Free Republic

For nearly 50 years, St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Hannibal, Mo., served as the first stop on the path to the priesthood for many young Catholics. But for much of that history, the men who ran the boarding high school also staked out a sinister path, one that helped lead to the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church. The sexual abuse allegations of one former student led to the resignation two years ago of a popular and powerful bishop, Anthony J. O'Connell of Palm Beach, Fla., and the removal of two other priests.

...Last Tuesday was primary day in Arizona and Nevada, and we think the results deserve a little more national publicity because they revealed some useful political lessons. To wit: immigration doesn't win elections but the tax issue does. Two Arizona incumbents, Republicans Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake, faced primary challenges resulting from their position on immigration. Both back sensible reform of our immigration system. Both support President Bush's call for a guest-worker program to match willing foreign workers with U.S. employers and draw illegal aliens out of the dangerous underground economy. And as a result of these views, Messrs. Kolbe...

Prosecuting the war against terrorism necessitates taking the fight to the enemy rather than waiting for another 9-11-style assault, a senior DoD civilian leader said here today. "The stakes are so high that we must take action before the threats ripen and destruction is again brought to our shores," Thomas W. O'Connell, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict, said to attendees at a downtown defense industry symposium. Accordingly, O'Connell said he supports President Bush's policy of taking pre- emptive military action against global terrorists. Such a policy, he pointed out, "necessitates a new, more robust,...

<p>Sacramento -- California's schools chief said Thursday he would ask the state Supreme Court to intervene in the protracted budget mess and override a constitutional requirement that the annual spending plan be approved by a two- thirds vote in the Legislature.</p>