. For the second time in the last month the Rochester City Council is finding the future of a bar in their hands, but this time around it's not about neighbors. The problem is with the police. Rochester Police Lt. Dan Pulford says, "1 o'clock in the morning, 2 o'clock in the morning, I will...

(Rochester, N.Y.) - Three convenience stores in Rochester were fronts for a money laundering operation to fund an Islamic terrorist organization according to the FBI Mohammed Muthana said federal agents are unfairly targeting the convenience store he's run for 13 years. "We are citizens almost 8 years but we don't feel it. After September 11, no, they treat me the wrong way." In carefully timed raids, FBI agents hit five locations seizing boxes of records and computer components. Experts from the U.S. Treasury Department and IRS examined financial documents. According to search warrants, they were looking for evidence of large,...

Train Blocks Chili Avenue by Rich Turner Published Mar 24, 2008 A disabled train has Chili Avenue blocked at the 3300 block, near Old Chili-Scottsville Road. The train hit a boulder on the tracks, causing

One of Rochester's most recognizable radio voices is returning to the air. Long time morning show host Brother Wease, out of work since Entercom did not renew his contract at the beginning of the year, is about to embark on a new adventure with Clear Channel. After 23 years as the morning host on WCMF, Wease will become the morning voice at WFXF, known by its listeners as The Fox. “I'm ecstatic to be over here at 95.1 The Fox,” Wease said. “I sincerely am ecstatic because as sad as I am to have lost most of my career I...

m they'd never met before, nine people boarded the raft in Niagara Falls, Ont. With a puttering motor dragging the overloaded vessel -- carrying at least twice the 660 pounds for which it was rated -- across the current of the upper Niagara River, with no oars, anchor or even lifejackets to protect them if it failed, they made their way to Grand Island. Where the United States Border Patrol was waiting. Smuggling certainly isn't what it used to be in Niagara Falls. The area's role as one of the busiest crossings for bootleggers during Prohibition remains part of regional...

WASHINGTON — More cities across the country are considered at high risk of a terrorist attack, according to a new list of funding priorities from the Homeland Security Department. Last year the department made 45 cities or regions eligible for a competitive counterterrorism grant program. This year, the list has been expanded to 60 areas that can apply for the nearly $782 million available, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The urban area grants are one of the department's most popular -- and most intensely debated -- programs. The department divides the regions at highest risk of a...

According to RIT officials, at approximately 5:45 a.m. Wednesday, RIT lost Internet connection for about 90 minutes. During that time, all in-bound Internet traffic was being diverted by hackers to an overseas location. RIT officials believe that hackers in the Indonesia and Korea area tried to take advantage of the RIT

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (CNS) -- Mayor Ted Young of Waterloo sees a link between the success of the New York Giants and St. Mary Parish in his Seneca County village. He and Tom Coughlin, the Giants' head coach, are 1960 graduates of the parish grade school. Young believes Coughlin's Catholic-school upbringing helped shape his coaching achievements in college and the National Football League. "I think it played a large part. It sets your life values, and your values are set very early on," Young said in an interview with the Catholic Courier, newspaper of the Rochester Diocese. Young noted that he...

Local Store Owner Sentenced by Jim Aroune Published Jan 28, 2008 A Rochester store owner will be confined to his home for six months for illegally sending money to Yemen. Mohamed Muthana received this sentence Monday. A jury convicted Muthana of running an illegal money transmitting business out of the Yemeny Superette on North Street. More than $60,000 headed to Yemen from there. Muthana will also serve three years probation and pay a fine.

There will no doubt be a lot of anger and frustration for parents tonight who have children in these schools. As we've been reporting for more than a week the Bishop's announcement would be drastic and would include a long list of school closures. And that was the case this afternoon. Here is the list of 13 catholic schools to close in Monroe County.All Saints Catholic Academy in GatesCatherine Mc Auley School in GreeceGood Shepherd in HenriettaHoly Trinity in WebsterSt. John The Evangelist in SpencerportSt. John of Rochester in FairportSt. Margaret Mary in IrondequoitSt. Monica's in RochesterSt. Andrews in RochesterSt....

By Bryan Roth, staff writer Brighton-Pittsford Post Thu Jan 17, 2008, 01:05 PM EST Brighton, N.Y. - To Pittsford resident Judy Braiman, remembering the Holocaust has always been an important part of her Jewish heritage. Despite the atrocities related with it, she believes it’s something nobody — Jewish or not — should ever forget. “Why should you give that up?” asked Braiman, who had family relatives who were killed in Germany during the Holcaust. “If we don’t remember the terrible things that happen, it will happen again. Everybody should remember terrible things to learn by it.” So, when she saw...

Large statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus on the cross in a Rochester, Minn., cemetery were severely damaged and would require hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace, the cemetery director said today. An Our Lady of Lourdes statue of Mary had its head and arms "busted off" and the Jesus on the cross statue has damage from efforts in recent days to chop off its head, said Calvary Cemetery director Robert Gumbusky. The granite statue of Jesus, standing about 15 feet tall, is at least 100 to 120 years old and would cost $250,000 to replace, Gumbusky said....

Everyone expressed gratitude and relief at the end of the hostage crisis yesterday in Rochester, New Hampshire, when police arrested the disturbed man who created it. No one got hurt and a sick man will get the care he needs, and the community will receive protection from him as well. It demonstrated the competence and patience of the Rochester police department in resolving a standoff that only gained national attention because it took place in the campaign headquarters of Hillary Clinton. Somehow, later that evening, the Clinton campaign decided this makes Hillary look presidential, at least to Larry Sabato and...

A Conservative Website for Rochester, NY, Launched Today, RochesterConservative.com I'd like to invite all Freepers to come on over and visit RochesterConservative.com, the Conservative website for the Greater Rochester, NY area. Our country is currently in the midst of a cultural war between the left and right, liberal versus conservative, athiest versus Judeo/Christian. Anybody who’s been following or participating in blogs and internet forums has probably taken note of this. RochesterConservative.com is a grassroots effort to spread the word that smaller government is good government and self reliance and love of God and Country is still considered a virtue in...

Neighbors tell us the pit bull that attacked 6-year old Sabin Jones Abbott seemed to be aggressive. “He was very scary. The dog would run to the end of its chain and try to get off its chain to get to you," said neighbor, Kim Bennage. But investigators say they are not aware of any previous reports of the dog being aggressive. Neighbors tell WETM 18 News that the boy’s father, William Abbott had just gotten the dog recently from a neighbor. Investigators say the boy was killed after he was attacked by a pit bull-boxer mix Sunday morning. Authorities...

New York’s senior U.S. Senator weighed in on the bidding war for Bausch & Lomb. Sen. Chuck Schumer sent a letter to B&L board members that advocated for the bid by Warburg Pincus. Schumer believes the potential buyer's purchase of B&L would keep the company and its 1,400 local workers in Rochester. B&L accepted Warburg Pincus' bid of $65 a share, but also is sizing up an offer from industry rival Advanced Medical Optics of $75 a share.

The photo above shows Rochester Bishop Matt Clark doing a Lenten dorm liturgy with the U of Rochester chaplain. Several blogs have already commented on the liberty Clark awarded himself respecting the rubrics -- see Rich Leonardi and Fr. Erik Richtsteig -- but my own thoughts were sidetracked onto another subject: what are bishops for? Let's do a thought experiment by going back in time. Suppose you were an ordinary lay Catholic in the year 1107 anywhere in Christendom: Castile or Flanders or Liguria or Kent -- Rochester, say. There is no such thing as a printed book, and...

Was it a threat or not? In his second State of the City address, Mayor Robert Duffy said he will tie the city’s $119 million annual school aid to results. “I care about our children graduating from school and that should be and will be our funding criteria for our schools,” he said. Duffy honed in on the district’s 50 percent four-year graduation rate. The graduation rate in Rochester is worse than in Buffalo, which spends less money per pupil. “We have the worst graduation rate in the state and that has to change. Clearly money is not the issue...

Actually, it's sad. The Rochester City School District has moved to “normalize” ebonics, saying that “Black English Vernacular” is as valid as conventional English and that students and teachers are welcome to use it. Teachers, in fact, are even encouraged to use ebonics themselves in the classroom. It's part of the multiculturalism and diversity cult. The belief that all things are equal, even when they clearly aren't. And the deep thinkers at the worst school district in the state have decided that their students will have better self-esteem if their “home language” is respected in school. A recent district newsletter...

(Rochester, N.Y.) - A 49-year old man went into the Dollar Tree Store at South Clinton (knife in hand) to rob the store Friday. The clerk couldn’t open the register and a fight broke out between the clerk and the suspect. Several customers tried to help and chased the suspect down Clinton towards Karges Street. The suspect emerged at South Clinton and Goodman. Meantime, Rochester's mayor serendipitously pulled off 490 at Goodman, when Officer Bob Brady passed Mayor Duffy’s car, gun drawn, chasing the suspect. When Duffy saw the weapon, he broke out of his car and chased down the...

On October 1, 2006, Ss. Peter & Paul Church celebrated its closing Mass, ending almost 100 years of service to Rochester, New York. It was enough to bring me to tears. Peter & Paul is one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen. And it was the boyhood parish of my recently-deceased father. The Pictures Tell the Story My father grew up in the tough “Bull’s Head” neighborhood on Rochester’s West Side, practically in the shadow of Peter & Paul. Hardly a week of my childhood went by when he didn’t share some anecdote about his time there. One...

For patients living with heart failure and other health conditions, blood draws and diagnostic tests are commonplace in order to evaluate their condition. Often, though, chemical or physiologic changes silently cause damage that is not detected until much later. But what if in the future a tiny device, one the size of a nickel or significantly smaller, could be implanted in the patient to monitor and detect abnormalities, and could then relay data to physicians, or provide therapy on the spot, in real time? It may sound like science fiction, but this concept is moving toward reality at Physiologic Communications...

Proponents of the new Ballistic Deflection Transistor technology say it will produce computers that are faster, more powerful, and more efficient at using power. Scientists at the University of Rochester have come up with a new "ballistic computing" chip design that could lead to 3,000-gigahertz — that's 3-terahertz — processors that produce very little heat.Marc Feldman, professor of computer engineering at the University, characterizes the design, the Ballistic Deflection Transistor (BDT), as radical. "There's a real problem for standard transistors to keep shrinking," he says. The BDT doesn't have a capacitance layer that becomes problematic at very small scales the...

ENTERCOM has purchased CBS RADIO's MEMPHIS, ROCHESTER, AUSTIN, and CINCINNATI clusters for $262 million. The buyer will take over all of the stations except for the ROCHESTER stations in a time brokerage agreement starting in OCTOBER (the company will have to divest two ROCHESTER stations to remain within FCC ownership limits). In AUSTIN, ENTERCOM gets AC KKMJ (MAJIC 95.5), Modern AC KAMX (MIX 94.7), Top 40/Rhythmic KXBT (THE BEAT 104.3), and Talk KJCE-A. In CINCINNATI, the stations being sold are Country WUBE (B-105), Hot AC WKRQ (Q-102), Oldies WGRR, and Alternative WAQZ (NEW ROCK 97.3). In MEMPHIS, ENTERCOM adds Hot...

Computer designers at the University of Rochester are going ballistic. "Everyone has been trying to make better transistors by modifying current designs, but what we really need is the next paradigm," says Quentin Diduck, a graduate student at the University who thought up the radical new design. "We've gone from the relay, to the tube, to semiconductor physics. Now we're taking the next step on the evolutionary track." That next step goes by the imposing name of "Ballistic Deflection Transistor," and it's as far from traditional transistors as tubes. Instead of running electrons through a transistor as if they were...

Kodak posts wider 2Q loss of $282M ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Eastman Kodak Co., undergoing a tough transition to digital photography, posted a wider loss of $282 million in the second quarter Tuesday — its seventh quarterly loss in a row. Largely because of $214 million in restructuring costs, Kodak lost the equivalent of 98 cents a share in the April-June quarter, compared with a loss of $155 million, or 54 cents a share, a year ago. Hurt by a rapid slide in film sales, revenues fell 9 percent to $3.36 billion from $3.69 billion in last year's second quarter. Excluding...

Defensor Matrimonii - St. John Fisher On 22 June 1535, St. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, England, who had been just made Cardinal Priest of Saint Vitalis by Pope Paul III, was beheaded on Tower Hill in London. Officially, he had been convicted of treason for refusing to recognize King Henry VIII as the new head of the Church of England. This was, however, a culmination of an eight year battle that St. John fought with the king over his marriage with Queen Catherine of Aragon. In the summer of 1527, Bishop Fisher was summoned to Westminster Palace for an...

English Martyrs "I am come here to die for Christ's Catholic Church" Malcolm Brennan When Henry VIII began to dally with the idea of putting away his Queen Catherine and replacing her with Anne Boleyn, it was only natural that one of his earliest bids for support should go to John Fisher, one of the most eminent men of the day. He had been a model bishop of the Diocese of Rochester for twenty-three years, in an age when the lives of many bishops were less than edifying. For the same length of time he had been Chancellor of the...

LYONS — Adam Durand was sentenced yesterday to six months in jail for trespassing on Wegmans’ Wolcott egg farm while he and other animal rights activists filmed conditions there in 2004. Durand was immediately taken to the Wayne County Jail, but his attorney, who called the sentence excessive, said he may appeal. Judge Dennis Kehoe, who called Durand the mastermind of a blatant and carefully orchestrated crime, fined him $1,500 yesterday and also sentenced him to one year of probation and 100 hours of community service. “You entered your victim’s hen house without permission,” Kehoe told Durand. “You did this...

(Rochester, NY - AP) - Winds gusting up to 77 miles per hour knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and offices today and toppled trees onto a school bus, a car and a truck, killing a suburban Rochester woman and a state worker at a park in Saratoga Springs. A fierce storm swept across the Midwest and into the Northeast before dawn, sending temperatures in some parts of western New York plunging from 60 degrees to below freezing within a few hours. Downed or damaged power lines cut off electricity to at least 215,000 customers. A falling tree...

ROCHESTER, NY - Did Bishop Matthew H. Clark of Rochester, NY prohibit lay preaching at Sunday Masses in his diocese? According to several reports, at two mandatory - and highly secret - meetings for “all homilists” in the Diocese of Rochester, on January 4 and 5, Bishop Matthew H. Clark allegedly informed lay preachers whom he had previously authorized to preach at Sunday Masses, that the illicit practice must stop. But the practice did not stop, and probably will not, since lay preachers preached at least at two Masses on January 8 at St. John of Rochester and St. Patrick’s...

ROCHESTER, Jan. 13 - Last month, Anthony Alleyne arrived at the Lake Ontario shore hoping to catch a high-speed ferry to Toronto, the last trip of the season. He thought he had more than enough time, but as soon as he walked into the terminal, he saw, to his dismay, the ferry pulling away without him. Mr. Alleyne, 52, wasn't mistaken about the time; the ferry did leave a few minutes ahead of schedule. "I wanted to catch that ferry," he said. "It was the last one. It's sad." Many Rochesterians now feel the same. On Tuesday, they learned that...

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051026/NEWS01/510260329/1002/NEWS

JACKSON, Miss. -- As the forced evacuation of New Orleans continues, Air Force helicopter crews here are flying fewer rescues and conducting more ferry missions from evacuee collection points. Though aircrews still have a high operations tempo and their helicopters are flying much more than usual, it is different from the first hectic days after Hurricane Katrina left a path of death and destruction along the Gulf Coast. “There was plenty of rescue work to go around then. You could fly over New Orleans and it was like a scene right out of a movie. There were helicopters everywhere,” said...

Here's a question you should definitely not consider out loud the next time you're at the airport waiting in line at the security checkpoint. Suppose you were a terrorist who wanted to kill as many airline passengers as possible. Which of these plans sounds more feasible? 1. Smuggle a pocketknife or scissors on board. Then force your way into the cockpit and crash the plane. 2. Walk into the airport with a bomb and detonate it in the most crowded spot: in the middle of the passengers waiting to have their bags inspected for pocketknives and scissors. Most terrorists probably...

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (Aug. 12, 2005) -- Quiet but alert, the Ccorporal of the guard watches his post overlooking an entrance to a chow hall here. He plays a small but important part in maintaining vigilance over an area Marines, sailors and soldiers congregate to eat. “No matter what time of day it is or what the weather conditions are, we are always going to be standing post during the meals,” said Lance Cpl. Gabriel L. Brown, a Buffalo, N.Y., resident, of his job after standing guard in a sandstorm. “Security is the number one factor.” Nearly five years ago,...

Bishop Matthew Clark took over my home diocese of Rochester, New York, in 1978 when I was about ten years old. So fixed is his name in my memory that regardless of where I attend Mass, during the liturgy of the Eucharist I half expect the priest to say "Matthew our bishop" despite the fact that I haven't lived in Rochester for almost twenty years. A Visit Home The controversy surrounding the renovation of Sacred Heart Cathedral is something I've followed off and on since the bishop announced his intentions in 2000. Clark’s plan was to "update" the small 1928...

Most of you have seen the picture of a priest baptizing a naked baby by dipping its butt into a baptismal "pool". It constituted a thread here on FR and we all wondered where this had taken place. The full story appeared today in The Wanderer. Here it is, hand transcribed. * * * * * ROCHESTER, N.Y. - The Diocese of Rochester’s Sacred Heart Cathedral, which Bishop Matthew Clark insists is the model for Catholic worship for the entire diocese, was the setting for a bizarre baptismal ritual of questionable validity on Pentecost Sunday, as Rainbow Sashers received Communion....

When President George W. Bush comes to the Rochester area Tuesday, not everyone will be on his side. Protestors plan an anti-Bush demonstration at the Liberty Pole in downtown Rochester Tuesday afternoon. Their focus – hammering on the president’s plan to change Social Security.

NEWS 10NBC will have complete live coverage of President Bush’s visit to Rochester today. All of our coverage will be simulcast on our radio partner WYSL NEWS 1040 AM. We'll have live coverage when Air Force One arrives at the airport and live coverage of his speech at Greece Athena High School. We'll also have live reaction from people along the Presidential motorcade route and we'll be there live when President Bush leaves for Washington.

ROCHESTER--Today's Reochester Democrat and Chronicle(which cannot be reposted here thanks to the cretins at Gannett news), in anticipation of a rumored visit by President Bush to the area, carries an article such a visit will be "a logistical nightmare that draws on a community's scarce public-safety resources, requires hours of preparation and generates complaints from irate citizens who get caught in traffic jams."The article also warns readers of "traffic jams and roadblocks," as well as "at least some delays" at airports.The article also points out that local "coffers [will] suffer" because of increased overtime during the visit.To be fair, the...

PITTSFORD -- Pope John Paul II left a complex legacy, and although no one knows what the reign of his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, will be like, there are certain issues the new pope should address, according to participants in an April 19 panel discussion. "The Legacy of Pope John Paul II and Challenges Facing the Next Pope," which was presented at St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry, was planned with the assumption that a new pope would not have been chosen by the time the discussion took place. The five panelists -- Mark Hare, Democrat and Chronicle columnist;...

ROCHESTER, Minn. - The decision to literally turn the lights out on Rochester public high school baseball this spring was not a school district issue nor a city of Rochester issue. It was complying with federal law, specifically Title IX. That, Rochester school officials say, was the reason all home baseball games for Century, John Marshall and Mayo must be played under natural light exclusively for the first time in years. A couple of weeks ago Mayo players were the first to experience the baseball blackout when their game was suspended because of darkness. Despite the Mayo Field lights being...

A young adult minister reflects on the election of Pope Benedict XVI We were at the zoo. Every few months our parish staff tries to do something just for fun. When you spend a good portion of your time together talking about who’s dying and who’s dead its important to go outside and play once in while. So, we were at the zoo. We had admired the tiger and the elephants, applauded the sea lion’s tricks, wondered at the wolves and were on our way through the reptile house talking about where we wanted to go for lunch when we...

OCHESTER, N.Y. - A lawyer shot himself to death as jurors began deliberating whether he sexually assaulted two foster children he had been assigned to protect, authorities said Wednesday. Andrew Dunn, 40, a law guardian for children appearing in Rochester's family court, didn't arrive at his trial Tuesday, setting off a manhunt that ended later that day when troopers found his body on an embankment next to a creek. Dunn shot himself in the head with a 9-mm rifle he took from his brother's home, where he had been staying, and left a brief note that did not address his...

STANWOOD, Wash. - A teenager accused of planning to supply a Somalian terrorist group with night vision goggles and bulletproof vests foreshadowed the charges in his high school yearbook with a note that mentions Somalia in his "plans for world supremacy." Mark Robert Walker, 19, was arrested Nov. 6 in El Paso, Texas, and on Friday was charged with attempting or conspiring to contribute goods or services to a global terrorist organization. A more serious charge filed earlier was dropped. Months earlier, Walker caused a stir when he left a cryptic note next to his senior portrait in the 2004...

Back to Press Releases MEDIA CONTACT: Jonathan Sherwood (585) 273-4726 October 6, 2004 Under the Surface, the Brain Seethes With Undiscovered Activity There’s an old myth that we only use 10 percent of our brains, but researchers at the University of Rochester have found in reality that roughly 80 percent of our cognitive power may be cranking away on tasks completely unknown to us. Curiously, this clandestine activity does not exist in the youngest brains, leading scientists to believe that the mysterious goings-on that absorb the majority of our minds are dedicated to subconsciously reprocessing our initial thoughts and experiences....