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I just read your home page. I lived in Laredo and Del Rio 40 or so years ago for about 5 years. I have two babies buried along the Rio Grands.

Is Ramirez Red and White still there? How about Richter's Department store?

I intend to visit their graves with my sons in the near future. Since everyone is working,it is hard to come up with a time we all can go.

We lived in a partially converted,abandoned Masonic temple for several months. Ugh. What experiences I had along the river. It is a true affirmation of the strength of the Faith that my sons and I are all well and Catholic. My husband went from Del Rio to Nam and was shot down there.

For some years,shortly after his death I got confused and caught up with the spirit of Vat II,it was pretty bad and I can truthfully say "been there,done that,grew up".Don't let all this back and forth even if a bit venomous at times discourage you. Arm yourself visibly with the Bible,the CAtechism and the encyclicals of the last few years,pray unceasingly and speak out the Truth at every oppurtunity and despite the flak and the rocking the Barque will stay afloat and it is a wild and wonderful ride Home.

I'm not sure about Ramirez, but I'm pretty sure Richter's is still around.

I thought it was rather ironic that my friend Jimmy, my sister's father-in-law, who sponsored me coming into the Church and is a very devout Catholic, has lived for many years right in front of the local Mason lodge (which is no longer used). The Laredo Masons must still be doing okay as they just built a new temple I have to pass everytime I go to the university (ugh!), but I don't think they have much muscle, there are probably at least as many Knights of Columbus & other Church groups as them.

As far as I'm concerned it is still a very sinful place, but there are good people. Laredo recently became a seperate diocese under Bishop James Tamayo and there is now a full-time Catholic radio station. Priests are in extremely short supply though, maybe it's that way everywhere. My local priest is 84 or 85 with a huge workload and no one else to help.

Oh, and by the way, this priest, who is from the Netherlands, was also locked up by the Nazis, where he was able to meet St Edith Stein, St Maximilian Kolbe and many other "subversives". Fortunately, he lived, came to the US, volunteered to go to China where he spent about 20 years in a Communist prison; guess he was subversive there too.

Stick to World War I Hermann, I can agree that we should have kept out of that one. But Hitler?-he was certainly no friend of the Conservatives, ask any of the monarchists arrested by the Gestapo for celebrating the Kaiser's birthday, or the great Catholic corporatist Graf von Stauffenburg, or the head of the Catholic House of Austria Archduke Otto von Hapsburg...

It is in times like this that Catholics should be standing back-to-back. No one can change the Church when they're in schism.