Sun colleague Jill Rosen has a story Friday about a dispute between a group of cat lovers and Northside Baptist Church over some 40 feral cats roaming the church's campus in Northeast Baltimore.

The church has forced Denise Farmer to dismantle a feeding station she had set up for the cats on church property; she has been protesting during services each Sunday since then, and is trying to organize a larger rally this Sunday.

The cats know her motor's rumble.

As Denise Farmer pulls her truck down the alley behind Northside Baptist Church in Northeast Baltimore, cats materialize from the scruffy woods, first a black one with a white ruff, then another, and suddenly there are five hovering by a feeding stand, waiting for kibble that Farmer has brought them every weekend for two years.

Church officials, however, wish Farmer and the others who feed the approximately 40 feral cats in the area would stop bringing food because, they say, the animals are out of hand, leaving droppings across the religious organization's expansive, grassy grounds and unnerving parishioners.

Two weeks ago, the church forced Farmer to dismantle a feeding station on its lot. Since then, Farmer, a chemical engineer from Parkville, has picketed the church during Sunday services, parading back and forth with one sign reading "Northside Baptist Denies Food to Animals," and another saying, "Practice What You Preach: Compassion for All God's Creatures."

This Sunday, she's hoping animal advocates from across the city will join her. Cat rescue groups have been spreading the word to hundreds of their followers on Facebook and through e-mail messages.

Since the church ordered the feeding station dismantled, Farmer isn't sure what has become of the cats. There is another feeding area nearby that belongs to another colony but, she says, that colony wouldn't welcome new cats. She fears "her children" are starving.

"It's heartbreaking," says Farmer, who has six cats of her own, tearing up while talking and leaning against her kibble-strewn SUV. "It's completely unbelievable how cruel these people are."

The Rev. Reginald Turner, Northside's pastor, disputes the cruelty tag. He says he tried for two years to work with Farmer's program, which aims to trap the cats, neuter them and then return them to their territory. But now, with cats "running rampant" across church property, he has lost patience.

"I've got members who are not cat fanciers, and we're trying to be as patient as possible," the pastor says. "Yet we're the bad guys in all this."

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.