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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.