extreme Catholic 

Contact Chris Slattery for Information about any of these events at cell (914) 224-5773

1. Friday night, 7-8:30 PM August 27 Pre-Convention Kick-Off Pro-Life Prayer and Planning Meeting. Speakers: Rev. Pat Mahoney, Randall Terry, Chris Slattery, Dr. Paul de Vries, priests and others NEW LOCATION: Lower Level of The Lamb's Building @ 130-132 West 44th St. Between 6th & 7th Aves. in the New York Divinity School

2. Friday night, 9PM August 27th Candlelight Prayer Vigil with Rev. Rob Schenck, Mr. Paul Schenck, Rev. Pat Mahoney and others @ Madison Square Garden NRC location 33rd St & Seventh Ave. Immediately after this event the whole MSG area is to be closed.

3. Saturday mid-day, August 28th, Counter Demo to Pro-Abort March from Brooklyn to Manhattan City Hall . Assemble on Manhattan Side of Brooklyn Bridge at Noon. Prayer, pickets & interviews at City Hall Park and at base of Brooklyn Bridge on Manhattan side

4. Saturday night, August 28th 7-9PM, Pro-Life Prayer and Planning Meeting: NEW LOCATION: Lower Level of The Lamb's Building @ 130-132 West 44th St. Between 6th & 7th Aves. in the New York Divinity School.

5. Sunday morning, August 29th 11AM, Sidewalk Picket to Counter Anarchist March near Madison Square Garden, exact location TBD

6. Sunday afternoon, August 29th 3:00-4:30PM, Ground Zero Call to Repentance Prayer Vigil on Church St. @ Vessey Street.

7. Sunday evening, August 29th 5-6PM, Opening Mass for the Convention at Church of Our Saviour, Park Ave. @38th St. followed by reception from 6PM-7PM

8. Monday morning, August 30th 7AM-9:30AM Planned Parenthood Margaret Sanger Manhattan Abortion Mill Prayer Vigil at Bleeker St. @ Mott St., north of Houston St. near subways

9. Monday late morning, August 30th, 11-11:15 AM Return to Madison Square Garden area for Demo and Press Conference Location TBD

10. Monday late afternoon, August 30th, 4PM Mass, Fr. Frank Pavone, Celebrant, Church of the Holy Innocents, 128 West 37th Street Between Broadway & 8th Ave.

11. Monday night, August 30th 7:15PM, Counter-Demo to Planned Parenthood "Stand-Up for Choice-Big Tent Republicans for Choice Extravaganza"-outside Beacon Theatre at 2124 Broadway at 74th St. Pro-Abort entertainment includes Moby, Kathleen Turner, Lou Reed and less. Honorary Chairs include Susan Sarandon, Janeane Garofalo, Rita Moreno, Ossie Davis, and Melissa Etheridge.

12. Tuesday afternoon, August 31st at 3PM "Faith, Family and Freedom" Rally to celebrate President George Bush @ Waldorf Astoria Hotel - 301 Park Ave ( Please RSVP to CStieber@GeorgeWBush.com. Make sure to include your Name, mailing address, and phone number. for security purposes-organized by Bush-Cheney '04. Photo ID Required. No large bags allowed)

13. Tuesday late afternoon, August 31st, 4PM Mass, Fr. Frank Pavone, Celebrant Kipps Bay Room, Ramada New Yorker, 481 8th Ave

14. Tuesday night, August 31st at 5:45PM Counter Demo to Republicans for Choice black tie fundraiser at SkyClub @ 200 Park Ave, Met Life Building on Vanderbilt St. entrance Pro abort co-Sponsors are Mayor Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki

15. Wednesday morning, September 1st at 8:00-9:00AM Counter Demo to "Wish List" Fundraising Breakfast honoring Sue Kelly and Nancy Johnson, Congresswomen @ Shearton New York Hotel 811 Seventh Ave.

16. Wednesday afternoon, September 1st 1-3PM "The Life of the Party" Party @ Tavern on the Green-Central Park at West 67th St. $125 per ticket .Featuring Ann Coulter, Miss America 2003 and Out-standing Pro-Life members of Congress RSVP by 8/25 to (800) 339-4016 sponsored by Republican National Coalition for Life.

17. Wednesday late afternoon, September 1st, 4PM Mass, Fr. Frank Pavone, Celebrant, Church of the Holy Innocents, 128 West 37th Street Between Broadway & 8th Ave.

18. Thursday morning, September 2nd 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM Republican National Convention Catholic Outreach Event on at the Westin Hotel Times Square, Ballroom 3rd Fl. Featuring RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie, Sean Hannity, and various Catholic legislators RSVP to Catholics@GOPTeamLeader.com or call (866) 743-3428. Photo ID Required. No large bags allowed)

19. Thursday late afternoon, September 2nd, 4PM Mass, Fr. Frank Pavone, Celebrant, Church of the Holy Innocents, 128 West 37th Street Between Broadway & 8th Ave.

See my note below on using the Mass Sunday at Our Saviour for a blogger meet-up. Contact the people listed above for info on the other events.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:04 PM   Permalink  

ATTN: RC RNC-ERS [KJL]

On Sunday, August 29, at 5:00 p.m. an opening Mass for the Convention will be celebrated by Fr. George W. Rutler at the Church of Our Saviour, located at 59 Park Avenue at 38th Street.

Posted at 02:38 PM

If the Catholic New York City area bloggers want to use this as a meet-up point, let me know. Either as a reply here or email extremecatholic@nyc.rr.com

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 4:48 PM   Permalink  

See also tmdreams.com

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 3:00 PM   Permalink  

The lawyer representing the woman whose husband donated the land on which St. James the Great Parish sits said his client is committed to keeping the church open and is not interested in suing the archdiocese for breaking an alleged agreement her husband made with a Wellesley priest more than 50 years ago.

If sold, the property Waldo Maffei deeded to the archdiocese for $12,000 50 years ago, with the provision it would remain a church, could fetch an estimated $10 million-$12 million today.

Looks to me like the Maffei family has a claim to the church that is valid under both civil and canon law. Kudos to the lawyer who drew up the deed of transfer 50 years ago.

Also discussed on Bettnet.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:54 AM   Permalink  

New York Post: Drivers crying foul at sleazy-pass toll takers

ALBANY — Angry motorists have put the Thruway Authority on notice about abusive, leering and just plain goofy toll takers.

More than a dozen complaint letters have been sent to the state Thruway Authority since October, according to documents posted this week on the Web site thesmokinggun.com.

Several drivers say they were called "a--hole" by different toll collectors.

One motorist said that as he pulled away after paying with 30 pennies and three dimes, the toll collector uttered, "Have a nice day, f---ers," according to the complaint.

Another driver wants a toll collector fired because the motorist was forced to leave his car to get a ticket that blew away. When the driver came back and tried to hand the collector the 95-cent toll, the collector let it drop to the ground and screamed, "F--k you, a--hole."

"The use of profanity is unprofessional and highly offensive to me, particularly since my son was in the back seat," wrote yet another driver who was on the receiving end of a toll taker's invective.

One collector, who was caught napping, actually bragged that he often has to be awakened by motorists honking their car horns.

Female motorists seemed to have the most problems, according to the complaint letters.

One woman wants prospective toll takers to undergo background checks for sexually deviant behavior and mental illness, after complaining that one repeatedly leered at her.

She found the behavior "very disconcerting and downright creepy."

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:03 AM   Permalink  

A Mineola man who ran a firm helping the Diocese of Rockville Centre distribute money to employees for medical expenses stole $60,000 from the church, Nassau police said. The man also faces charges of pocketing money from his company's pension fund and keeping government withholdings from employee paychecks, the Nassau district attorney's office said.

William Lambiase, 72, is charged with second-degree grand larceny for taking the money out of an escrow account his Garden City company, Hagedorn Actuarial Services Inc., helped set up for the diocese, said Sgt. Lucy Guido of the Nassau Crimes Against Property Squad. He also set up another escrow account that the diocese was not aware of and moved money in and out of that account, Guido said. The money was discovered missing during an audit by the diocese, and is believed to have been taken sometime between January and April. The money has not been recovered, Guido said. Lambiase was arraigned Wednesday in First District Court in Hempstead before Judge Margaret Riley and is being held in lieu of $25,000 cash or bond bail.

After his arraignment, Lambiase was charged by the district attorney's office with two counts of third-degree grand larceny for allegedly stealing from his employees' 401(k) plans and taking government payroll withholdings from their paychecks. Lambiase wrote himself a check for the $16,000 in the plan, said Assistant District Attorney Bob Emmons, and another $17,000 in government withholdings also has gone missing. Lambiase has been a trustee of the pension fund since 1997, Emmons said, and the money was taken in September 1999. He is due to be arraigned on those charges in First District Court in Hempstead today.

Lambiase's family could not be reached for comment. If convicted of the second-degree grand larceny charge, he faces up to 15 years in prison. The third-degree charges carry sentences of up to 7 years each, Emmons said.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:05 PM   Permalink  

R: Amen.

Just Announced: Cardinal Edward Egan will give the closing benediction at the Republican National Convention.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:11 PM   Permalink  

AIDS activists stripped naked Thursday opposite the site of next week's Republican National Convention, demanding that President Bush make good on his promise to help HIV-positive people in the world's poorest countries.

Two clothed members of ACT UP climbed atop a media van parked on West 33rd Street, across from Madison Square Garden, and held a sign reading "W: Drop the Debt. Stop AIDS." Then nine others, standing in the street, removed all of their clothes; a tenth protested in her underwear.

"This is New York," Mayor Michael Bloomberg joked later. "Of course we have ... naked people on Eighth Avenue."

Police said they arrested 11 people. The charges were not immediately determined.

The men and women stood in the buff for about 10 minutes, locking arms and blocking West 33rd Street as they chanted, "Drop the Debt. Stop AIDS." The same slogan was stenciled in black on their bodies.

Dozens of other ACT UP members passed out leaflets to the crowd that gathered. "When it comes to fighting the AIDS crisis, Emperor Bush has no clothes," said activist Amanda Lugg.

"Countries are spending all the money they have on paying off debt when they could be spending that money on prevention of HIV," said protest organizer Eustacia Smith, 36, a Brooklyn social worker.

At the convention, "Bush will speak about compassionate conservatism," said Minou Arjomand, a Columbia University student who passed out flyers. "In his State of the Union address, the president pledged to fight the AIDS epidemic, especially in underdeveloped countries. But those countries were hand-picked."

Arjomand said Bush had asked creditors such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to pardon Iraq's debts, but not the debts of sub-Saharan countries where millions of people are dying of AIDS and money is needed for treatment and prevention.

Last year, the Bush administration unveiled a $15 billion, five-year plan to fight AIDS in 15 nations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America. Congress appropriated $2.4 billion in this fiscal year for the program, and is seeking $2.8 billion for next year.

The administration has said it will increase spending in upcoming years to reach the $15 billion mark.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:07 PM   Permalink  

More tales of crime and other tragedies

New York Post: Pervy Police Probe

An NYPD detective's arrest on charges of using the Internet to solicit sex with a boy could leave his whole division exposed, officials said yesterday.

A day after helping Westchester County officials nab a suspected Internet predator, NYPD Internal Affairs investigators set their sights on his bosses.

Detective Michael Lapine is accused of using a police computer on department time for explicit sex talk with an assumed minor. Investigators said he went to meet his chat buddy when he was supposed to be on the job in his Brooklyn district, a clear breakdown of command.

New York Post: Bizarre Pool Tragedy -- 2 Maids Dead

Two women employed as housekeepers were found dead in the swimming pool of a private home in Long Branch, N.J., early yesterday, authorities said.

Eugenia Lourdes Palaguachi Carabajo, 24, and Matilda Chino Rosario, 21, were discovered at 7 a.m. by a member of the family that owns the house.

Moments after he learned Friday that Ugo Berardi had been captured in Switzerland, Saul Portillo drove past the spot on Merrick Avenue in Westbury where they met 14 years ago for the drag race that would kill two women and change many lives.

"I was like, 'Wow, I can't believe it,'" Portillo said in an interview at his Uniondale home. "I can't believe 14 years later they got him." Unlike Berardi, who fled the country, Portillo showed up for sentencing after he was convicted for his role in the Nov. 26, 1990, crash that killed Marci Singer, 48, of Dix Hills, and her mother, Sarah Gerstein, 71, of Florida, who was in Long Island for Thanksgiving.

Portillo served eight months in an upstate prison before entering a work release program.

At 31, he is no longer the teenager with the mushroom haircut. He owns a home improvement business now. He has been married nine years to his wife, Mirna. They have a son, Steven, 3, and live on a quiet street.

"I was a teenager at the time," he said Friday. "When you're a teenager, you think you know everything."

He was 17 then, into fixing cars and driving them. He had not attended school since coming to Hempstead from El Salvador three years earlier, instead working to help his mother. But he also had a wild side.

On the day of the crash, Portillo and his brother left their jobs at a Hicksville window company about 4:30 p.m., driving south on Merrick Avenue in Westbury. Portillo, who didn't have a license, was in a Datsun 280ZX owned by his second cousin. At a traffic light, he pulled up next to Berardi, 56, who was driving the same model car.

"We took off from the light," Portillo said. "Like a quarter mile from the light, the car, the Cadillac, comes right across."

In the Cadillac, Marci Singer and her parents had just exited a restaurant parking lot. Berardi crashed into them, killing Singer and her mother, and seriously injuring her father, David Gerstein. Berardi's car spun into Portillo's lane, and they hit.

Portillo had not spoken much to Berardi, except after both were convicted at trial. Berardi was convicted of manslaughter, Portillo of criminally negligent homicide. "The only thing I heard him say was that it wasn't fair what they were doing because it was drug dealers and criminals who were killing people with guns, and they don't get arrested."

Then at their sentencing, in September 1992, Portillo's lawyer turned to him and said, "Would you believe Berardi's not here?" He had spent the next 11 years living in his birthplace of San Marino before he was caught in October.

Portillo wonders why Berardi didn't just stay. He would be out of jail by now. "He has to pay for what he did," Portillo said. "I did my part. That's life."

Brooklyn mother accused of killing her baby four years ago — then continuing to pocket his welfare benefits — would not have had to produce her son to keep the checks coming in.

Diatra Hester-Bey was arraigned in Manhattan yesterday on a second-degree murder charge in the Feb. 29, 2000, smothering of her year-old son, Devon Rivers. She was held without bail.

Manhattan Assistant DA Andrew Seewald told a judge Hester-Bey confessed to the killing, and he expects welfare-fraud charges to follow.

A bankrupt stockbroker, who once counted real estate giant Jim Weichert among his clients, has been charged in a plot to kidnap Weichert's 21-year-old son.

Authorities say Robert Harrison, 38, called James Weichert Jr. on his cell phone last Tuesday posing as a police officer, and asked young Weichert to meet him at the New Vernon cemetery in Harding Township.

The young man got suspicious when Harrison identified himself as a New Vernon police officer because New Vernon, where the Weicherts live on a $3.7 million estate, is a part of Harding Township and doesn't have its own police force.

Police say Harrison got Weichert's cell phone number by calling the family home and telling family members he was a police officer and needed to reach the young man.

Deonte Riley was a smiling, laughing, playful 3-year-old who always stayed close to his mother. Last Sunday, on a rare family outing, he began choking a few minutes after “Alien and Predator” began at the Sunrise Multiplex Cinemas in Valley Stream. An hour later he was pronounced dead.

A Canadian who allegedly turned a Queens man's life into a living hell by providing a false ID to cops 20 years ago is blaming the language barrier.

The bizarre saga started when Jean-Roland St. Surin, now 65, was busted in Queens on charges of trying to run over cops who stopped him for traffic violations on three occasions.

He identified himself as "Otis Williams," paid $500 bail and returned to Montreal. He never showed up in court and warrants were issued. When another Queens man named Otis Williams came into contact with cops, he was busted on the warrants. It happened three times.

Steven David became a murder victim yesterday — 30 years after the attack that inflicted his fatal injuries.

The city medical examiner's office ruled yesterday that the beating David suffered from two men in his Queens deli in 1974 caused his death on June 16 of this year.

David — a father of two who was savagely pummeled with a rifle butt before his horrified wife — suffered from brain damage before he finally died from "death seizure disorder," authorities said.

Police reclassified the unsolved assault as a homicide yesterday — although David's 70-year-old widow, Maria, has little hope the killer will be found.

Authorities in Akron, Ohio, say they suspect a man forced his wife into an industrial furnace before getting inside himself, killing both in an apparent murder-suicide. Police said Jose Webster, 36, brought his wife, Karla Ramos, 26, and their two children to his place of work, which was closed for business, Saturday night. There apparently was a struggle before Karla Ramos was put into the furnace and killed, the county medical examiner's office said. The children were not hurt.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:22 PM   Permalink  

Here's my catch-up with the stories of the last 10 days that caught my eye.

Crimes and other Tragedies

AP: Art Theives steal "The Scream" (again)

Edvard Munch's stolen "The Scream," spirited away by bandits who stormed a Norwegian museum, joins more than 150,000 works of art that specialists say may never be found.

NY Daily News: Killed in Subway Leap

A disturbed 26-year-old man who wandered onto the subway tracks at a downtown Brooklyn station yesterday was struck by a train and killed, police said.

Witnesses told cops that Jonathan Spivey, of Downing St., Brooklyn, was acting erratically before he leapt off the platform for the Manhattan-bound No.4 train at the Borough Hall station at 4:45 p.m.

Firefighters from Ladder 110 ran along the electrified tracks to reach Spivey, whose legs had been partially severed, officials said. He died at Bellevue Hospital 90 minutes later.

Investigators believe that Spivey had not taken his required medication yesterday, causing him to act irrationally, a police source said.

AP: Man on coke dies after stripping, stabbing himself with pen

A man apparently on a cocaine binge died after a violent struggle with police in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Police say 33-year-old Richard Wheeler stripped naked, ran through a hotel restaurant while stabbing himself with a pen and tried to electrocute himself.

NY Post: Judging Judge Blackburne

Two months after Queens Supreme Court Justice Laura Blackburne in tervened to keep a suspect in a brutal assault and robbery from being arrested in her courtroom, non-criminal charges have been filed against her.

It's about time.

Blackburne, who was reassigned to Civil Court several days after the outrageous incident, must appear this fall at a formal disciplinary hearing before the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

If the commission rules against her, she can face anything from a slap on the wrist — a private admonishment — to outright removal from the bench.

A Brooklyn mother was hurled out an SUV window and killed Saturday night when her allegedly drunk boyfriend flipped over his Ford Explorer on the Belt Parkway in Queens, police said.

Cops said Tammy Chromer, 32, was thrown over the divider into the eastbound lanes near Exit 20, where she was struck by a red Mercury Cougar shortly after 10:30 p.m.

Police were looking for the driver of the Cougar, described as a black man in his 50s, who sources said fled after first releasing two girls who were hanging from seat belts in the upside-down SUV and then checking the pulse of the dead woman.

Queens Crash Horror

A drunken driver, speeding back to Queens with his three best friends after a night on the town in Manhattan, slammed into a hydrant and utility pole — killing two of his childhood pals, cops and relatives said.

The driver, Douglas Newton, 27, walked away without a scratch.

(the crash was at 30th Street and 47th Ave. near me.)

Newsday: Two stabbed at reception

A man hungry for free alcohol crashed a wedding celebration in Flatbush early yesterday and used the shards of a broken liquor bottle to stab people, leaving one person in critical condition, police said.

The man, who did not have an invitation to the wedding and was not known to anyone there, stumbled down to the basement party at 1203 Nostrand Ave. about 2 a.m. and grabbed a bottle from a table, police said.

When two men at the party approached him to ask who he was, he threw the liquor bottle, then ran around the room trying to pierce partygoers with its pieces.

The man managed to injure John Meyers, 20, and Shirley Mallone, 29, whose addresses were not known yesterday, before fleeing the scene unscathed, police said.

Nearly half of the $4.8 million a bankrupt business school owes the state in student financial aid is the result of a lone teacher's deceit, officials said.

While auditors say there were plenty of mistakes that led to Drake Business School's demise, the biggest may have involved an uncertified teacher whose bogus credentials forced the state to yank millions of dollars in Tuition Assistance Program grants. For at least two years, the late Beryl Borington, a middle-aged woman, taught at Drake's Bronx campus under the pretense that she had a master's degree.

Construction worker Lloyd Joseph, 63, recalled yesterday when he knew doom was at hand.

"I saw three young kids running scared toward me from the front of the ferry," he said.

"I started running for no real reason. And suddenly a tornado of steel and bodies hit me. I thought I was dead."

He was pretty close.

It was through this bloody bedlam that Mike Gansas ran to the wheelhouse.

Richard Smith was out of it.

Wrestling with the controls, Gansas did tell a lie to the Coast Guard — that both pilots were at the wheel.

New York Post: Rabid Otter Attacks Boy

Ethan Pedersen, 6, was bitten by an otter that latched onto his arm and wouldn't let go until lifeguards and his terrified mom freed him.

A 6-year-old boy is undergoing a series of injections after a rabid otter sunk its teeth into his arm in a pond.

Ethan Pedersen of Putnam Valley was bitten and scratched by the crazed animal after getting a swimming lesson at Lake Peekskill in Putnam County. His terrified mother watched from the shoreline. "It was scary," little Ethan said, recalling the attack. "I was running out of the lake."

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 7:57 PM   Permalink  

New York Post: Eliza Lipsky-Karasz

Andy Dick kicked off his debauched week in New York by throwing up on a hapless partier at Butter on Monday night.

Dick, there for a party rapper Lil Jon threw to launch his energy drink Crunk, was downstairs with party staples Sean Lennon, Devon Aoki and Chloe Sevigny when he lost control.

A music magazine editor had the misfortune of sitting alone at a table when Dick and his assistant decided to join her. The wayward comic took one sip of his drink before ducking his head under the table to hurl. "It came out like a rope!" he proudly announced to the editor, whose $200 jeans he ruined. Then, suddenly embarrassed, he whispered, "Did anyone see me?" before staggering off to the bathroom.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:26 AM   Permalink  

I was not listening to the news during the last seven days. I'll be catching up by reading the papers in the library and online.

When I started to listening to the news again, it was odd how much of it was what President Bush wasn't doing.

President Bush wasn't denouncing the Swift Boat ads specifically and not merely their mode of funding but their content.

President Bush wasn't campaigning.

President Bush wasn't making a secret trip to Athens.

President Bush wasn't making himself available to reporters. And so it goes.

I'll have to look at the alternate sources to find out what he did.

I expected the battle in Najaf to have finished but there's a sort of Groundhog Day military experience going on there: you wake up in the morning and you hear there's fierce fighting, at noon you here there's a cease fire to permit negotiations, and at 6 pm you hear that al Sadr has agreed to tell his fighters to lay down their weapons. You wake up the next morning... fierce fighting in Najaf...

America's most celebrated gay American, Ellen Degeneres will be God in the mega-blashpemy remake of Oh God! -- both of the original stars have died, so there might be a curse on the film. Who are they going to cast in the John Denver roll? Rosie O'Donnell?

America's second-most celebrated gay American, James McGreevey is tardy in submitting his letter of resignation to the Secretary of State of New Jersey making his announcement of intention to resign an official act.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:33 PM   Permalink