Free Republic

A Plano megachurch minister was taken into custody Thursday after authorities say he drove to Bryan, Texas, to have sex with a person he thought to be a 13-year-old.

I've found less and less to like about posting on FR - especially due to the wide-spread (and mod-condoned) anti-Catholicism. I'm spending little time on this website. It is no longer appropriate that I maintain the KofC ping list. I will post the ping list, post the graphics that have been used and do this no more.

The Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest lay Catholic organization, will mark its 125th anniversary March 29, 2007,. Founded in 1882 by Father Michael J. McGivney, along with a few parishioners in the basement of St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Conn., the group has grown to an international organization of more than 1.7 million members. The Knights of Columbus is also one of the most successful fraternal benefit societies in American history, providing life insurance and related products for the financial welfare of members and their families. The K of C has not only remained true to its founding...

PINEVILLE - Court dates have been set for several area church leaders facing child sexual abuse charges. Raymond Lambert and his wife, Patty, have been ordered to appear at 10 a.m. June 5 for a trial setting pre-trial conference, 40th Circuit Court Judge Timothy Perigo ruled this morning. The decision came after Robert Evenson, defense attorney, said he was not requesting a speedy trial in the case due to lengthy discovery. Both he and McDonald County Prosecutor Janice Durbin said they will be taking depositions from out-of-state witnesses. Raymond Lambert, the pastor of Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church, faces a...

WOAI radio, the flagship station of San Antionio-based media giant Clear Channel media, reports that a powerful group of businessmen and former politicians have embarked on a project to fight school vouchers in the state of Texas. The group proclaims that the idea is to fix what's wrong with the public schools, but the mechanism to accomplish this, is, ...to spread the message of the dangers that vouchers would do to the public schools. The advisory board of the new group includes several heavy hitters in the South Texas corporate arena, such as HEB grocery chain Chairman Charles Butt. Butt's...

Extremely funny sendup of Star Wars...with Darth Vader's little brother working as a grocery store manager...

One woman donated her sewing skills. A local electrician gave manpower. A group of musicians offered up a concert. Since learning of the financial concerns of the nuns who occupy the 66-year-old Benedictine Monastery in Midtown, support has come from all over Tucson. The deeply humble nuns, who aren't accustomed to seeking assistance, or even passing a collection plate at their services, have successfully forayed into fundraising the past year, too. "Somehow God is working by putting all these people in our lives," said Sister Lupita Barajas, prioress of the rose-colored monastery at 800 N. Country Club Road, home to...

The show will go on. The University of Minnesota said Friday that the academic and artistic value of the satirical play "The Pope and the Witch," to be staged in March, is stronger than Catholic claims that it's blasphemous. Italian Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo's 1989 work, one of several productions in the Department of Theatre Arts this school year, features a paranoid, drug-addled pope, a witch in nun's habit and a chaotic comedy of errors.

Click, play and laugh...Rick Perry's ad lampooning "Real Men of Genius" - and nailing Chris Bell (Democrat for Gov candidate). It's laugh-out-loud funny.

MERRICK, N.Y. (CNS) – More than 5,000 people entered Cure of Ars Church in Merrick Oct. 7-9 to pray before St. John Vianney's heart, and the pastor expected thousands more by Oct. 11, when the incorrupt relic of the sainted 19th-century French priest would end its visit and be taken to Boston. St. John (Jean-Marie Baptiste) Vianney, who died in 1859, is widely known to Catholics as the Cure (parish priest) of Ars. He won over the hearts of his villagers in France by visiting with them, teaching them about God and reconciling people to the Lord in the confessional....

Last Friday night, I went for a jog to relieve some stress after I found out my department denied my application for full professor. There’s something about being turned down by a diverse committee made up entirely of Democrats that causes a young Republican to search his soul for answers. And, thanks to Muhammad and Abdul, I found them. I really wasn’t looking for these two proponents of the religion of peace but – all praise to Allah! - they sure found me. Of course, when I saw them riding up on their bicycles, I immediately assumed they were Mormons...

In yet another student organization controversy, the University of Wisconsin and the Knights of Columbus, a national Catholic organization, have clashed this summer over their interpretations of the First Amendment. Despite a few inconsistencies, the Knights of Columbus have been a registered student organization at UW since 1976, but all of a sudden had its student organization status revoked this summer on grounds of membership discrimination. The Knights are now accusing the university of violating their rights to religious freedom and free assembly. Patrick Korten, vice president of communications for the Knights of Columbus, said the Knights are currently considering...

PINEVILLE, Mo. - Residents of a southwest Missouri county best known for canoe streams and its yearly Jesse James festival were in shock Friday over allegations that children were ritually abused at a remote church community known to few before the case broke. The gated church compound on a 100-acre farm a mile from the nearest paved road remained a mystery. Neighbors and other residents of McDonald County said they knew little or nothing about the Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church, where investigators said up to 100 people lived until recently. The church's pastor, his wife and her two brothers,...

A FORMER deacon affiliated with the Anglican Church appeared in court today charged with sex offences. The 82-year-old, who cannot be identified, has yet to plead to seven counts of indecent assault allegedly committed between January 1980 and May 1983. Police will allege the charges relate to the abuse of a male street kid - claims that arose during an inquiry into sexual abuse within the Anglican Church. Magistrate Greg Clark remanded the man on continuing bail to appear in court again in October.

Two college students from San Antonio were arrested Sunday night, accused of stealing explosive material from a construction site in north Bexar County. Deputies say they caught one of the teens trying to break-in into a shed that had explosives. The two teens already had a 50-pound bag of ammonia nitrate and some blasting caps before the deputies arrived. Deputies say the teens were trying to get to the dynamite when they arrived at the scene. Agents from the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI have been called into the investigation. Deputies say this is the same explosive material...

The 124th annual convention of the Knights of Columbus today [Aug. 3] adopted a resolution expressing its “support for Catholic schools everywhere,” and calling for “legislation that would establish educational choice programs providing financial assistance to parents who wish to send their children to Catholic schools. The resolution notes that “parents must often bear a double burden in order to send their children to Catholic schools, paying taxes to support government schools as well as tuition at the parochial schools.” For years, opponents of educational choice programs claimed that they were unconstitutional, but the resolution points out that the Supreme...

MADISON, Wis. The faculty adviser to the Knights of Columbus is demanding U-W Madison retract a statement which claims the school agreed to recognize the group as a student organization. Adviser Mark Etzel says the university's statement is false. The university announced late yesterday that it had reached an agreement to recognize an affiliate of the Catholic service organization. The university earlier refused to recognize the group because its membership was limited to Catholic men. Etzel denies a deal has been reached. He says the group hasn't filed the paperwork necessary to be registered.

MADISON - A top University of Wisconsin-Madison official apologized Thursday for erroneously announcing the school had reached an agreement to recognize a Knights of Columbus affiliate as a student group. The university announced late Wednesday that it had an agreement to recognize a branch of the Catholic service organization that would be open to all students. The university had earlier refused to approve the group because its membership was limited to Catholic men, violating a state anti-discrimination law. But the group's faculty adviser, Mark Etzel, said no agreement had been reached because the Knights had not agreed to changes the...

ORLANDO, Fla., July 30 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Board of Directors of the Knights of Columbus today voted to make an immediate $100,000 donation for humanitarian aid to those affected by the current conflict in Lebanon. The Board is meeting this weekend in Orlando, Florida, where the 124th annual Knights of Columbus convention begins on Tuesday, August 1, 2006. The $100,000 donation will go to Caritas Lebanon, the Lebanese affiliate of one of the world's largest humanitarian relief organizations. The Caritas International Confederation is composed of 162 Catholic organizations operating in 200 countries. "The conflict which began in Lebanon two...

VALENCIA, Spain, JULY 7, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Representatives of various movements introduced their charisms at the Theological-Pastoral Congress being held in the context of the 5th World Meeting of Families. Pope Benedict XVI will visit the Meeting on Saturday and Sunday. Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, was introduced by Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, archbishop emeritus of Boston, Massachusetts, who said that the Knights of Columbus have 1.7 million members worldwide and that last year they carried out charitable works amounting to 128 million dollars and 62 million hours of voluntary work. Anderson, philosopher and member of the...