49ers great Joe Montana’s old football injuries mess with his golf game

By Ron Kroichick,

Senior Sports Enterprise Reporter

Jan 23, 2025

Joe Montana holds the U.S. Open trophy in 2019 when he was named an honorary ambassador for the championship at Pebble Beach. On Thursday, Montana will be announced as an honorary co-chair for the 125th U.S. Amateur at the Olympic Club.

Jana Asenbrennerova/Special to The Chronicle

Joe Montana once eagerly played golf at the Olympic Club — challenging himself on the storied Lake Course, strolling the picturesque, par-3 Cliffs Course, making sure to grab the club’s signature burger dog.

But he paid a price for his Hall of Fame career and four Super Bowl championships with the San Francisco 49ers.

Montana, 68, has endured knee, shoulder and hip replacement surgeries in recent years. The shoulder procedure caused an infection and led to more surgeries. He also nurses lingering back and neck issues.

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Old football injuries are messing with his golf.

“The game has slipped me by a bit,” Montana said last week in a phone interview. “I just don’t have the swing I used to have. … It’s been such a drag lately. I don’t mind being bad, but I just don’t want to be really bad.”

Montana spoke to the Chronicle ahead of Thursday’s announcement that he and Condoleezza Rice, the Stanford professor and former Secretary of State, will serve as honorary co-chairs for the 125th U.S. Amateur at the Olympic Club. The country’s most prestigious amateur golf tournament will take place Aug. 11-17 on the Lake and Ocean courses.

Montana is accustomed to the ceremonial role of golf ambassador. He handled similar duties in 2019, in the months leading into the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

His interest in the game traces to his junior high days in Monongahela, Pa. Montana landed a summer job as a caddie at a country club, slinging bags on his shoulder — usually one, sometimes two — and trudging 18 holes seeking tips.

He liked the money and really liked playing the course for free on Mondays.

Montana used to regularly post scores in the 80s, he said. He twice played in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am during his NFL career, until he hooked one tee shot and hit a woman spectator in the back. That ended his interest in playing in front of galleries.

Montana still follows the NFL, and especially the team with which he spent 14 of his 16 years in the league. Just don’t expect him to lament this year’s wildly disappointing 6-11 season for Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers.

One parallel in Montana’s mind: the strike-shortened 1982 season, when San Francisco went 3-6 after winning its first Super Bowl title the previous year.

“They went deep in the playoffs the past two years, and that wears on you,” he said. “Obviously, they weren’t able to keep everyone healthy. … Look at our seasons: ’82 was a flop. It’s going to happen to everyone, you’re not going to be in it every year. The Chiefs are an anomaly.

“It’s really hard to stay on top. The 49ers made it to a couple of Super Bowls and unfortunately didn’t win. They’re not Buffalo yet. I think they’re going to be fine.”

Montana specifically pointed to the injuries to running back Christian McCaffrey and linebacker Dre Greenlaw as derailing this past season. The loss of McCaffrey and wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk, Montana said, added to the burden on quarterback Brock Purdy.

Montana didn’t weigh in on Purdy’s impending contract negotiations, but he did endorse Purdy as the 49ers’ quarterback of the future.

“He’s going to be fine,” Montana said. “He makes great decisions. Someone probably needs to talk to him and settle him down. When you start forcing things, it’s hard.

“It seemed like Brock was feeling pressure to make plays because of the injuries. It’s hard to see everything on TV, but sometimes I didn’t even see receivers in the picture. To me, that’s forcing it.”

Reach Ron Kroichick: rkroichick@sfchronicle.com; X: @ronkroichick

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/49ers/article/49ers-great-joe-montana-s-football-injuries-20041428.php

Priscilla 4Chan (born February 24, 1985)[2] is an American pediatrician and philanthropist.[3] She and her husband, Mark Zuckerberg, a co-founder and CEO of Meta Platforms, established the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in December 2015 with a pledge to transfer 99 percent of their Facebook shares, then valued at $45 billion. She attended Harvard University and received her medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco.

Early life and education

Chan was born in Braintree, Massachusetts,[4] and grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts. Her parents were Chinese refugees who fled Vietnam in boats.[5][6] Chan grew up speaking Cantonese and interpreted for her grandparents who raised her and her two younger sisters, Michelle and Elaine, while her parents worked.[7][8] Chan's father owned a restaurant in Massachusetts, which he later sold to run a wholesale fish company in 2006. Chan graduated valedictorian of her class from Quincy High School,[7] where she was involved with the FIRST Robotics Competition team #69 HYPER[9][10] and where she was the captain of the tennis team.[10] Her classmates voted her "Class Genius."[8]

Although her parents were supportive of college education, they were unfamiliar with the process, including the SAT exam.[8] Chan is the first college graduate in her family and has said that "education is an incredibly personal issue" for her, noting that "[i]f you're the first generation to go to college...sometimes you don't realize your potential until others point it out."[7][11] She credits her public school teachers with recognizing hers and for "getting me excited about learning."[11] Chan received a full scholarship to attend Harvard University.[12] Feeling out of place at the school, Chan planned to transfer to another institution; however, her involvement with the Franklin Afterschool Enrichment program, specifically an encounter with a young girl who had broken teeth, inspired Chan to stay and to become a pediatrician.[13][12] Chan once reflected: “I was devastated. I thought, ‘What happened? What did I do wrong? I thought at the time, ‘I am not enough yet. … I need more skills. I need more power to be able to solve this.’ And so, when you’re 20 years old and a type-A Harvard student, the answer is medical school.”[12]

After graduating in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in biology, she taught 4th and 5th grade science at the private Harker School in San Jose, California, for a year before entering medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, in 2008,[14][15] where she graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree in 2012 and then completed residency training in pediatrics in 2015.[16][7] Chan was a pediatrician at San Francisco General Hospital.[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priscilla_Chan

Montanists, Mormons, and Early Christian Doctrines

Posted by Mormon Heretic on June 18, 2008 in Catholic, Christian, Early Christian History, Gnosticism, Intellectualism, Mormon, Multi-Faith, Theology

This is part 3 of Heresy and Orthodoxy. I’ve been listening to class 5 from the Covenant Theological Seminary on Ancient and Medieval Church History. They have talked about Gnosticism and Marcionism. I’d like to talk about a little known movement in early church history called Montanism and compare this to Mormonism.

Montanism began in Phrygia, Turkey around 170 AD. It was quite different from Gnosticism and Marcionism. It had a huge emphasis on the Holy Spirit. By this time the miracles and prophecies that are so familiar in the NT period had disappeared . A man by the name of Montanus said miracles had ceased because of the worldliness of the church. He said the ‘Dispensation of the Fulness of the Son’ had been replaced by the ‘Dispensation of the Holy Spirit.’

Now, doesn’t this sound very similar to Joseph Smith and his ideas? Joseph referred to the ‘Dispensation of the Fulness of Times’. Joseph said that miracles were occurring once again through him, as evidenced by all the visions, miracles, and the golden plates.

Montanus claimed that the Holy Spirit still speaks, just as it did to Paul; that it’s speaking through Montanus, and that it also speaks to a couple of his associates; female prophetesses, Prisca (or Priscilla), and Maximilla.

Montanus is said to have been quoted to say, ‘I am the Lord God Omnipotent’ but in reality, he wasn’t claiming to be God, but rather speaking for God. Joseph Smith would have prefaced similar remarks with ‘thus saith the Lord.’

Montanus also believed that Christ was imminently returning, similar to Joseph Smith. Montanus also believed that the New Jerusalem was going to be in Phrygia. Joseph Smith made similar claims about the New Jerusalem being on the American continent. Montanus also stressed holiness and asceticism.

In Turkey, many congregations entirely converted to Montanism, and the movement spread to North Africa. It lasted through at least through at least the 7th century AD. His most famous convert was Tertullian, who coined the term trinity. It is interesting to note that both men were later termed heretics. Bible scholar FF Bruce referred to a conversation with a dominican scholar who remarks that it was amazing that such an intelligent man as Tertullian would allow himself to be led astray be Montanus. The instructor notes that there must have been something of more solid worth to Montanism than has generally been supposed to have attracted such an intelligent man as Tertullian.

Additionally, the pope in Rome endorsed Montanus for a time, but later recanted. Of course, the pope was much more of a pastor than head of the entire church at this time.

Ok, now you see some differences. Of course mormons don’t support women having the priesthood, but there is some evidence that women were teachers in the early church. The PBS series called The First Christians talks about women in the early church. It appears that there were many influential women in the early church, punctuated by Mary Magdalene, who was known as ‘the apostle of the apostles’, and holds the distinction of being the first person to see the resurrected Lord. There is a book called ‘the Gospel of Mary Magdalene which venerates Mary Magdalene.

The church was just beginning to embrace the concept of the trinity, though it was far from universal at the early period, especially when one considers the strange views of the Gnostics. It is unclear if Montanus shared Tertullian’s views on this concept.

Speaking of Gnostics, one author has compared the New Age movement to the Gnostics belief in self-deification. While this is not perfectly compatible with mormons beliefs of eternal progression, there are obvious similarities.

Montanus also claimed that his revelations superceded the apostles and that his words should be considered scripture. Of course mormons have the D&C, and hold similar views about Joseph Smith. This all leads to the question, should mormons be called non-Christians or rather Christian heretics? I’m not sure which term is better, but obviously the term heretic has some appeal to me.

https://mormonheretic.org/2008/06/18/montanists-mormons-and-early-christian-doctrines/

The friendliness of the Mormons towards Catholics is attributed to their appreciation that their settlement in the great Salt Lake Valley is due to having been directed to it by Fr. Pierre Jean de Smet, the great Jesuit missionary and explorer, who met and was entertained by Brigham Young in Council Bluffs, while the Mormons were on their trek West. Writing to his nephew, Fr. de Smet said: "They asked me a thousand questions about the regions I had explored, and the valley I have just described to you, pleased them greatly from the account I gave of it. Was that what determined them to settle there? I would not dare affirm it. They are there!"

https://web.archive.org/web/20151020074727/http://www.catholictradition.org:80/Tradition/goldstein70.htm

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints

PART X THE PRESERVATION AND INCREASE OF THE SOCIETY

410 §1. As a sign of gratitude and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, let that feast be solemnly celebrated; and on that day is to be renewed the consecration by which the Society on January 1, 1872, dedicated and consecrated itself totally and perpetually.

§2. The consecration to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary is to be renewed each year on the feast of the Immaculate Heart.[1]

411 The sense of belonging and responsibility that each individual one of Ours has toward the whole Society should be manifested in a knowledge of our spirituality, our history, our saints, our apostolic labors, and our men, especially of those who are suffering difficulties for the sake of Christ; it is to be manifested as well by maintaining Ignatian mobility and flexibility with a view to helping any region of the Society whatsoever.[2]

412 §1. All our members should have at heart a shared concern for attracting new members to the Society, especially by prayer and the example of their lives as individuals and in community.[3]

§2. Therefore, we must do everything possible actively to present the Society in such a way that those whom God calls will know and appreciate who and what we are and what is our distinctive way of proceeding in the following of Christ.[4]

§3. We must also promote vocations as widely as possible, in order to reflect the culture and experience of those we seek to serve, including minority cultures, immigrants, and indigenous people.[5]

413 The Society should always show itself bound to its benefactors in charity and gratitude. Superiors should ensure that prayers are offered for them and other appropriate signs of our gratitude are shown them.[6]

414 In the perfect observance of all the Constitutions and in the particular fulfillment of our Institute, our formed members should excel, setting a good example and spreading the good odor of Christ, keeping before their eyes the serious obligation they have of giving edification especially to our younger members.[ 7]

415 All by earnest reading and meditation (in particular, at the time of the annual Spiritual Exercises, renewal of vows, monthly recollection, beginning of the year, and so forth) should strive ever to know, esteem, and love better our Constitutions and the special nature of our Institute,[ 8] which are to be faithfully observed, and which for each and all of us are the one, true, and safe way that surely leads to the perfection to which our Lord calls and invites all sons of the Society.[9] §2. Major superiors, especially at the time of the annual visitation, should see that this is faithfully observed.

416 Finally, those means that are proposed by our holy father Saint Ignatius in Part X of the Constitutions for the preservation and development not only of the body or exterior of the Society but also of its spirit, and for the attainment of the objective it seeks, which is to aid souls to reach their ultimate and supernatural end, [10] are to be observed eagerly and diligently by all, with a truly personal sense of responsibility for its increase and development, for the praise and service of our God and Lord Jesus Christ, and the help of souls.[11]

L. D. S.

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, most notably with the San Francisco 49ers. He was drafted by and played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Prior to his NFL career, Young was a member of the Los Angeles Express in the United States Football League (USFL) for two seasons. He played college football for the BYU Cougars, setting school and NCAA records en route to being runner-up for the 1983 Heisman Trophy.

Amidst a contract dispute with the Express, Young left the fledgling USFL midway through the 1985 season to join the Buccaneers. Two seasons of underwhelming play led Tampa Bay to trade him to the 49ers in 1987. A quarterback controversy ensued as he spent several seasons backing up starting quarterback Joe Montana, who had previously led San Francisco to four Super Bowl championships. Young became the 49ers' full-time starting quarterback in 1991. He was named the AP's NFL Most Valuable Player in 1992 and 1994, and was the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX where he led the 49ers to a victory over the San Diego Chargers with a record six touchdown passes. During his 1994 MVP campaign, Young set a new NFL record for passer rating at 112.8.[1] He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Young was an extremely efficient passer, leading the league in passer rating a record six times and completion percentage and yards per attempt five times.[2] At the time of his retirement, Young had the highest passer rating among NFL quarterbacks with at least 1,500 passing attempts (96.8). Currently, he is ranked fourteenth all time in passer rating, and is ranked fourth-highest amongst retired players, behind only Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Tony Romo.[3] Young's 43 career rushing touchdowns are fourth among quarterbacks,[4] while his 4,239 rushing yards ranks sixth all time.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Young

Ultramontanism

Article by

Nive Voisine

Updated by

Clayton Ma

Published Online

February 7, 2006

Last Edited

October 26, 2020

Ultramontanism was a school of thought of the Catholic Church which promoted supreme papal authority in matters of spirituality and governance. Ultramontanism rejected modern ideals in favour of the supremacy of Catholicism and the Catholic Church in public life. This school of thought was particularly influent in the French-Canadian society during the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.

Origins

In Canada and in Europe — mainly in France, where ultramontanism appeared during the Middle Ages and grew rapidly during the French Revolution —, its supporters criticized the separation of Church and state, as well as what they considered manifestations of modern liberalism. They pushed for the supremacy of the Catholic Church in both civil and religious matters. This school of thought was mainly characterized by its attachment to the Holy See’s authority and, as of 1870, by its faith in the Pope’s infallibility. The term “ultramontane” meant, literally, “beyond the mountains,” because the French Ultramontanes believed in the supremacy of the Vatican — which is located beyond the mountains of the Alps — over the local clergy.

Ultramontanism was adopted in Canada in the 1820s, first in the Saint-Hyacinthe seminary under the strong influence of French priest Félicité de Lamennais, then in Montreal under that of its first Catholic bishop, Jean-Jacques Lartigue. The latter opposed the Gallican ideas and fought for the freedom of the Church and for religious supremacy in matters of education. His successor, Monseigneur Ignace Bourget, led the triumph of ultramontane ideas in all fields (theology, education, relations between Church and state, etc.) in Montreal and made them a major, albeit contested, part of the Catholic world in Canada.

Ideological Split

Ultramontanism grew strong in Canada, but faced a split at the end of the 1860s, following the Guibord Affair. Monseigneur Bourget, followed by Monseigneur Louis-François Laflèche, represented a group of extreme Ultramontanes who were more active within political institutions. This group fought for the immediate application of ultramontane principles, namely the Church’s supreme power over education matters, the reform of laws under canon law and the introduction of episcopate monitoring of civil legislation. Moderate Ultramontanes, like Joseph-Sabin Raymond, to whom the extremists referred as liberals, wished for a more prudent application of the Ultramontane principles and for compromise where necessary.

The extremists engaged conservative journalists and politicians, who advocated for a Catholic election platform as early as 1871 with the goal of guaranteeing the supremacy of the Church over politics. Over the following years, the extremists and supporters of the election platform led an anti-liberal crusade, which resulted in the creation of the Castors (“Beavers”) in 1882.

Influence

Ultramontanism dominated philosophy and theology teachings in small and large seminaries, the social doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada and several bishop directives from the second half of the 19th century until the 1950s.

Ultramontanist thought guided the ideals of important French Canadian nationalists who desired a self-sufficient society governed by the Church. The movement had a significant influence over the French-Canadian society and Maurice Duplessis’ reign as premier of Quebec. Ultramontanism fed traditional and conservative tendencies within the French-Canadian society, until the Quiet Revolution and the Second Vatican Council put an end to this influence.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ultramontanism

Joseph Clifford Montana Jr. (born June 11, 1956) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 16 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. Nicknamed "Joe Cool" and "the Comeback Kid", Montana is widely regarded as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.[1][2][3][4][5][6] After winning a national championship with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Montana began his NFL career in 1979 at San Francisco, where he played for the next 14 seasons.[7] With the 49ers, Montana started and won four Super Bowls and was the first player to be named the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player (MVP) three times. He also holds Super Bowl career records for most passes without an interception (122 in four games) and the all-time highest passer rating of 127.8. In 1993, Montana was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs, where he played for his last two seasons and led the franchise to its first AFC Championship Game. Montana was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2000.[8]

In 1986, Montana won the NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award, after suffering a severe back injury during week one.[9] In 1989 and again in 1990, Montana was named the NFL Most Valuable Player.[10] Montana was elected to eight Pro Bowls as well as being voted first-team All-Pro in 1987, 1989, and 1990. Montana had the highest passer rating in the National Football Conference (NFC) five times (1981, 1984, 1985, 1987, and 1989), and in both 1987 and 1989, Montana had the highest passer rating in the NFL.[11]

Among his career highlights, "the Catch" (the game-winning touchdown pass to Dwight Clark vs. Dallas in the 1981 NFC Championship Game) and a Super Bowl-winning 92-yard drive against the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII are staples of NFL highlight films.

The 49ers retired Montana's No. 16 jersey number after the conclusion of his playing career. In 1994, Montana earned a spot on the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team; he is also a member of the NFL 1980s All-Decade Team. In 1999, editors at The Sporting News ranked Montana third on their list of Football's 100 Greatest Players. Also in 1999, ESPN named Montana the 25th greatest athlete of the 20th century. In 2006, Sports Illustrated rated him the number-one clutch quarterback of all time.[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Montana

Filippo Sega (22 August 1537 – 29 May 1596) was a Catholic bishop from 1575 to 1596 and a cardinal from 1591 to 1596. He served as a papal diplomat in several important and sensitive posts, in Flanders, Spain, Vienna, Prague, and France.

Biography

Sega was born in Bologna on August 22, 1537,[1] the son of a noble family originally from Ravenna.[2] His sister, born Isabella Sega, was the mother of Cardinal Girolamo Agucchi and the diplomat Bishop Giovanni Battista Agucchi,[2] who worked under Sega at the start of his career.

He was educated at the University of Bologna, where he became a doctor of both laws on September 26, 1560.[3][2]

After completing his doctorate, he became a protonotary apostolic.[2] He was named governor of Cesena on September 20, 1566; governor of Forlì on January 24, 1569; governor of Imola on March 3, 1571; of Romagna on December 15, 1572; and of the March of Ancona on January 1, 1575.[2]

Bishop

On May 20, 1575, Sega was "elected" (provided) as the second Bishop of Ripatransone by Pope Gregory XIII.[4] He was consecrated a bishop by Gabriele del Monte, Bishop of Iesi, in Osimo Cathedral on June 29, 1575.[2] On Oct. 3, 1578, while he was still in Spain, he was appointed Bishop of Piacenza.[5]

Diplomat

In 1577, Sega was sent as a special envoy to John of Austria in the County of Flanders.[6] His mission was to aid Don Juan in the pacification of the Spanish Netherlands, which was the property of the Crown of Spain, to stop the advance of Protestantism, and to prepare in secret the expedition for the conquest of England.[7] He was only in Flanders a few months when the papal Nuncio to Spain, Niccolò Ormaneto, became gravely ill and died on 23 February 1577.[8] On 1 July 1577 a dispatch from the papal Secretary, Cardinal Filippo Guastavillani, the Pope's nephew, ordered Sega to Spain as the new Nuncio, and on 8 July Pope Gregory signed the necessary documents. There were numerous matters pending between the Papacy and the King of Spain, not the least of which was the choice of new bishops for the dioceses of Toledo and Cuenca.[9] Sega was Nuncio in Spain until 30 April 1581.[10] He took his leave of King Philip at Lisbon in December 1581.[11]

In Spring 1582, Bishop Sega was back in his diocese, but on 20 September 1583, he received a letter from Cardinal Guastavillani, appointing him to another mission to Spain. He sailed from Genoa on the 25th, and was in Madrid on 11 October. He was to attempt to get King Philip II to revive the league with Venice and the Papacy against the Turks; he was to revive Gregory XIII's enterprise against England; he was to persuade the King to support Prince Ernest of Bavaria, who had been chosen Archbishop of Cologne but who was being resisted by the schismatic heretic Otto von Truchses and Prince Casimir.[12] On 24 November 1583 the Spanish response was given by Cardinal de Granvelle: the league was refused; the King was committed to the English expedition, but circumstance were unfavorable at the time; the Catholics of Cologne were being supported by the Prince of Parma, to the extent that his commitments in the Netherlands made it possible, but in any case, the Elector Ernest would have to pay the expenses, since the King could not. Bishop Sega left the Spanish court at the end of January 1584, but fell ill at Barcelona, and did not arrive in Italy until June.[13] He was dispensed from the necessity of traveling directly to Rome to make his report to the Pope.[14]

A new pope, Sixtus V (Felice Peretti) was elected on 24 April 1585. His program for his papacy included the reform of the clergy of the city of Rome, and, for that purpose, on 29 July 1585 he chose two bishops with a reputation for reform in their own dioceses, Giulio Ottinelli of Castro and Filippo Sega of Piacenza. The assignment of the "Monsignori Riformatori" was to carry out an official visitation of all the churches and colleges in Rome; each member of the clergy who held a benefice of any kind was summoned to give an account of himself. The English,[15] German, Greek, and the Maronite Colleges were visited, as well as the Roman Seminary and the Lateran Basilica. Unfortunately, Sega's work was interrupted when he was again pressed into diplomatic service.[16]

He served as Nuncio to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in Vienna from January 18, 1586 until May 28, 1587.[17] Back in his diocese, he organized and presided over a diocesan synod, held on 3 May 1589.[18]

After the assassination of Henry III of France on 2 August 1589 by a fanatical monk, Pope Sixtus acted with lightning speed and appointed an embassy to the new Catholic king of France, the Cardinal Charles de Bourbon (Charles X), and his League. The new papal legate a latere was Cardinal Enrico Caetani, and he was accompanied by Bishop Filippo Sega with the title of Nuncio. The embassy of more than 200 persons left Rome on 2 October 1589. Sega was promoted to Legate on 15 April 1592 on the withdrawal of Caetani, and continued to serve until 12 March 1594.[19]

Cardinal

In the consistory of December 18, 1591, Pope Innocent IX named Bishop Sega a cardinal priest. Sega had been given the endorsement of William V, Duke of Bavaria.[20] Due to his service in France, he was not assigned a titular church until his return, when, on 5 December 1594, he received the red hat and became the Cardinal-Priest of Sant'Onofrio.[21] He did not participate in the papal conclave of 1592 that elected Pope Clement VIII.

He became president of the Congregatio Germanica (the German affairs committee) in the Papal Curia in 1595.[22][2] Worn out by work and importunities, however, he retired to a villa outside the Porta Pinciana above Trastevere, where he died.[23]

Cardinal Filippo Sega died in Rome on 29 May 1596 and is buried in his titular church of Sant' Onofrio.[24]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Sega

Sega Corporation[a][b] is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several multi-million-selling game franchises for arcades and consoles, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Angry Birds, Phantasy Star, Puyo Puyo, Super Monkey Ball, Total War, Virtua Fighter, Megami Tensei, Sakura Wars, Persona, and Yakuza. From 1983 until 2001, Sega also developed its own consoles.

Sega was founded by Martin Bromley and Richard Stewart in Hawaii as Nihon Goraku Bussan[c] on June 3, 1960. Shortly after, it acquired the assets of its predecessor, Service Games of Japan. In 1965, it became known as Sega Enterprises, Ltd., after acquiring Rosen Enterprises, an importer of coin-operated games. Sega developed its first coin-operated game, Periscope, in 1966. Sega was sold to Gulf and Western Industries in 1969. Following a downturn in the arcade business in the early 1980s, Sega began to develop video game consoles, starting with the SG-1000 and Master System, but struggled against competitors such as the Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1984, Sega executives David Rosen and Hayao Nakayama led a management buyout, with backing from CSK Corporation.

In 1988, Sega released the Mega Drive, or the Genesis in North America. The Mega Drive struggled against competition in Japan, but the Genesis found success overseas after the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 and briefly outsold its main competitor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, in the US. In 2001, after several commercial failures such as the 32X, Saturn, and Dreamcast, Sega stopped manufacturing consoles to become a third-party developer and publisher, and was acquired by Sammy Corporation in 2004. Sega Holdings Co., Ltd. was established in 2015; Sega Corporation was renamed to Sega Games Co., Ltd., and its arcade division was split into Sega Interactive. In 2020, Sega Games and Sega Interactive merged to become Sega Corporation.

Sega of America, Inc.

Company type Subsidiary

Industry Video games

Founded 1986

Headquarters 140 Progress, Suite 100, Irvine, California, United States

Number of employees 425 ~ 430

Parent

Sega Corporation

Website sega.com

Sega's international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California, and London. Its development studios include their internal research and development divisions (which utilize the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and Sonic Team brands for several core franchise entries), Sega Sapporo Studio which mainly provides support for the Tokyo-based development teams as well as handling partial game development,[4] and Atlus (including their R&D divisions) and five development studios in the UK and Europe: Creative Assembly, Sports Interactive, Sega Hardlight, Two Point Studios, and Rovio Entertainment (including Ruby Games). Sega is one of the world's most prolific arcade game producers and its mascot, Sonic, is internationally recognized. Sega is recognized for its video game consoles, creativity and innovations. In more recent years, it has been criticized for its business decisions and the quality of its creative output.

Being the entertainment contents division of Sega Sammy Holdings, forming one half of the Sega Sammy Group,[5] Sega also owns a toy and amusement machine company, Sega Fave, which comprises their arcade development and manufacturing divisions and two animation studios: TMS Entertainment, which animates, produces, and distributes anime, and Marza Animation Planet, which specializes in CG animation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega

Joe Montana Football is an American football video game published by Sega. While the game does feature Joe Montana as a playable character, Sega did not obtain licenses from either the National Football League or the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), meaning no other players, nor any official team names, are used. It was the first of many Sega published football games across the 1990s prior to moving into the NFL 2K branding in the 2000s.

Gameplay

Similar to other football games of the time, the gameplay follows a slightly simplified version of standard American Football rules. Players have the option to play as different teams, as well as select number of players. Players also have the option to turn penalties on or off. Players may also play a normal game, a mode with a two-minute drill, and the Sega Bowl mode.

Though Joe Montana Football and John Madden Football were made by the same company, Madden had realistic plays and a full roster of 28 teams, while Montana was a more arcade-style game with only 16 teams and a simplified, passing-intensive offense.[4]

Development

Following the launch of the Genesis in the United States, Sega of America president and CEO Michael Katz planned to create a library of instantly-recognizable titles for the console by contracting with celebrities and athletes to produce games using their names and likenesses. As part of this, Sega signed a $1.7 million five-year contract with Joe Montana, despite concerns among the Japanese executives that the game would not earn enough to cover this cost.[4]

Sega had previously developed two American football games for the Master System console, Great Football in 1987[5] and American Pro Football (Walter Payton Football) in 1989, the latter very well-received by critics at the time.[6][7] Joe Montana Football was originally intended to be an update of Great Football.[5]

Since Sega of America did not at the time have a large game production facility, they contracted with Mediagenic (Activision) to develop the game for November 1989. No one at Sega was aware of the turmoil inside Mediagenic at the time; despite five months of reports that development was proceeding on schedule, Katz discovered in September or October that the game was hardly begun. To have a football game for Christmas release, Sega would have to find an already-completed game that could be converted.[3]

Sega approached Electronic Arts, developer of the Madden NFL series, and president Trip Hawkins, for help, suggesting that he cancel the upcoming Genesis version of Madden in order to work on the game. Hawkins agreed to help Sega but refused to cancel his company's game instead working on both projects. He intentionally made Montana a worse game than Madden, starting with the basic code for the former he removed the 3D field as well as cut down the number of plays from 113 to 13.[8] According to Michael Knox a programmer on the game, most of the deliberate downgrading occurred after the company had already completed the game.[9] Joe Montana Football missed the Christmas deadline and was released in January 1991, shortly after the Genesis version of John Madden Football.[4][3]

Reception

Although not as successful as the Madden series, Joe Montana Football and the sequels helped establish the Genesis' reputation as the top platform for sports simulations and proved to Sega Enterprises that sports games could be worthwhile investments.[4][3] Website Den of Geek would credit both series for helping Sega gain an edge over Nintendo writing " High school and college jocks who would normally be more likely to taunt someone who identified as a video game nerd suddenly found themselves playing for bragging rights on all-night sessions of Madden."[10]

Legacy

Joe Montana Football was followed by four sequels, all developed by BlueSky Software instead of Park Place Productions: Joe Montana Football II: Sports Talk Football, NFL Sports Talk Football '93, NFL Football '94 Starring Joe Montana, and NFL '95. After the contract with Joe Montana ended in 1995, development on the sixth game in Sega's NFL series moved to Farsight Technologies and the franchise was rebranded as Prime Time NFL Starring Deion Sanders. In 2015, Damon Grow, CEO of Superstar Games, tweeted snippets of Joe Montana Football 16. Joe Montana subsequently released a screenshot of the game. At E3, Damon Grow revealed the game as "Joe Montana Football", a mobile game coming to iOS, followed by Android and PC.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Montana_Football

Francisco de Asís (Francisco de Asís María Fernando de Borbón; 13 May 1822 – 17 April 1902) was King of Spain as the husband of Queen Isabella II from their marriage in 1846 until Isabella's deposition in 1868. Francisco and his wife were double first cousins, as their fathers were brothers and their mothers were sisters. Isabella was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1868, but the monarchy was restored under their son Alfonso XII in 1874.

Family

Francisco de Asís was born at Aranjuez, Spain, the second son (first to survive infancy) of Infante Francisco de Paula of Spain, and of his wife (and niece), Princess Luisa Carlotta of the Two Sicilies. He was named after Saint Francis of Assisi.

Marriage and children

Further information: Affair of the Spanish Marriages

Francisco married Queen Isabella II of Spain, his double first cousin, on 10 October 1846. There is evidence that Isabella would rather have married his younger brother, Infante Enrique, Duke of Seville, and complained bitterly about her husband's effeminate habits after their first night together.[1]

Twelve children were born during the marriage:[2][3]

Infante Luis Fernando (20 May 1849), stillbirth.

Infante Fernando Francisco (12 July 1850), died five minutes after birth.

Infanta María Isabel (1851–1931): married her mother's and father's first cousin Prince Gaetan, Count of Girgenti.

Infanta Maria Cristina (5 January 1854 - 7 January).

Infanta Margarita (23 September 1855 - 24 September 1855), born prematurely.

Infante Francisco de Asis Fernando (21 December 1856), stillbirth.

Alfonso XII of Spain (1857–1885) Future King of Spain.

Infanta Maria de la Conception (1859 - 21 October 1861).

Infanta María del Pilar (1861–1879).

Infanta María de la Paz (1862–1946); married her paternal first cousin Prince Louis Ferdinand of Bavaria.

Infanta María Eulalia (1864–1958); married her maternal first cousin Infante Antonio d'Orléans, Duke of Galliera.

Infante Francisco de Asis Leopoldo Maria Enrique (24 January 1866 - 14 February 1866).

There has been considerable speculation that some or all of Isabella's children were not fathered by Francisco de Asís; this has been bolstered by rumours that Francisco de Asís was either homosexual or impotent. Francisco de Asís recognised all of them: he played the offended, proceeding to blackmail the queen to receive money in exchange for keeping his mouth shut.[4] The extortion by her husband would continue and intensify during Isabella's exile.[5]: 217

Later life

Portrait of King Francisco by Vicente López Portaña

Starting in 1864, Francisco de Asís acted as president of the Spanish Privy Council (Consejo del Reino).

In 1868 Francisco went into exile with his wife in France and adopted the incognito title of Count of Moratalla. On 25 June 1870, Isabella abdicated in favour of their son Alfonso XII—whom the 1874 restoration placed on the throne. By then, Francisco de Asís and Isabella had amicably separated and, with time, became good friends.

In 1881 Francisco de Asís took up residence at the château of Épinay-sur-Seine (currently the city hall). He died there in 1902. His wife Isabella and two of his daughters, Isabel and Eulalia, were present at his deathbed.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_As%C3%ADs,_Duke_of_C%C3%A1diz

El Escorial is situated at the foot of Mount Abantos in the Sierra de Guadarrama.[8][9][6][3] This austere location, hardly an obvious choice for the site of a royal palace, was chosen by King Philip II of Spain, and it was he who ordained the building of a grand edifice here to commemorate the 1557 Spanish victory at the Battle of St. Quentin in Picardy against King Henry II of France.[10][2][9][12][3] King Phillip II's goal was to have a princely mansion in a wooded countryside, while also being architecturally different from most buildings that were being commissioned at the time.[13] Phillip's decision to do this was inspired by his journeys in Europe exploring architecture, including the Ospedale Maggiore that inspired ideas for the design of the Escorial.[13] One of Phillip II's personal aspirations was to be a monk and a monarch, and this would come to influence the design.[13] The result of all these ideas was an imposing three story tall, orthogonal, stronghold-like structure with a dual function as both a royal residence and monastery.[14] Philip also intended the complex to serve as a necropolis for the interment of the remains of his parents, Charles I and Isabella of Portugal, himself, and his descendants.[12][10] In addition, Philip envisioned El Escorial as a center for studies in aid of the Counter-Reformation cause. The Escorial would come to be so iconic that the design of the building became a new architectural style of Spanish renaissance architecture, known as the Herrerian style.[14]

The building's cornerstone was laid on 23 April 1563.[3] The design and construction were overseen by Juan Bautista de Toledo, who did not live to see the completion of the project.[10][9][6] With Toledo's death in 1567, direction passed to his apprentice, Juan de Herrera,[3] under whom the building was completed in 1584, in slightly less than 21 years.[10][6][4] To this day, la obra de El Escorial ("the work of El Escorial") is a proverbial expression for a thing that takes a long time to finish[15] (comparable English proverb: "Rome wasn't built in a day").

Since then, El Escorial has been the burial site for most of the Spanish kings of the last five centuries, Bourbons as well as Habsburgs.[2][4][8] The Royal Pantheon contains the tombs of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (who ruled Spain as King Charles I), Philip II, Philip III, Philip IV, Charles II, Louis I, Charles III, Charles IV, Ferdinand VII, Isabella II, Alfonso XII, and Alfonso XIII. Two Bourbon kings, Philip V (who reigned from 1700 to 1724 and again from 1724 to 1746) and Ferdinand VI (1746–1759), as well as King Amadeus (1870–1873), are not buried in the monastery.

El Escorial: floor plan, based on that of Solomon's Temple

The floor plan of the building is in the form of a gridiron. The traditional belief is that this design was chosen in honor of Saint Lawrence,[8] who, in the third century AD, was martyred by being roasted to death on a grill.[10][6][16] St. Lawrence's feast day is 10 August, the same date as the 1557 Battle of St. Quentin.[12][10][3]

However, the origin of the building's layout is quite controversial. The grill-like shape, which did not fully emerge until Juan de Herrera eliminated from the original conception the six interior towers of the façade, was not unique to El Escorial. Other buildings had been constructed with churches or chapels fronting on interior courtyards: King's College, Cambridge, dating from 1441, is one such example; the old Ospedale Maggiore, Milan's first hospital, begun in 1456 by Antonio Filarete, is another grid-like building with interior courtyards. In fact, palaces of this approximate design were commonplace in the Byzantine and Arab world. Strikingly similar to El Escorial is the layout of the Alcázar of Seville and the design of the Alhambra at Granada,[2] where, as at El Escorial, two courtyards in succession separate the main portal of the complex from a fully enclosed place of worship.

Courtyard of the Kings and the Basilica.

The most persuasive theory for the origin of the floor plan is that it is based on descriptions of the Temple of Solomon by the Judeo-Roman historian Flavius Josephus: a portico followed by a courtyard open to the sky, followed by a second portico and a second courtyard, all flanked by arcades and enclosed passageways, leading to the "holy of holies". Statues of David and Solomon on either side of the entrance to the basilica of El Escorial lend further weight to the theory that this is the true origin of the design. A more personal connection can be drawn between the David-warrior figure, representing Charles V, and his son, the stolid and solomonically prudent Philip II. Echoing the same theme, a fresco in the center of El Escorial's library, a reminder of Solomon's legendary wisdom, affirms Philip's preoccupation with the great Jewish king, his thoughtful and logical character, and his extraordinary, monumental temple.[17]

El Escorial. View from the northwest

The Temple of Solomon design,[18] if indeed it was the basis for El Escorial, was extensively modified to accommodate the additional functions Philip II intended the building to serve. Besides being a monastery, El Escorial is also a pantheon, a basilica, a convent, a school, a library, and a royal palace.[16] All these functional demands resulted in a doubling of the building's size from the time of its original conception.

Built primarily from locally quarried gray granite,[6] square and sparsely ornamented, El Escorial is austere, even forbidding, in its outward appearance, seemingly more like a fortress than a monastery or palace. It takes the form of a gigantic quadrangle, approximately 224 by 153 metres (735 by 502 ft), which encloses a series of intersecting passageways and courtyards. At each of the four corners is a square tower surmounted by a spire, and, near the center of the complex (and taller than the rest), rise the pointed belfries and round dome of the basilica. Philip's instructions to Juan Bautista de Toledo were simple and clear, directing that the architects should produce "simplicity in the construction, severity in the whole, nobility without arrogance, majesty without ostentation."[19][20]

Aside from its explicit purposes, the complex is also an enormous storehouse of art. In it are displayed masterworks by Titian, Tintoretto,[9] Benvenuto Cellini, El Greco, Velázquez, Rogier van der Weyden, Paolo Veronese, Bernini, Alonso Cano, José de Ribera, Claudio Coello, and others.[2][6][21] Giambattista Castello designed the magnificent main staircase. The library contains thousands of priceless manuscripts: for example, the collection of the sultan Zidan Abu Maali, who ruled Morocco from 1603 to 1627, is housed here.

Royal Monastery

Courtyard of the Kings

The main entrance of the El Escorial is the west façade, which has three doors: the middle one leads to the Courtyard of the Kings (Patio de los Reyes) and the side ones lead to a school and to a monastery. Above the center door is a niche where the image of Saint Lawrence has been placed.[22] The Courtyard of the Kings owes its name to the statues of the kings of Judah that adorn the façade of the basilica, located at the east end of the courtyard. Steps of red marble lead to the large, public chapel, past the narthex, which is one of the highlights of the basilica. The basilica has a floor in the shape of a Greek cross and an enormous dome, inspired by St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, above the crossing.[23] The naves are covered over by barrel vaults decorated with frescoes by Luca Giordano. The main altarpiece is 30 metres (98 ft) high and divided into compartments of different sizes where are found bronze sculptures, and canvases by Pellegrino Tibaldi, Federico Zuccari, and Leone Leoni. In the sacristy, paintings such as Joseph's Coat by Velázquez, The Last Supper by Titian, and The Adoration of the Sacred Host by Charles II by Claudio Coello are on exhibit.

Detail of the Courtyard of the Kings

Under the royal chapel of the Basilica is the Royal Pantheon crypt.[23] This is the place of burial for the kings of Spain.[6] It is an octagonal Baroque mausoleum made of marble where all of the Spanish monarchs since Charles I have been buried, with the exception of Philip V, Ferdinand VI, and Amadeus of Savoy.[1] The remains of the Count of Barcelona, the father of King Juan Carlos I of Spain, also rest in this pantheon despite the fact that the Count never became king himself. The enclosure is presided over by an altar of veined marble, and the sarcophagi are bronze and marble. There is also the Pantheon of the Princes, where the bodies of the queens who did not have a crowned succession and the princes and princesses were laid to rest. This part was built in the nineteenth century.

Next to the basilica, to the south, is the Courtyard of the Evangelists. This is a gardened patio in whose center rises a magnificent pavilion, by Juan de Herrera, in which one can find sculptures of the Evangelists. Around the courtyard are the galleries of the main cloister, decorated with frescoes by Tibaldi and his workshop, in which scenes from the history of the Redemption are represented. In the East gallery, one finds the splendid main staircase with a fresco-decorated vaulted ceiling depicting The glory of the Spanish monarchy, painted by Luca Giordano in 1692.

The Palace of the Austrians (Palacio de los Austrias), also known as the House of the King (Casa del Rey), is found behind the presbytery of the basilica. The outbuildings of this palace, of Italian style, are distributed around the Courtyard of the Fountainheads (Patio de los Mascarones). Inside the House of the King are the Sala de las Batallas (Hall of Battles), which contains frescoes of the battles of San Quintín and Higueruela, among others. The next building contains the rooms of Philip II and of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia. Another outbuilding is that of Alcoba del Rey, housing the bed in which Philip II died.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Escorial

The Caliphate of Córdoba (Arabic: خلافة قرطبة, romanized: Khilāfat Qurṭuba), also known as the Córdoban Caliphate, was an Arab Islamic state ruled by the Umayyad dynasty from 929 to 1031. Its territory comprised Iberia and parts of North Africa, with its capital in Córdoba. It succeeded the Emirate of Córdoba upon the self-proclamation of Umayyad emir Abd ar-Rahman III as caliph in January 929.[3] The period was characterized by an expansion of trade and culture, and saw the construction of masterpieces of al-Andalus architecture.

The caliphate disintegrated in the early 11th century during the Fitna of al-Andalus, a civil war between the descendants of caliph Hisham II and the successors of his hajib (court official), Al-Mansur. In 1031, after years of infighting, the caliphate fractured into a number of independent Muslim taifa (kingdoms).[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate_of_C%C3%B3rdoba

Rancho Cordova is a city in Sacramento County, California, United States which was incorporated in 2003. It is part of the Sacramento Metropolitan Area. The population was 79,332 at the 2020 census. In 2010 and 2019, Rancho Cordova received the All-America City Award.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancho_Cordova,_California

Fortún Jiménez de Bertadoña discovered the Baja California Peninsula in early 1534. However, it was Hernán Cortés who recognized the peninsula as the "Island of California" in May 1535, and is therefore officially credited with the discovery. In January 1683, the Spanish government chartered an expedition consisting of three ships to transport a contingent of 200 men to the southern tip of Baja California. Under the command of the governor of Sinaloa, Isidoro de Atondo y Antillón, and accompanied by Jesuit priest Eusebio Francisco Kino, the ships made landfall in La Paz. The landing party was eventually forced to abandon its initial settlement due to the hostile response on the part of the natives. The missionaries attempted to establish a settlement near present-day Loreto, which they named Misión San Bruno but failed for lack of supplies.[10] Kino went on to establish a number of missions in the Pimería Alta, now located in southern Arizona, USA and Sonora, Mexico.

The Jesuit priest Juan María de Salvatierra eventually managed to establish the first permanent Spanish settlement in Baja California, the Misión Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó. Founded on October 19, 1697, the mission become the religious center of the peninsula and administrative capital of Las Californias. From there, other Jesuits went out to establish other settlements throughout the lower two-thirds of the peninsula, founding 17 missions and several visitas (sub-missions) between 1697 and 1767.[11]

Unlike the mainland settlements that were designed to be self-sustaining enterprises, the remote and harsh conditions on the peninsula made it all but impossible to build and maintain these missions without ongoing assistance from the mainland. Supply lines from across the Gulf of California, including from the missions and ranches of Padre Eusebio Kino on the mainland to the Port of Guaymas, played a crucial role in keeping the Baja California mission system intact.

During the sixty years that the Jesuits were permitted to work among the natives of California, 56 members of the Society of Jesus came to the Baja California peninsula, of whom 16 died at their posts (two as martyrs). Fifteen priests and one lay brother survived the hardships, only to be subjected to enforcement of the decree launched against the Society by King Carlos III of Spain.[12] It was rumored that the Jesuit priests had amassed a fortune on the peninsula and were becoming very powerful. On February 3, 1768 the King ordered the Jesuits forcibly expelled from the Americas and returned to the home country. Gaspar de Portolà was appointed Governor of Las Californias, with orders to supervise the Jesuit expulsion and oversee the installation of replacement Franciscan priests.[13]

The Franciscans, under the leadership of Fray Junípero Serra, took charge of the missions and closed or consolidated several of the existing installations. A total of 39 Friars Minor toiled on the peninsula during the five years and five months of Franciscan rule. Four of them died, 10 were transferred to new northern missions, and the remainder returned to Europe.[14]

Governor Portolà was put in command of an expedition to travel north and establish new settlements at San Diego and Monterey. Serra went along as leader of the missionaries, to establish missions in those places.[15] On the way north, Serra founded Misión San Fernando Rey de España de Velicatá. Francisco Palóu was left in charge of the existing missions, and founded the Visita de la Presentación in 1769.

Representatives of the Dominican order arrived in 1772, and by 1800, had established nine more missions in northern Baja, all the while continuing with the administration of the former Jesuit missions. The peninsula was divided into two separate entities in 1804, with the southern one having the seat of government established in the Port of Loreto. In 1810, Mexico sought to end Spanish colonial rule, gaining her independence in 1821, after which Mexican President Guadalupe Victoria named Lt. Col. José María Echeandía governor of Baja California Sur and divided it into four separate municipios (municipalities). The capital was moved to La Paz in 1830, after Loreto was partially destroyed by heavy rains. In 1833, after Baja California was designated as a federal territory, the governor formally put an end to the mission system by converting the missions into parish churches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_missions_in_Baja_California

California High Court Rules Lottery Keno Game Is Illegal

By a Wall Street Journal Staff Reporter

June 25, 1996 12:01 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB8356617103204500

June 29 – Siege of Córdoba: Castilian forces under King Ferdinand III (the Saint) capture Muslim Córdoba from Emir Ibn Hud, as part of the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula.[2]

July – At a diet (princely convention) in Piacenza, Emperor Frederick II proclaims his wish to recover all Italy for the Holy Roman Empire.[3]

Pope Gregory IX condemned the links that both the Knights Templer and Knights Hospitaller have with the Assassin fighters in the Middle East. He issues a bull, a formal proclamation issued by the pope, preventing further contact with the Assassins.

May 6 – Roger of Wendover, English Benedictine monk and chronicler, dies at St. Albans Abbey. His chronicle is continued by Matthew of Paris.

1236

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1236

Atheism: resisting it with all our forces is a special mission given to the Society by the supreme pontiff, 253 2°; a mission which should permeate all forms of our apostolate, 254; our efforts are to be directed toward nonbelievers, ibid.; toward that end, an experience of God must be fostered in ourselves, 223 §§3-4, 224, 247

1° 2° 3° 6°;

and also in others, by means of the Spiritual Exercises, 271

The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms

https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

Michael Baigent, co-author of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, confirms this history: "Many English, and it would appear, French Templars," he states, "found a Scottish refuge, and a sizable contingent is said to have fought at [King] Robert Bruce's side at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. According to the legend - and there is evidence to support it - the order maintained itself as a coherent body in Scotland for another four centuries."61 In Scotland the Knights Templar left their mark - an octagonal pattern with the splayed cross in the middle (see Appendix 2, Fig. 6). Sometimes the mark was only the octagon. This symbol, along with the skull and crossbones, and the number 13, imprinted on dated gravestones, has assisted researchers in tracing the migration of the Templars. A descendant of Robert Bruce, the Catholic James Stuart VI, reigned in Scotland from 1567 until he ascended the British throne as James I in 1603. He succeeded the unmarried Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603), who enforced Protestantism by law, but who, because of her lack of an heir, designated James her successor on her deathbed. During James I's reign (1603-1625) we 34 received the King James Version of the Bible, the first official English translation of the Bible. Like their ancestors, the Stuarts had been initiated into the Order of the Knights Templar, and James was more Templar than Catholic. James arrived in England with a contingent of Scottish Templars, and their first lodge opened at York in northern England at the turn of the 17th century. During James Stuart's reign the embryos of both the Scottish and York Rites of Freemasonry developed in England. At that time it was called Jacobite Freemasonry, in memory of the martyred Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay. James and his descendants were members of the Royalist Jacobite Lodges, which practiced Templar rituals. Later these rituals became known to Masons in England and America as the York Rite, and in France and America as the Scottish Rite."

Scarlet and the Beast by John Daniel

https://ia803001.us.archive.org/28/items/ScarletAndTheBeastJohnDaniel1995/Scarlet%20and%20the%20Beast,%20John%20Daniel%20(1995).pdf

Thirteenth Rule. To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls. Because by the same Spirit and our Lord Who gave the ten Commandments, our holy Mother the Church is directed and governed."

The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YC_luOfFWl0Bm0BWkbANKZGC1kkmdHQf/view?usp=sharing

14We ought to act on the principle that everyone who lives under obedience should let himself be carried and directed by Divine Providence through the agency of the superior 15as if he were a lifeless body, which allows itself to be carried to any place and treated in any way; or an old man s staff, which serves at any place and for any purpose in which the one holding it in his hand wishes to employ it. 16For in this way the obedient man ought joyfully to employ himself in any task in which the superior desires to employ him in aid of the whole body of the religious order; 17and he ought to hold it certain that by so doing he conforms himself with the divine will more than by anything else he could do while following his own will and different judgment.[3]

page 221

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

ON 27 SEPTEMBER 1540, THE SOCIETY OF JESUS RECEIVED PAPAL APPROVAL

https://www.jesuits.global/2021/09/26/on-27-september-1540-the-society-of-jesus-received-papal-approval/

Numerology (known prior to the 20th century as arithmancy) is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, of the letters in words and names. When numerology is applied to a person's name, it is a form of onomancy. It is often associated with the paranormal, alongside astrology, and is similar to divinatory arts.[2]The term numerologist can be used for those who place faith in numerical patterns and draw inferences from them, even if those people do not practice traditional numerology. For example, in his 1997 book Numerology: Or What Pythagoras Wrought (DUDLEY 1997), mathematician Underwood Dudley uses the term to discuss practitioners of the Elliott wave principle of stock market analysis."

Numerology - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerology

An enormous trove of gnostic learning had been brought from the eastern Mediterranean by agents of Clement VII’s great-grandfather, Cosimo d’Medici. Suppressed since the Emperor Justinian had piously shut down the pagan colleges of A t h e n s back in 5 2 9 , these celebrated mystical, scientific and philosophical scrolls and manuscripts flattered humanity. They taught that human intelligence was competent to determine truth from falsehood without guidance or assistance from any god. Since, as Protagoras put it, “man is the measure of all things,” man could control all the living powers of the universe. If elected and initiated into the secret knowledge, or gnosis, man could master the cabalah – the “royal science” of names, numbers, and symbols – to create his very own divinity." Rulers of Evil by F. Tupper Saussy

F. Tupper Saussy - Rulers of Evil, Useful Knowledge About Governing Bodies.pdf (archive.org)

https://ia601808.us.archive.org/10/items/f.-tupper-saussy-rulers-of-evil-useful-knowledge-about-governing-bodies/F.%20Tupper%20Saussy%20-%20Rulers%20of%20Evil%2C%20Useful%20Knowledge%20About%20Governing%20Bodies.pdf

https://www.facebook.com/HisHolyChurchofAnonymous/posts/pfbid02H92zLkLrD5VsQFQ9KQdA7o5pGGrt4cj3EPUS75P7Dn4V54UdY6JE8Z31tMKRMjgjl

Fernando Álvarez de Miranda y Torres (Santander, 14 de enero de 1924-Madrid, 7 de mayo de 2016)5 fue un político, abogado y profesor universitario español, primer presidente del Congreso de los Diputados de la democracia (1977-1979) y defensor del Pueblo (1994-1999).

Biografía

Formación

Estudió Derecho en las Universidades de Madrid y Zaragoza, y Derecho Comunitario en la Universidad de Luxemburgo y posteriormente fue profesor de Derecho procesal en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. De ideología democristiana y monárquica, fue deportado a Fuerteventura por el régimen franquista tras asistir al Congreso del Movimiento Europeo en Múnich (el denominado despectivamente por la dictadura Contubernio de Múnich) en 1962. Miembro del Consejo Personal de Juan de Borbón (1964) y militante de Izquierda Democrática.6

Política

Durante la Transición española fue miembro destacado del Grupo Tácito y fundó Izquierda Demócrata Cristiana, como escisión de Izquierda Democrática y se integró en el Partido Popular Demócrata Cristiano que como Partido Demócrata Cristiano se unió, por su parte, a la UCD, con la que fue presidente del Congreso de los Diputados (1977-1979). Fue también embajador en El Salvador (1986-1989) y Defensor del Pueblo (1994-1999).

Fernando Álvarez de Miranda fue sobrino del diputado conservador Ricardo Cortes Villasana, tío del también político y diplomático, José María Martín Álvarez de Miranda (PP) y primo de Javier Cortes Álvarez de Miranda, arqueólogo y filántropo santanderino descubridor de la Villa Romana de La Olmeda en Pedrosa de la Vega.[cita requerida] Siendo también descendiente del linaje Leonés (Tusinos).

Su hijo, Ramón María Álvarez de Miranda García, es también político y economista. En 1979, con 24 años, se convirtió en el diputado más joven del Congreso salido de las elecciones generales de ese año. Ingresó como funcionario del Tribunal de Cuentas en 1984. Ha sido consejero del Tribunal desde 1991 hasta 2021, y presidente del mismo desde julio de 2012 hasta julio de 2018.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_%C3%81lvarez_de_Miranda

The Miranda-class had entered Starfleet service by the 2260s, which included the launch of the USS Reliant in 2264. (TOS: "Court Martial"; PIC: "The Star Gazer" dedication placard)

Several Miranda-class starships were in service during the mid-2280s. (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

Construction of the Miranda-class continued well into the 24th century. One starship, the USS Brattain, was constructed by the Yoyodyne Division and launched on stardate 22519.5 at the 40 Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yards. (TNG: "Night Terrors" dedication plaque)

The Miranda-class was present in several major Federation engagements against the Borg, including the Battle of Wolf 359 and the Battle of Sector 001. (DS9: "Emissary"; Star Trek: First Contact)

Starships of the Miranda-class were also present in numerous Dominion War battles, where they often served as escorts. Many ships of the class saw action during Operation Return, the First and Second Battles of Chin'toka, and the Battle of Cardassia. (DS9: "Sacrifice of Angels", "Tears of the Prophets", "The Changing Face of Evil", "What You Leave Behind")

The Miranda-class was still in Starfleet service by 2378. (VOY: "Endgame")

In 2381, a Miranda-class ship, the USS MacDuff, featured in a holodeck program used by Ensign Beckett Mariner. (LD: "Strange Energies")

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Miranda_class?file=USS_Reliant%2C_aft_quarter.jpg

Joseph Michael Arpaio[3] (/ɑːrˈpaɪoʊ/; born June 14, 1932) is an American former law enforcement officer and politician. He was the Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona for 24 years, from 1993 to 2017, losing reelection to Democrat Paul Penzone in 2016.

Starting in 2005, Arpaio took an outspoken stance against illegal immigration, styling himself as "America's Toughest Sheriff".[4][5] In 2010, he became a flashpoint for opposition to Arizona's SB1070 anti-illegal immigrant law, which was largely struck down by the Supreme Court of the United States.[6][7] Arpaio is also known for investigating former U.S. President Barack Obama's birth certificate, and, as of 2018, he continued to claim without evidence that it was forged.[8][9]

Arpaio has been accused of numerous types of police misconduct, including abuse of power, misuse of funds, failure to investigate sex crimes, criminal negligence, abuse of suspects in custody, improper clearance of cases, unlawful enforcement of immigration laws, and election law violations. A Federal court monitor was appointed to oversee his office's operations because of complaints of racial profiling. The U.S. Department of Justice concluded that Arpaio oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling in U.S. history, and subsequently filed suit against him for unlawful discriminatory police conduct.[10] Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) were named as defendants in dozens of civil lawsuits brought by citizens arrested by Arpaio and his deputies alleging wrongful arrest, wrongful death, entrapment and other claims, costing taxpayers in Maricopa County over $140 million in litigation against Arpaio during his tenure as sheriff.[11][12]

Over the course of his career, Arpaio was the subject of several federal civil rights lawsuits. In one case, he was a defendant in a decade-long suit in which a federal court issued an injunction barring him from conducting further "immigration round-ups".[13] A federal court subsequently found that after the order was issued, Arpaio's office continued to detain "persons for further investigation without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is being committed."[13] In July 2017, he was convicted of criminal contempt of court, a crime for which he was pardoned by President Donald Trump on August 25, 2017.[14] In a separate racial-profiling case which concluded in 2013, Arpaio and his subordinates were found to have unfairly targeted Hispanics in conducting traffic stops.[15]

Although Arpaio sought another term as Maricopa County Sheriff in 2016, the contempt of court conviction eroded much of his remaining political support, and he was defeated in the election by Paul Penzone, a Democrat who reversed many of Arpaio's policies after taking office. Arpaio was an unsuccessful candidate in Arizona's Republican primary election for U.S. Senate in 2018. In 2020, Arpaio failed in his attempt to become the Maricopa County Sheriff again.[16][17] In 2022, he narrowly lost in his attempt to unseat the incumbent mayor of Fountain Hills, Arizona, garnering 49% of the vote.[18]

Early life

Arpaio was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on June 14, 1932,[19] to Italian parents, both from Lacedonia, Italy.[20] Arpaio's mother died while giving birth to him, and he was raised by his father,[21] who ran an Italian grocery store.[22][23] Arpaio completed high school and worked in his father's business until age 18 when he enlisted in the United States Army.[19][24] He served in the Army from 1950 to 1954 in the Medical Department and was stationed in France for part of the time as a military policeman.[24]

Following his army discharge in 1954, Arpaio moved to Washington, D.C., and became a police officer, moving in 1957 to Las Vegas, Nevada. He served as a police officer in Las Vegas for six months before being appointed as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which later became part of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).[25] During his 25-year tenure with the DEA, he was stationed in Argentina, Turkey, and Mexico, and advanced through the ranks to the position of head of the DEA's Arizona branch.[26]

After leaving the DEA, Arpaio became involved in a travel venture through his wife's travel agency Starworld Travel Agency, based in Scottsdale. While there, he sold passage on the Phoenix E space rocket, which was hoped to take off from either Edwards Air Force Base or Vandenberg Air Force Base on the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' voyage to the new world. Although he claimed in 1988 that the first 19 flights of the Phoenix E had been booked, no flights were ever made.[27][28]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio

Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.

Trump received a Bachelor of Science in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, and his father named him president of his real estate business in 1971. Trump renamed it the Trump Organization and reoriented the company toward building and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. After a series of business failures in the late twentieth century, he successfully launched side ventures that required little capital, mostly by licensing the Trump name. From 2004 to 2015, he co-produced and hosted the reality television series The Apprentice. He and his businesses have been plaintiff or defendant in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions, including six business bankruptcies.

Trump won the 2016 presidential election as the Republican Party nominee against Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton while losing the popular vote.[a] During the campaign, his political positions were described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist. His election and policies sparked numerous protests. He was the first U.S. president with no prior military or government experience. A special counsel investigation established that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to favor Trump's campaign. Trump promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist and many as misogynistic.

As president, Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, diverted military funding toward building a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border, and implemented a policy of family separations for migrants detained at the U.S. border. He weakened environmental protections, rolling back more than 100 environmental policies and regulations. He signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which cut taxes for individuals and businesses and set the financial penalty to nil for the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials, used political pressure to interfere with testing efforts, and spread misinformation about unproven treatments. Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. He met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times but made no progress on denuclearization.

Trump refused to concede after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, falsely claiming widespread electoral fraud, and attempted to overturn the results by pressuring government officials, mounting scores of unsuccessful legal challenges, and obstructing the presidential transition. On January 6, 2021, he urged his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol, which many of them then attacked, resulting in multiple deaths and interrupting the electoral vote count.

After Trump tried to pressure Ukraine in 2019 to investigate Biden, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached him for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress; the U.S. Senate acquitted him in February 2020. The House impeached him again in January 2021 for incitement of insurrection, making Trump the only American president to have been impeached twice; the Senate acquitted him in February. Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history.

Since leaving office, Trump has continued to dominate the Republican Party and is the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election. In 2023, a civil trial jury found that Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll, and in 2024, a New York state court found Trump liable for financial fraud; Trump is appealing both judgments. He is on trial in New York on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, and was indicted in three other jurisdictions: in Florida on 40 felony counts related to his mishandling of classified documents; in Washington, D.C., on four felony counts of conspiracy and obstruction for efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election; and in Georgia on ten charges of racketeering and other felonies committed in an effort to overturn the state's 2020 election results. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump

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The Phoenix warp ship was the first man-made, manned spacecraft to achieve light speed using warp drive that was constructed during the mid-21st century. The Phoenix was remembered as the ship that instigated Earth's First Contact with Vulcans.

History

Dr. Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive, built this warp ship inside a missile complex in Bozeman, Montana. The ship was initially a United States Air Force nuclear missile with a titanium casing. It took six months for Lily Sloane to scrounge enough titanium to build the four-meter cockpit of the Phoenix. Dr. Cochrane was the pilot, and Lily Sloane was initially intended to be one of the co-pilots. However, William Riker and Geordi La Forge (both time travellers of the USS Enterprise-E from 2373) served as the crew.

On April 4th 2063, less than forty-eight hours away from launch, a group of time-travelling Borg from the 24th century attempted to destroy the Phoenix. They managed to cause significant damage to various sections of the fuselage and the primary intercooler system. The throttle assembly was damaged, leaking dangerous levels of theta radiation. There were temperature variations in the fuel manifold, the intermix chamber needed to be reconstructed, and there was a damaged warp plasma conduit that needed to be replaced. All damage was repaired in time for the launch, with the help of the crew of the Enterprise, which had pursued the Borg from the future.

On April 5th, around 11 am, the Phoenix was launched. The first stage of the craft used traditional chemical engines. First-stage shutdown and separation was performed in orbit. The nacelles were extended, the warp core and plasma injectors were brought online, and the nacelles were charged. It took several seconds to accelerate to critical velocity. Light speed was then achieved by the craft. It is unclear whether there was ever an original timeline where the Phoenix launched without interference from the Borg or the Enterprise crew, or whether these events were always meant to happen. (Star Trek: First Contact; VOY: "Year of Hell")

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Phoenix

Operation Warp Speed (OWS) was a public–private partnership initiated by the United States government to facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.[1][2] The first news report of Operation Warp Speed was on April 29, 2020,[3][4][5] and the program was officially announced on May 15, 2020.[1] It was headed by Moncef Slaoui from May 2020 to January 2021 and by David A. Kessler from January to February 2021.[6] At the end of February 2021, Operation Warp Speed was transferred into the responsibilities of the White House COVID-19 Response Team.[7]

The program promoted mass production of multiple vaccines, and different types of vaccine technologies, based on preliminary evidence, allowing for faster distribution if clinical trials confirm one of the vaccines is safe and effective.[citation needed] The plan anticipated that some of these vaccines will not prove safe or effective, making the program more costly than typical vaccine development, but potentially leading to the availability of a viable vaccine several months earlier than typical timelines.[8]

Operation Warp Speed, initially funded with about $10 billion from the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) passed by the United States Congress on March 27, 2020,[1] was an interagency program that includes components of the Department of Health and Human Services, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA); the Department of Defense; private firms; and other federal agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.[1]

History

President Donald Trump formally announced Operation Warp Speed on May 15, 2020, in the White House Rose Garden.

On May 15, 2020, President Donald Trump officially announced the public-private partnership.[4][1][9] The purpose of Operation Warp Speed was to coordinate Health and Human Services-wide efforts, including the NIH ACTIV partnership for vaccine and therapeutic development, the NIH RADx initiative for diagnostic development, and work by BARDA.[1]

Operation Warp Speed was formed to encourage private and public partnerships to enable faster approval and production of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] The name was inspired by terminology for faster-than-light travel used in the Star Trek fictional universe, evoking a sense of rapid progress.[10][11]

The Food and Drug Administration announced on June 30, 2020, that a vaccine would need to be at least 50% effective for diminishing the severity of COVID-19 symptoms to obtain regulatory and marketing approval.[12]

In January 2021, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced that the program was expected to undergo a restructure and renaming under the Biden administration.[13][14] Also in January 2021, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, former Operation Warp Speed lead, was told not to use the name Operation Warp Speed anymore.[15] At the end of February 2021, responsibilities of Operation Warp Speed were transferred into the White House COVID-19 Response Team.[7][16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed

General Congregation 36

General Congregation 36 was called in 2016 after Adolfo Nicolás had announced his resignation, and it elected Arturo Sosa as Superior General to replace him. Taking its cue from Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato si', it emphasized that poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization are linked with environmental degradation.[14] In the second of its two decrees it called for greater commitment to discernment, collaboration, and networking, for a broader process for evaluating the Society's current apostolic preferences which included lay colleagues in the discernment.[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Congregation

La tiara papal es una corona que usan los papas de la Iglesia católica desde el siglo VIII hasta mediados del siglo XX. Fue utilizado por última vez por el Papa Pablo VI en 1963, y sólo al comienzo de su reinado.

El nombre tiara se refiere a todo el tocado, incluidas las diversas coronas, aros y diademas que lo han adornado a través de los tiempos,[1][2] mientras que la forma de tres niveles que adoptó en el siglo XIV también se llama triregno. [3][4] o la triple corona,[5] y en ocasiones como la triple tiara.[6][7][8]

De 1143 a 1963, la tiara papal se coloca solemnemente sobre la cabeza del Papa durante la coronación papal. Las tiaras papales supervivientes son todas de forma triple, la más antigua data de 1572. Una representación del triregno combinada con dos llaves cruzadas de San Pedro se utiliza como símbolo del papado y aparece en documentos, edificios e insignias papales, y en el Bandera de la Ciudad del Vaticano.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_tiara

The History of Fez begins with its foundation by Idris I and Idris II at the end of the 8th century and the beginning of the 9th century CE. It initially consisted of two autonomous and competing settlements on opposing shores of what is now known as the Oued Fes. Initially inhabited by a largely Berber (Amazigh) population, successive waves of mainly Arab immigrants from Ifriqiya (Tunisia) and al-Andalus (Spain/Portugal) over time gave the nascent city an Arab character as well. After the downfall of the Idrisid dynasty, it was contested between different Zenata groups allied with either the Fatimid Caliphate or the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba. In the 11th century the Almoravid sultan Yusuf ibn Tashfin conquered the region and united its two settlements into what is today the Fes el-Bali ("Old Fez") quarter. Under the rule of the Almoravids and of the Almohads after them, despite losing the status of capital to Marrakesh, the city remained the economic and political center of northern Morocco and gained a reputation for religious scholarship and mercantile activity.

Fez reached its zenith in the Marinid era (13th-15th centuries), regaining its status as political capital. In 1276 the Marinid sultan Abu Yusuf Yaqub also founded a separate royal city, Fes el-Jdid ("New Fes"), just west of Fes el-Bali, where the royal palace is still located today. Numerous new madrasas and mosques were constructed across Fez, many of which survive today, while other structures were restored. During this period the Jewish population of the city grew and the Mellah (Jewish quarter) was formed on the south side of this new district. After the overthrow of the Marinid dynasty, Fez underwent periods of decline and prosperity and often competed with Marrakesh for political and cultural influence. The city rose again in influence during the 19th century and remained the capital of the Alaouite sultanate until 1912, when it came under control of the French Protectorate in Morocco. The French colonial regime moved the capital to Rabat, where it remains today, and Fes underwent a political decline. The French also constructed a new city, the Ville Nouvelle, to the southwest, which grew into what is now most of the modern city of Fez.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Fez

Idris (Arabic: إدريس, romanized: ʾIdrīs) is an ancient prophet mentioned in the Quran, who Muslims believe was the third prophet after Seth.[1][2] He is the second prophet mentioned in the Quran. Islamic tradition has unanimously identified Idris with the biblical Enoch,[3][4] although many Muslim scholars of the classical and medieval periods also held that Idris and Hermes Trismegistus were the same person.[5][6][contradictory]

He is described in the Quran as "trustworthy" and "patient"[7] and the Quran also says that he was "exalted to a high station".[8][9] Because of this and other parallels, traditionally Idris has been identified with the biblical Enoch,[10] and Islamic tradition usually places Idris in the early Generations of Adam, and considers him one of the oldest prophets mentioned in the Quran, placing him between Adam and Noah.[11] Idris' unique status[12] inspired many future traditions and stories surrounding him in Islamic folklore.

According to hadith, narrated by Malik ibn Anas and found in Sahih Muslim, it is said that on Muhammad's Night Journey, he encountered Idris in the fourth heaven.[13] The traditions that have developed around the figure of Idris have given him the scope of a prophet as well as a philosopher and mystic,[14] and many later Muslim mystics, or Sufis, including Ruzbihan Baqli and Ibn Arabi, also mentioned having encountered Idris in their spiritual visions.[15]

Name

The name Idris (إدريس) has been described as perhaps having the origin of meaning "interpreter".[16] Traditionally, Islam holds the prophet as having functioned an interpretive and mystical role and therefore this meaning garnered a general acceptance. Later Muslim sources, those of the eighth century, began to hold that Idris had two names, "Idris" and "Enoch", and other sources even stated that "Idris' true name is Enoch and that he is called Idris in Arabic because of his devotion to the study of the sacred books of his ancestors Adam and Seth".[17] Therefore, these later sources also highlighted Idris as either meaning "interpreter" or having some meaning close to that of an interpretive role. Several of the classical commentators on the Quran, such as Al-Baizawi, said he was "called Idris from the Arabic dars, meaning "to study", from his knowledge of divine mysteries".[18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idris_(prophet)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate_of_C%C3%B3rdoba

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancho_Cordova,_California

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_missions_in_Baja_California

Sacramento Raceway Park (SRP), commonly shortened to Sacramento Raceway or Sac Raceway, was a motorsports track on 198 acres (80 ha) near Rancho Cordova, California and the former Mather Air Force Base, known for holding weekly drag race events and annual Governors Cup Championship. It was completed in 1964 and the last races were held in November 2023.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento_Raceway_Park

June 29 – Siege of Córdoba: Castilian forces under King Ferdinand III (the Saint) capture Muslim Córdoba from Emir Ibn Hud, as part of the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula.[2]

July – At a diet (princely convention) in Piacenza, Emperor Frederick II proclaims his wish to recover all Italy for the Holy Roman Empire.[3]

May 6 – Roger of Wendover, English Benedictine monk and chronicler, dies at St. Albans Abbey. His chronicle is continued by Matthew of Paris.

1236

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1236

1° 2° 3° 6°;

and also in others, by means of the Spiritual Exercises, 271

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Some say that the Templars derived their idea of their Order from that of the Hospitallars, who looked after Catholic pilgrims to Palestine; for there was little hospitality to be had from the native Orthodox Christians of those parts. Others hold that there was an even older Order from which they received their inspiration. No reliable evidence is, at this point however, available. [According to the "establishment" historians, although for those who really, really research the true history of the secret orders, and specifically the Knights Templars, there's a direct connection to the Assassins and the Roshaniya.]

Although the Templars were so poor than two men had to share a horse [they say, but that is not true at all] (and their Seal commemorated this decades after they became one of the richest communities of their time), they soon attracted favorable notice and support. [Now, the two knights riding a horse was a symbol of sacrifice. It denoted their vows of poverty. In truth, each knight now only had a horse, but he had what they called a yeoman. He had a spare horse, he had a pack horse, and he had several horses in reserve, and a whole train of servants. But the Knights Templar were the first true—as we know it in modern times, in modern times there were others before, but they were the first true in modern times—and by modern, I'd say, from the time that Europe escaped from the old tribal of paganism. In other words in 1110, I consider that to be beginning of the modern age. Although historians may disagree with me, it's the beginning of everything that has happened since, and everything that's happening today can be traced right to the door of the Knights Templar, and that's why I say that. They were the first modern order to practice what we now know as true Communism. They were the ones who brought international Socialism into Europe, which has always been the tenet and the creed of the Mystery Religion of Babylon.] Only one year after their establishment, Fulk, Count of Anjou, who had come to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage, joined as a married member and gave them an annual grant of thirty pounds of silver. This example was soon followed by other devout Western princes.

For the first nine years of their existence, the knights continued to live a life of chastity and poverty in accordance with their vows. They adopted a striped black and white banner, called the Beauséant, after their original piebald horse; and this word also became their battle-cry. Special raiment they had none, and they wore whatever clothes were given to them by the pious. But little by little, as one writer puts it, they were to become “haughty and insolent”.

[And the black and white banner, the translation of the meaning of which was for the, again, exoteric, for the real meaning of the black and white banner was the meaning of the androgynous god, the positive and the negative, the black and the white, the yin and the yang, the male and the female combined into one, and that was the real meaning of the black and white banner. And it's carried forth today on the floor of many of the temples of Freemasonry where the black and white checkered pattern exists, and in one famous cathedral in Europe built by the Knights Templar. They disguised their esoteric religion in an exoteric manner that would be accepted by Christianity.]

Baldwin of Jerusalem, who had been a prisoner in the hands of the Saracens and knew of their disunity, realized at about this time that Islam must eventually unite against the Christian invasion, and the decided that the Templars who prove ideal allies in the battles which were to come. In 1127, therefore, he sent two Templars with his strong recommendation to the Pope, applying for official recognition of the Order by the Holy See.

[And this is the first time that the Templars even were considered to be close to the center of religion, the Christian religion in that day, the Catholic church, the Pope. For they were not commissioned as a Christian order; they were not commissioned by the Pope or by the church, and this is a big myth that the Knights Templar started out to protect the church and to protect the pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. They were established first, primarily, and foremost as a branch of the ancient order of the Religion of Mystery Babylon. And it's indicative of the strategies that they've used since to endear themselves to whatever the established power, or the beliefs of the majority of the people might be.]

[When they went to see the Pope,] they had an introduction to St. Bernard himself, the Abbot of Clairvaux, who was known to be admirer of theirs, and who was a nephew of one of their envoys. Then the Grand Master himself arrived in Europe, and received the eulogistic opinion of the Abbot: “They go not headlong into battle, but with care and foresight, peacefully, as true children of Israel. But as soon as the fight had begun, they rush without delay upon the foe . . . and know no fear . . . one has often put to flight a thousand; two, ten thousand . . . gentler than lambs and grimmer than lions; theirs is the mildness of monks and the valor of the knight.” [Now folks, this was a strong recommendation, and this testimonial was part of the campaign of the Templars in their efforts at recognition of the Pope. All of you who have thought that they began as a religious order in the first place are so way off base that it's pathetic. And neither were the Jesuits a religious order in the first place, but we'll get that together in another broadcast.] [But] on the 31st [of] January [in the year] 1128, the Master appeared before the Council of Troyes. This formidable body consisted of the Archbishops of Rheims and Sens, ten bishops and a number of abbots—including St. Bernard himself - presided over by the Cardinal of Albano, the Papal legate. They were approved; and Pope Honorius chose for them a white mantle, completely plain. The red cross was added by order of Pope Eugenius III in 1146. [And see, you thought the Templars thought of this. Nope not at all. This was mandated by two Popes: first, the white mantle, completely plain; and then later the red cross was added by Pope Eugenius III in 1146.]

Hugh de Payens now took his delegation through France and England, and collected a number of recruits. Gifts and grants were showered upon the Order; lands, rents and arms were forthcoming from all quarters. Richard I of England was enthusiastic about them. By 1133, King Alfonso of Aragon and Naverre, who had fought the Spanish Moors in twenty-nine battles, had willed his country to them; although when the Moors finally laid him low his nobles prevented the Templars from claiming their rights. [Nevertheless, this was of great honor. In fact, to my knowledge and to our research into history, it never had before been done.]

In 1129 the Master, accompanied by three hundred knights, recruited from the noblest houses of Europe, led a huge train of pilgrims to the Holy Land. It was at this time that the Templars formed part of the Christian contingent which, allied with the Assassins, tried to take Damascus. [And it wasn't the first time nor the last that the Christian Knights Templar, or supposedly Christian Knights Templar (they really weren't Christian at all) were allied with the Assassins.] Were they (as the Orientalist von Hammer alleges)109 connected in some secret way with the Assassins? [Yes, our research shows that it is a historical fact. And it is also a historical fact that the Assassins were prepared to adopt Christianity if they could gain greater power thereby (Christianity, that is, on the surface, just as the Knights Templar had done)]. Hammer points to the similarities of the two organizations. The followers of Hasan Ibn Sabah were in contact with the Templars, and had a similar method of organization. They were in existence before the Templars were formed: “The Ismailians ([or] Assassins) was the original, and [folks] the Order of the Templars, [was] the copy.”

The balance of Western opinion is against this contention; more particularly because, one feels from wide reading of historians, great sympathy is felt for the cruelly treated and a arbitrarily dispossessed Templars. Thus Keightley, who made a close study of the Order those who would claim that the Templars were an Assassin branch [but, when you do research into the (laughs) associations and memberships of Keightley, you'll find that Keightley was himself a Knight Templar. And he said:]

“When, nearly thirty years after their institution, the Pope gave them permission to wear a cross on their mantle, like the rival Hospitaller Order, no color could present itself to well suited to those who daily and hourly exposed themselves to martyrdom as that of blood, in which there was so much of what was symbolical. With respect to internal organization it will, we apprehend, be always found that this is for the most part of the growth of time and the product of circumstances; and it always nearly the same where these last are similar.”110

[And you find this kind of rhetoric, semantics, all throughout the writings of those who wish to cover the true origin and the true meaning of Mystery Babylon.]

The famous question of the three thousand gold pieces paid by the Syrian branch of the Assassins to the Templars is another matter which has [of course] never been settled. One opinion holds that this money was given as a tribute to the Christians; the other, that it was a secret allowance from the larger to the small organization. [Which it really was as the Assassins wished to expand their control and remember their original goal was to take over the entire world by the systematic infiltration and control of each individual country.] Those who think that the Assassins were fanatical Moslems, and therefore would not form any alliance with those who to them were infidels, should be reminded that to the followers of the Old Man of the Mountains only he was right, and the Saracens who were fighting the Holy War for Allah against the Crusaders were as bad as anyone else who did not accept the Assassin doctrine.

[And it is true today: “If you are not one of us, you are nothing.” “The ends justify the means.” “The strength of our Order exists in the fact that we manifest ourselves under many different names and many different occupations, and sometimes even seem to oppose ourselves. But at the highest level, we are of one mind.” And I could go on, and on (laughs), and on, and you all know that I could go on and on and on. For I have studied this for so many years that I eat, drink and sleep it. Oh yes.]

[Well, eventually] grave charges against the Templars during the Crusades included the allegation that they were fighting for themselves alone. More than one historical incident bears this out. The Christians had besieged the town of Ascalon in 1153, and were engaged upon burning down the walls with large piles of inflammable materials. Part of the wall fell after a whole night of this burning. The Christian army was about to enter, when the Master of the Temple (Bernard de Tremelai) claimed the right to take the town himself. This was because the first contingent into a conquered town had the whole spoils. As it happened, the garrison rallied and killed the Templars, closing the breach. There seem good grounds for believing that the power which they had gained caused the Templars to devote their efforts as much to their own Order's welfare as to the cause of the Cross, in spite of their tremendous sacrifices for that cause. Having no loyalty to any territorial chief, they obeyed their Master alone, and hence no softening political pressure could be put upon them. [Well,] this might well have led to an idea that they were an invisible super-state [and that is exactly the fact]; and this does show some similarity with the invisible empire of the Assassins. If none can deny their bravery, their high-handedness and exclusivity, in less than a hundred and fifty years after their founding gave them the reputation of considering themselves almost a law unto themselves."

The Templars and the Assassins (aired March 2nd, 1993)

https://viefag.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/transcripts-of-william-cooper-s-mystery-babylon-series.pdf

Muhammad's first revelation was an event described in Islamic tradition as taking place in 610 CE, during which the Islamic prophet Muhammad was visited by the angel Jibril (Gabriel), who revealed to him the beginnings of what would later become the Qur'an. The event took place in a cave called Hira, located on the mountain Jabal An-Nour near Mecca.[1]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad%27s_first_revelation

CAVE of Saint Ignatius

The Cave of Saint Ignatius is part of the Manresan landscape. In this cave, built between the 17th and 18th centuries, the Saint, Ignatius of Loyola, retired to meditate and write his Spiritual Exercises."

https://www.covamanresa.cat/en/ignatian-manresa

Self-love, Progress measured by abandoning

Senses, Application of"

The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YC_luOfFWl0Bm0BWkbANKZGC1kkmdHQf/view?usp=sharing

Arrest and Sentencing

The proselytizing activities and successes of the alumbrados received its first serious blows in the spring of 1524. These blows came in spite of initial Inquisitorial misgivings that had given Alcaraz the impression that the case of the Guadalajara group was closed and that he was thus allowed to continue in the movement.19

The previous environment of religious and cultural diversity, reform and renaissance under the sponsorship of Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros that saw the publishing of a polyglot Bible in Toledo and the opening up of professorships in Hebrew and Arabic in Alcalá did not do anything to lessen the fervor of Inquisitorial prosecution. Alcaraz and Isabel de la Cruz had once again come under investigation, this time it involved a messy and complicated affair between Alcaraz and men he viewed as either his opponents or deviants from his own interpretation of alumbradismo. It was during this messy affair that Alcaraz was under the service of Don Diego López Pacheco, the Marquess of Villena.

At the Marquess’s estate in Escalona Alcaraz seems to have successfully proselytized and made alumbrados of the Marquess and his wife as well as a Mercederian fray. During this time Alcaraz met two men, Fray Juan de Olmillos and Fray Francisco de Ocaña who were, in J.C. Nieto’s terminology, “apocalyptic Franciscans”. Ocaña was wont to have prophetic visions and trances.

Alcaraz’s fervor, which in the past had given him successes in his proselytizing activities, was once again causing trouble. Hamilton opines, “Alcaraz continued to engineer his own downfall. He made no secret of his disapproval of those numerous individuals who had fallen under the spell of Ocaña and Olmilllos or who had been duped by Francisca Hernández.” Visions and trances were a point of contention for Alcaraz as it was for other alumbrados including Isabel de la Cruz. Alcaraz, however, had already had some disagreements for some time with Fray Francisco Ortiz and Francisco de Osuna concerning the value of these mystical endeavors. Alcaraz considered trances, visions and prophecy to be ataduras and thus undesirable. To engage in such activity would hinder one’s dejamiento or abandonment to God by refocusing the mind on prophecies that concerned themselves with the material.22 In his attempts to denounce Ocaña and Olmillos to the Franciscan provincial Alcaraz instead succeeded in calling attention to himself. In May of 1524 Francisco de Quiñones, the general of the Franciscan order, held the Inquisitorial chapter of Toledo in Escalona. On the 22nd of May a decree was issued that condemned the practices and activities of Isabel de la Cruz and Pedro Ruíz de Alcaraz.23

In spite of interventions by the Marquess of Villena on their behalf the pair were imprisoned, their trials and imprisonment lasting until 1529. Neither was put to death for his or her own heretical behavior. Both, however, suffered public humiliations including the wearing of the San Benito, the confiscation of their property and confinement in convents. By 1540 their confinements ended, their lives seemingly having returned to some normalcy.

24 When arrested in March of 1529 Francisca Hernández denounced a number of her former fellow alumbrados, including María de Cazalla, to the Inquisitors. Why she did this not entirely clear, but because she was not a typical beata it is postulated that she was simply trading favors with the Holy Office in order to ensure that her imprisonment remained “of the most comfortable kind” with a maid and other niceties.25 When her time for sentencing came Francisca was “confined in a convent of beatas of St. Benedict…it was not long before she moved to the house of one Perez de Montalvo and effectively disappears from the pages of history.”26

Even after having been denounced by Francisca, María de Cazalla was arrested rather late in 1532. María’s late arrest was likely due to her “higher social standing” and the ties she enjoyed to the elite of Castile.

27 It is this higher social standing that probably also afforded María one of the lightest sentences: she was simply abjured de levi and fined one hundred ducats.28

While the Inquisition essentially squashed the alumbrado movement in Toledo, the ideas and spirit of alumbradismo were not. “Alumbrado” entered the Inquisitors’ vocabulary of heresy and would remain in use as a category of heretical behavior into the seventeenth century. By the late sixteenth century in Extremadura and Seville other groups of individuals calling themselves alumbrados arose. While bearing some similarities, these groups were not exactly the same as the original Castilian iteration of alumbradismo. The scholarship on the groups in southern Spain has grown much in the last two decades, but these groups are even more problematic than their Castilian antecedents. On good grounds historians of the Castilian alumbrados question the sincerity of belief of the Llerena and Seville groups as well as the exact nature of their ties to the Castilian group(s).29

The focus of this thesis will remain the alumbrados of early sixteenth century Castile up until the arrest of Francisca Hernández in 1529."

EL SABOR DE HEREJIA: THE EDICT OF 1525, THE ALUMBRADOS AND THE INQUISITORS’ USAGE OF LOCURA by Javier A. Montoya

https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/uf/e0/04/13/85/00001/montoya_j.pdf

https://www.facebook.com/HisHolyChurchofAnonymous/posts/pfbid02BegqTyHp1bn6kFA9g8qUGkNzdny2UXuu9GzNvaJUWnUdEmVnD6smvUwodBj33goJl

The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California.[1] The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad.[2] The sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy; the sudden population increase allowed California to go rapidly to statehood in the Compromise of 1850. The gold rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population's decline from disease, starvation, and the California genocide.

The effects of the gold rush were substantial. Whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called "forty-niners" (referring to 1849, the peak year for gold rush immigration). Outside of California, the first to arrive were from Oregon, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), and Latin America in late 1848. Of the approximately 300,000 people who came to California during the gold rush, about half arrived by sea and half came overland on the California Trail and the California Road; forty-niners often faced substantial hardships on the trip. While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the gold rush attracted thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and China. Agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers. San Francisco grew from a small settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852. Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California. In 1849, a state constitution was written. The new constitution was adopted by referendum vote; the future state's interim first governor and legislature were chosen. In September 1850, California became a state.

At the beginning of the gold rush, there was no law regarding property rights in the goldfields and a system of "staking claims" was developed. Prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning. Although mining caused environmental harm, more sophisticated methods of gold recovery were developed and later adopted around the world. New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service. By 1869, railroads were built from California to the eastern United States. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, increasing the proportion of gold companies to individual miners. Gold worth tens of billions of today's US dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few, though many who participated in the California gold rush earned little more than they had started with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_gold_rush

The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners and nicknamed the Niners)[7] are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The team plays its home games at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, located 38 miles (61 km) southeast of San Francisco. The team is named after the prospectors of the California gold rush.[8]

The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and joined the NFL in 1949 when the leagues merged.[9][10][11] The 49ers were the first major professional sports team based in San Francisco. They are the 10th oldest franchise in the NFL, and have been family owned and operated exclusively by Italian Americans (Morabito and DeBartolo families, respectively) since the team's inception.[12][13] The team began play at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco before moving to Candlestick Park in 1971 and then to Levi's Stadium in 2014. Since 1988, the 49ers have been headquartered in Santa Clara.

The 49ers won five Super Bowl championships between 1981 and 1994. Four of those came in the 1980s, and were led by Hall of Famers Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott, Steve Young, Charles Haley, Fred Dean, and coaches Bill Walsh and George Seifert.[14] They have been division champions 22 times between 1970 and 2023, making them one of the most successful teams in NFL history.[15][16] The 49ers sit alone in NFL history for most playoff wins (38), having been in the league playoffs 30 times (29 times in the NFL and one time in the AAFC), and have also played in the most NFC Championship games (19), hosting 11 of them, also an NFC record. The team has set numerous notable NFL records, including most consecutive away games won (18), most points scored in a single postseason (131), most consecutive seasons leading the league in scoring (4), most consecutive games scored (420 games from 1977 to 2004),[17] most field goals in a season (44), most games won in a season (18), and most touchdowns (8) and points scored (55) in a Super Bowl.[18]

According to Forbes, the 49ers are the sixth most valuable team in the NFL, valued at $6.8 billion as of August 2024.[19] In June 2023, the enterprise branch of the 49ers completed the acquisition of English soccer club Leeds United.[20]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_49ers

11. Since Jesus died after three and a half years, how could He “confirm the covenant with many” (KJV) for all of the final seven years, as the prophecy in Daniel 9:27 mandates?

Answer: The covenant is His blessed agreement to save people from their sins (Hebrews 10:16, 17). After His ministry of three and a half years ended, Jesus confirmed the covenant through His disciples (Hebrews 2:3). He sent them first to the Jewish nation (Matthew 10:5, 6) because His chosen people still had three and a half years remaining of their 490-year opportunity to repent as a nation.

12. When the 490-year period of final opportunity for the Jewish nation ended in the fall of ad 34, what did the disciples do?

Answer: They began preaching the gospel to other people and nations of the world (Acts 13:46). Stephen, a righteous deacon, was publicly stoned in ad 34. From that date onward, the Jews, because they collectively rejected Jesus and God’s plan, could no longer be God’s chosen people or nation. Instead, God now counts people of all nationalities who accept and serve Him as spiritual Jews. They have become His chosen people—“heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:27–29). Spiritual Jews, of course, include Jewish people who individually accept and serve Jesus (Romans 2:28, 29).

https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/study-guide/e/4995/t/right-on-time--prophetic-appointments-revealed

Numerology and The Power of Nothing

The power of the zero reflects the power of nothing in numerology

The only way a 0 (zero) can be found in a chart is through deduction

The nine single-digit numbers, 1 through 9, each have very specific, easy to recognize attributes. The 0 (zero), however, has no attributes, no character traits, no description whatsoever. It's a blank page but with a twist.

The zero is the chameleon, the great enhancer, the multiplier and the gateway to infinity and immortality.

Whenever numbers are deducted, it's done in order to find a shortcoming, a weakness or a missing link. The zero then takes on the attributes of the 9: global awareness, compassion, tolerance, love and sacrifice, hence its nickname of "The Mother Theresa number." This makes sense in the usual elegant way of Numerology, since the number 9 can never be found as the result of deducting any single-digit number from another single digit.

The zero also has the ability to fine-tune and enhance the qualities of any other single-digit number. The 10 becomes a higher octave 1, the 20 raises the qualities of the 2, and so forth.

All of this is relatively mundane. It gets much more interesting when you pull the zero out of the environment of personal Numerology charts and look at it from a different perspective.

-Ω-

For as long as we can remember, a dialog has been going on between those who think everything started from nothing and those who believe that in the beginning there was something. And you and I, as children and young adults, found ourselves standing in between and getting an earful from both sides. Most of us chose a side early on and went on with our lives.

Then there are some of us who just can't make up our minds. I have to admit, for a long time I was one of those. My parents never propagated one side or the other, so I was left hanging, free to make up my own mind, which I did eventually.

Here's my two pennies worth: both sides are correct and both sides are wrong. I.e.: zero is something, and the something we refer to as the origin of everything is nothing.

I know, this sounds plain ludicrous. But as a useful analogy, let's look at the most important numerology development since -- well, since forever; the application of the 0 and 1 as the basis for everything digital. The symbolism here is beautiful. In what is, without a doubt, a time of exponential growth, we come up with this fantastic concept that, when it comes to finding answers for everything, only the 0 and 1 matter. Enter the digital age.

The question is this: Could the 1 exist without the 0, and vice versa? (The answer, of course, is no. Remove either the 0 or the 1, and the digital age is a goner.)

But let's get creative and put it another way: Can consciousness exist without unconsciousness?

Or: Can immortality exist without mortality?

-Ω-

Life without death?

Oh boy, this is really tricky. Because eventually it gets you to the final question: Could there be nothing at the beginning of everything without there being something? Or could there be something without there being nothing?

I will refrain from answering these crazy questions. I am just dropping them at your feet to do with as you please. As for me, I am happy to know that asking these kind of questions is extremely satisfying and enjoyable, even as I am convinced that the answer is worth absolutely nothing. At least if the answer is a product of the mind and subsequently accepted or rejected by said mind.

All the brain power in the world can't produce the answer because it doesn't exist in the world of zeroes and ones, or any other number. It never will. This is one question to which the answer cannot be spoken or thought or expressed or judged or touched or even imagined. That's not where the answer exists.

What you can do though, is look around. See the way a father holds his child, watch a teenager risk his life to save a dog from drowning, recognize the depth and sacred consciousness in the eyes of a horse, smell the smells of a wet forest, look at the oon and the stars on a clear night, sit on a terrace with a double espresso and feel the sun on your shoulders. You can let your heart be touched by the generosity of strangers or the bravery of a soldier.

You don't have to judge any of these things. You can just let it happen, and it always, and I mean always, feels good. And when you feel good, "IT" feels good, and it no longer matters whether the origin of everything was nothing or some "thing". All that matters is what exists now, you, me, everything else, and "IT." Whether that "IT" is something or nothing doesn't make one iota of a difference.

-Ω-

From Numerology Questions - a Dear Hans column:

Two people who ask a similar question about what the 0 (zero) in a chart means and how they can result from a calculation.

-Ω-

Vikas, from Bangalore, India, asks:

What does a chart indicate of a person with no challenges (all zero) in a chart?

And Semih, from the Netherlands, asks:

Why is the number 0 (zero) not actively being used in numerology and are no qualities and attributes given to it? For it is always there even if it is not visible.

Dear Vikas and Semih,

Since your questions overlap, I will answer both here.

In chart calculations, the 0 (zero) can be found only as the result of deducting numbers.

There are a few places where we deduct, most prominently with Challenges, but also Bridge numbers and a few more obscure aspects. The largest difference between two single digit numbers is 8 (9 minus 1). Therefore, it is impossible to arrive at a 9 as the result of deducting single digit numbers; however, you can arrive at 0 (9 minus 9, 8 minus 8, etc.).

When that happens, the zero takes on the qualities of the 9.

Vikas, when you say all your Challenges are zeroes, it means your Challenges are aligned with the qualities of the 9. In other words, you’re not off the hook. You can learn more about a 0 Challenge here.

Semih, the zero either has the qualities of the 9 when found through deduction, or it enhances the qualities of any double-digit number that ends with 0.

For example, 10 is a high-octave 1. 20 is a sharper defined version of 2, while 30 is a more defined 3, and so forth. This is why 3 based on 30 is different from a 3 based on 12, or 21. You can learn more about double-digit numbers here.

Hans Decoz

https://www.worldnumerology.com/blog/numerology-power-of-nothing.htm#gsc.tab=0

VENICE AND GENOA COMBINE

For Venice, so far so good: Florence, Naples, and Milan had been ruined. But ironically, the same dumb Valois and Hapsburg giants which had taken out three dangerous rivals were now to turn like Frankenstein’s monsters on the wily new Romans. Venetian manipulations were about to boomerang in the form of an alliance of all of Europe against Venice. This was the famous crisis of the War of the League of Cambrai, which was assembled in 1508-1509. The opposing coalition was made up of the pope (by then the Genoese Giuliano della Rovere, as Julius II), the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, France, Spain, Savoy, Mantua, and Ferrara. The announced purpose of this alliance was to expunge Venice from the face of the earth. It nearly worked. At Agnadello, near the Adda River, the Venetian mercenary army was crushed by an army composed predominantly of Frenchmen. The Venetians were driven all the way down the Po Valley to Padua, and they soon lost that as well. Machiavelli exulted that on the day of Agnadello, the Venetians lost everything that they had conquered in more than 800 years. Machiavelli was himself engaged in operations against Venice, bringing a grant of Florentine cash to the aid of the Franco- Imperial forces holding Verona. With nothing left but the lagoons, the Venetian position was desperate. The doge sent a message to the pope asking for mercy, and announcing that Venice would vacate territory taken in the past from the Papal States. Inside Venice, Agnadello brought on an orgy of hysterical self-flagellation among the terrified patricians. The banker Girolamo Priuli wrote in his diary that Agnadello had been a punishment for the sins of the Venetian nobility, among which he numbered arrogance, violation of promises, lechery in nunneries, sodomy, effeminate dress, and luxurious and lascivious entertainments. Antonio Contarini, newly appointed patriarch of Venice, gave a speech to the Senate in which he characterized the Serenissima as a thoroughly amoral city. The defeat was a punishment for the city’s sins, he said. Nunneries were catering to the sexual needs of the rich and powerful. Homosexuality was so widespread that female prostitutes had complained to him that they had earned so little during their youth that they had to keep working far into their old age. But more significantly, the shock of Agnadello set into motion a strategic review in the Venetian intelligence community which led to very far-reaching conclusions, some of which were not obvious before several decades had gone by. The first Venetian ploy was to attempt to dismember the Cambrai coalition. They started with Pope Julius II. This pontiff was, as already noted, Genoese. Genoa and Venice had engaged in a series of highly destructive wars up till about the end of the fourteenth century, but after that, Genoa gravitated toward the status of junior partner and close associate of the Venetians. The Venetians had bested the Genoese by virtue of superior connections in the East, but otherwise their was a broad area of agreement. The symbol of Genoa was St. George the dragon-slayer, in reality no saint at all but a thinly disguised version of Perseus saving Andromeda by slaying the sea monster, a legend that is centered on the coast of Lebanon. The “George” is said to come from the Gorgon Medusa, whose head Perseus was carrying. Perseus is in turn nothing but a westernized variant of Marduk, the Syrian Apollo, a deity associated with the most evil forces of ancient Assyria and Babylon. The Venetians had their own Marduk cult, although subordinated to St. Mark, on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, home of a Dominican monastery and today of the Cini Foundation, one of the highest level think tanks in the world. The modern British preference of Gorgons is too well known to need comment. What probably accounted more directly for Julius II’s decision to reverse his alliances was a deal mediated with the Venetians by Agostino Chigi, the Siena Black Guelph banker from whose financial empire the infamous Siena Group of today derives. He proposed that the Venetians stop buying alum, needed in textile and glass manufacture, from the Turks, but contract for a large shipment at higher prices from the alum mines at Tolfa in the Papal States – mines for which he, Chigi, was acting as agent. To sweeten the pot, Chigi offered the Venetians tens of thousands of ducats in much-needed loans.

The Venetians, fearing a rapid French offensive, accepted. Their own state finances were in total shambles. Only the Chigi loan allowed them to hire enough Swiss mercenaries to hold out against the French and the Imperial Landsknechte. To provide a plausible cover for his move, Julius II suddenly discovered that the real issue was not Venice after all, but the need to expel the barbarians (primarily the French) from Italy. Julius stipulated an alliance with Venice. He then set up the slogan of Fuori Barbari! (Kick the Barbarians out!) which is still recorded by credulous writers of Italian school books as the beginning of the struggle to unify Italy. Even the Venetian mercenaries, mostly Swiss, began using the battle cry of “Italy and Freedom!” Thus the post-Agnadello crisis was overcome. Some years later the Venetians tried the same tactic in reverse, this time with more lasting success. By 1525 the prevalent barbarians in Italy were the forces of Emperor Charles V, who had defeated the French at Pavia, capturing King Francis I. The French lost their hold on Naples and Milan. At this point Doge Andrea Gritti, whose portrait by Tiziano speaks volumes about his personality, decided to agitate once again the banner of Italian freedom. This took the form of the Holy League of Cognac “for the restoration of Italian liberty,” uniting France, Venice, Milan, Florence, and the Papal States under Pope Clement VIII Medici. After having set up this alliance, designed to play the French against Charles V once again to destroy Medici-controlled Rome, the last intact Renaissance center, the Venetians retired into defensive positions to await the outcome. Venetian capacities to manipulate Charles V were formidable indeed. The emperor’s bankers and intelligencers were the Fuggers of Augsburg, a banking house and a city that must be regarded as Venetian satellites, within a context of very heavy Venetian control of the cities of the Danube valley. Virtually every young male member of the Fugger family, and of their colleagues the Welsers as well, was sent to Venice for a period of apprenticeship at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. This was the case with Jacob Fugger the Rich. Venice was the pivot for Fugger metals trading, especially toward the East. Thus, the Venetians stayed in their phony war posture against Charles V, while the imperial army of Lutheran Lanzi under Georg Frundsberg devastated Italy. The sack of Rome in 1527 was the direct outcome of this combined Venetian diplomacy and manipulation. To make Charles V’s triumph complete, the Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria, commanding the French fleet, defected to the imperial side. A Doria coup in Genoa then established a permanent de facto alliance with Venice. In 1530, Charles V was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor and King of Italy in a ceremony at Bologna. Garrisons of imperial troops were shortly stationed in every major city. Thanks to the tenacious policy of the Venetians, the main centers of the Renaissance had been subverted or destroyed. Venice was the only major Italian state which had retained real sovereignty. With the end of the Renaissance, Venice could feel free to start a delphic Renaissance among the throngs of intellectuals seeking asylum in the lagoons.

THE CREATION OF THE JESUITS

The “long autumn of the Italian Renaissance in Venice” during the rest of the sixteenth century was only one deployment among several. Another was the promotion of the Protestant Reformation. The more immediate controllers of Martin Luther have yet to be identified, but this is something of a secondary matter. Luther’s agitation in Wittenberg was merely one more example of protests against the papacy and the Curia that had been chronic and endemic for decades. What gave Luther and the rest of the Protestant reformers real clout was a publicity and diffusion of their ideas that owed much to the Venetian publishing establishment. The Venetian presses quickly turned out 40,000 copies of the writings of Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, and the heresiarch Juan Valdes, especially popular in Italy. Pope Leo X publicly denounced the University of Padua as the hotbed of inspiration of the German disease of Lutheranism. Clearly, Venetian interest was well-served by a schismatic movement that would embroil Germany, France, and the rest of Europe in a series of easily profiled conflicts. In addition, a conflict between reformers and counter- reformers, all owing allegiance to Aristotle, would severely undercut the influence of Erasmus and others like him. Venetian influence on both Reformation and Counter- Reformation can be seen most clearly in the remarkable career of Gasparo Contarini, who did not let the fact that he was a Protestant in theology, well before Luther, prevent him from founding the Society of Jesus. Contarini was the scion of one of Venice’s most prestigious LONGHI families. The Contarinis had produced seven doges, and Gasparo had his sights set on being the eighth, before he was tapped to serve Venice as a member of the College of Cardinals. He served the Serene Republic as ambassador to the court of Charles V, and as ambassador to the Vatican, where he took a role in setting up the Medici Pope Clement VII for the 1527 sack of Rome. Toward the end of his life, Contarini was sent as papal legate to the Imperial Diet at Regenburg, where he represented the Roman point of view in debates with schismatics like Melancthon. There, he had a hand in destroying any compromise between the Lutherans and the Emperor Charles, which would have helped to end the bloodshed and dissension of the Reformation years. What does this sublime Venetian patrician have to do with the founding of the Jesuit order by that itinerant and deranged mystic, Ignatius of Loyola? Ignatius was the creature of Venice, and of Contarini in particular. In 1521, Ignatius was wounded while fighting the French in one of the wars of Charles V. During his convalescence, he underwent his much-touted mystical crisis, after which he took up the life of a hobo. Making his way around Europe seeking funding for a pilgrimage to the holy land, Ignatius found his way to Venice, where he camped out in St. Mark’s Square and lived by begging. One evening the Venetian oligarch Marcantonio Trevisan was sleeping in his golden palace, and had a vision. An angel came to him asking, “Why are you sleeping so soundly in your warm bed, while in the square there is a holy man, a poor pilgrim who needs your help?” Trevisan rushed downstairs to find Ignatius, who became his house guest, fleas and all. After that, Ignatius was given an audience with the doge, Andrea Gritti, who offered him passage to Cyprus on a Venetian warship as first leg of his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Ignatius continued his travels, but soon returned to Venice to develop relationships with other members of the oligarchy. These included Gasparo Contarini’s nephew Pietro, who became a recipient of Ignatius’ patented brainwashing treatment, the Exercitationes Spirituales. Then Ignatius made his way to Rome. Here he became the protégé of Gasparo Contarini, who had been appointed to the College of Cardinals by Pope Paul III Farnese. The cardinal took the Exercitationes Spirituales, and appointed Ignatius his personal confessor and spiritual advisor. By 1540, Contarini had personally interceded with the pope against Ignatius’ enemies within the church hierarchy to ensure the founding of the Society of Jesus as a new Church order. In June 1539, Contarini personally traveled to the pope’s summer residence at Tivoli, and prevailed on the pontiff to let him read aloud the statutes of the new order composed by Ignatius. The pope must have been favorably impressed by something. His approving comment Hic est digitus Dei, (”Here is the finger of God”), has become a feature of the turgid Jesuit homiletics.

The Venetian Conspiracy

« Against Oligarchy

Webster G. Tarpley

https://ia600902.us.archive.org/1/items/pdfy--vMPBwiHw_IDIeob/Against%20Oligarchy%20by%20Webster%20Griffin%20Tarpley.pdf

The Moroni family (sometimes "Morone") was a moderately powerful noble family in Italy. Their Baroque Palazzo Moroni in Bergamo is a tourist attraction."

House of Moroni - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Moroni

The angel Moroni (/moʊˈroʊnaɪ/[1]) is an angel whom Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, reported as having visited him on numerous occasions, beginning on September 21, 1823. According to Smith, the angel Moroni was the guardian of the golden plates buried near his home in western New York, which Latter Day Saints believe were the source of the Book of Mormon. An important figure in the theology of the Latter Day Saint movement, Moroni is featured prominently in its architecture and art. Besides Smith, the Three Witnesses and several other witnesses also reported that they saw Moroni in visions in 1829.

Moroni is thought by Latter Day Saints to be the same person as a Book of Mormon prophet-warrior named Moroni, who was the last to write in the golden plates. According to the Book of Mormon, the angel Moroni was a pre-Columbian warrior who buried the golden plates. After he died, he became an angel who was tasked with directing Smith to their location in the 1820s. According to Smith, he then returned the golden plates to Moroni after they were translated and, as of 1838, Moroni still had the plates in his possession.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Moroni

Bible Verses about Fallen Angels

Compiled by The BibleStudyTools Staff on 09/19/2019

What does the Bible say about Fallen Angels? Discover the top Bible verses about Fallen Angels from the Old and New Testaments. Read through the biblical references of Fallen Angels to learn more about its meaning and significance. May you find some insight from these related scripture quotes!

To find the full context of shorter scripture quotes, click on "Chapter" above each verse.

Jude 1:6

6 And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.

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2 Peter 2:4

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;

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Matthew 25:41

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

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Matthew 22:30

30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

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Hebrews 1:14

14 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

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Revelation 12:9

9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

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Luke 10:18

18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

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Hebrews 13:2

2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

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Revelation 12:7-9

7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.

8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.

9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

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Matthew 18:10

10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.

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Matthew 26:53

53 Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-fallen-angels/

Mantua was settled in the mid-19th century when members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were sent by Lorenzo Snow to the valley to grow flax. The first group arrived in Mantua in 1863 (although a sign at the main entry route states "Founded 1864"),[6] and were all émigrés from Denmark led by Hans Jens Jensen. Snow was from Mantua, Ohio, and the town was named after the Ohio community in his honor. Due to Danish pronunciation the town's pronunciation was changed to ("man-Away") unlike Ohio's ("man-tooway")[7] Prior to receiving its current name, the community was called Box Elder Valley, Copenhagen, Flaxville, Geneva, Hunsaker Valley, Little Copenhagen, and Little Valley.[8][9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantua,_Utah

Lagoon is a family owned amusement park in Farmington, Utah, located about 18 miles north of Salt Lake City. Lagoon is divided into five main areas: The Midway, containing the majority of the rides; Pioneer Village, which has several exhibits displaying pioneer buildings and artifacts; Lagoon-A-Beach, a water park; Kiddie Land, an area with several rides for small children; and X-Venture Zone, featuring more extreme rides that are upcharge. Lagoon also offers an RV park, a campground, and a walking trail outside the park that stays open all year. Every autumn, the park offers Halloween-themed shows and attractions, collectively known as Frightmares.

Lagoon has eleven roller coasters, six of which are unique: Colossus the Fire Dragon, one of two remaining Schwarzkopf Double Looping coaster still in operation in the United States; Roller Coaster, one of the oldest coasters in the world, operating since 1921; Wicked, designed by Lagoon's engineering department and Werner Stengel in cooperation with ride manufacturer Zierer; BomBora, a family coaster designed in-house; Cannibal, built in-house with one of the world's steepest drops; and Primordial, an interactive dark ride coaster/3-D shooter game attraction inside an artificial mountain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagoon_(amusement_park)

The Mountain Meadows Massacre (September 7–11, 1857) was a series of attacks during the Utah War that resulted in the mass murder of at least 120 members of the Baker–Fancher emigrant wagon train.[1][a] The massacre occurred in the southern Utah Territory at Mountain Meadows, and was perpetrated by settlers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) involved with the Utah Territorial Militia (officially called the Nauvoo Legion) who recruited and were aided by some Southern Paiute Native Americans.[2] The wagon train, made up mostly of families from Arkansas, was bound for California, traveling on the Old Spanish Trail that passed through the Territory.

After arriving in Salt Lake City, the Baker–Fancher party made their way south along the Mormon Road, eventually stopping to rest at Mountain Meadows. As the party was traveling west there were rumors about the party's behavior towards Mormon settlers and war hysteria towards outsiders was rampant as a result of a military expedition dispatched by President Buchanan, and Territorial Governor Brigham Young's declaration of martial law in response.[3][4][5] While the emigrants were camped at the meadow, local militia leaders, including Isaac C. Haight and John D. Lee, made plans to attack the wagon train. The leaders of the militia, wanting to give the impression of tribal hostilities, persuaded Southern Paiutes to join with a larger party of militiamen disguised as Native Americans in an attack. During the militia's first assault on the wagon train, the emigrants fought back, and a five-day siege ensued. Eventually, fear spread among the militia's leaders that some emigrants had caught sight of the white men, likely discerning the actual identity of a majority of the attackers. As a result, militia commander William H. Dame ordered his forces to kill the emigrants. By this time, the emigrants were running low on water and provisions, and allowed some members of the militia – who approached under a white flag – to enter their camp. The militia members assured the emigrants they were protected, and after handing over their weapons, the emigrants were escorted away from their defensive position. After walking a distance from the camp, the militiamen, with the help of auxiliary forces hiding nearby, attacked the emigrants. The perpetrators killed all the adults and older children in the group, in the end sparing only seventeen young children under the age of seven.[a]

Following the massacre, the perpetrators buried some of the remains but ultimately left most of the bodies exposed to wild animals and the climate. Local families took in the surviving children, with many of the victims' possessions and remaining livestock being auctioned off. Investigations, which were interrupted by the American Civil War, resulted in nine indictments in 1874. Of the men who were indicted, only John D. Lee was tried in a court of law. After two trials in the Utah Territory, Lee was convicted by a jury, sentenced to death, and executed by firing squad on March 23, 1877.

Historians attribute the massacre to a combination of factors, including war hysteria about a possible invasion of Mormon territory and Mormon teachings against outsiders, which were part of the Mormon Reformation period. Scholars debate whether senior leadership in Mormonism, including Brigham Young, directly instigated the massacre or if responsibility for it lay only with the local leaders in southern Utah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_Massacre

Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”

That is the law of God as laid down in the beginning; that if a man shall shed blood, by man shall his blood be shed. Why? Because the blood is the life of the flesh, and is the only atonement a man can make for killing another. A murderer, by the shedding of his blood, may make some atonement for his sin; but he cannot come forth and inherit an exaltation in eternal life, he must be content with a less degree of glory. Still, as Brother Brigham taught, there is a chance for some men who have committed this great transgression if their blood be shed, and there are others who, even if they were willing to have their blood shed, could not obtain forgiveness for their transgressions. You can read about this in the revelation on celestial marriage. (Doctrine and Covenants, Sec. cxxxii,par. 26-7.) They are those who have not only been baptized into the Church of Christ, received the power of the Holy Spirit and been enlightened from on high, but have been in the most sacred places on the earth, ordained of God by His holy law, and have made special covenants in relation to that and other sins; they have been specially enlightened ; they have gone from step to step, from grace to grace, from knowledge to knowledge, and have had keys of power placed in their hands whereby, if they are faithful, they may climb to the highest pinnacle of honor and glory in the presence of our Heavenly Father, and then they turn round and commit this great transgression, the shedding of innocent blood. For them there is no forgiveness. They will be banished from the presence of God; they cannot inherit the glory which was sealed upon them, however repentant they may be; they cannot come up in the first resurrection and enter into their exaltation; but they must be cast out from the presence of God and have the everlasting penalty pronounced,

“Depart from me ye workers of iniquity.”

They will be banished from the presence of God,, which is spiritual destruction, that spiritual death which is called the “second death.”

But, there are other persons who by making thisitonement may obtain redemption—persons that have not advanced to this degree of knowledge in understanding, and whose sins are not of so* heinous a nature. Because sin is guaged by the light of the individual. The depth of man’s infamy is guaged by the degree of his light and is opportunity. He that knows much is expected to do much. Of him that knows but little, only little is expected. If a man has great light and he sins he is the greater sinner. I have heard people argue that all sin is the result of ignorance. Well, it is just the other way. Sin is rather the result of knowledge ; because a man cannot sin without some light. An idiot cannot sin, because he is responsible. It takes a responsible being to do responsible wrong. The more responsible a man is, the greater wrong he does if he commits transgression.

The greater a man’s light is, the greater is sin. The greater the light, the greater the condemnation for doing wrong. That is based upon the eternal principle of justice. From this, then, it would seem that if a man commits a sin unto death there is no redemption : if not unto death, and he pays the penalty, there is for him a chance of salvation.

This divine law for shedding the blood of a murderer has never been repealed. It is a law given by the Almighty and not abrogated in the Christian faith. It stands on record for all time that a murderer shall have his blood shed. He that commits murder must be slain. “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” I know there are some benevolent and I philanthropic people in these times who think that capital punishment ought to be abolished.

Yet I think the Lord knows better than they. Their law He has ordained will have the best results to mankind in general.

Well, is there any other sin that a man may commit which is worthy of death? I think there is. I will refer you to one in the Book of Leviticus, 20th chapter and 10th verse:

“And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and; the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

That was the law of God in the days of Moses. It was the law of God previous to the days of Moses, as you will find by reference to the Book of 1 Genesis. It has been a law of God from the beginning. Some people have an idea that Jesus.

Christ did away with that law, and they bring up the case of the woman that had been taken in transgression. The object of the Pharisees in bringing the woman to the Savior was that they might catch Him in some way. You will find by a reading the history of Jesus Christ’s ministry on the earth that it was then as it is to-day—snares are all the time being laid to catch the servants of God. They tried to entrap Him in many ways but He was able to meet them with the wisdom of the Great God ; for the Spirit of God was given to Him without measure. The woman they brought to Him was taken in this great transgression. The Pharisees knew the law -of Moses was that she should be put to death. They inquired what Jesus had to say. He stooped down and thought a little while, then wrote with His finger on the ground and exclaimed, “Let him that is without sin cast the first stone !

”The Pharisees looked at each other and finally they slipped away. Why ? Because that was “an evil and adulterous generation.’’

Those self-righteous hypocrites were guilty of the transgression themselves, and the person to inflict the penalty justly, had to be one who was not guilty; for how could one such sinner rightly inflict the penalty upon another? Jesus Christ’s words smote them to the heart, and they slunk off and left the woman standing there. Did the sinner go free? Did Jesus say the law ought not to be inflicted? No. He asked: “Woman, where are thine accusers ?” They were gone. “Neither do I accuse thee.” It must be remembered that there must be accusers as well as judges. Jesus set a pattern which judges in these times would do well to follow. He did not act as an attorney for the prosecution or as a witness against the accused as well as a judge to pronounce the sentence. “Woman, where are those thine accusers ? * * *

Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” pages 26-27

Blood atonement, as taught by leading elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints : an address delivered in the Twelfth Ward assembly hall, Salt Lake City, October 12, 1884 (archive.org)

Mormon Freemason Brigham Young, 1801 – 1877 “The Prophet” of the Romish-styled Mormon Church, 1844 – 1877 The birth of Masonic Mormonism, and thus the fame of Brigham Young, can only be understood in light of America’s anti-Masonic movement of the 1820s. In August of 1826 Captain William Morgan of the Batavia Lodge of New York made public his Illustrations of Masonry By One of the Fraternity Who Has Devoted Thirty Years to the Subject. For revealing the first three degrees of Blue Lodge Masonry, Morgan was kidnapped; on the 19th of September he was drowned in the Niagara River. The people of western New York, where Morgan had lived, rose in all their might and attempted to find and punish the murderers. But to their surprise, sheriffs, witnesses, jurors and judges hindered the investigation, as they too were secret Masons bound by oaths of loyalty to the brotherhood over all civil oaths of duty to their communities. The outrage led to an anti-Masonic convention in 1828; in 1829 Baptist Preacher David Bernard published his Light On Free Masonry, revealing the first twenty degrees of the Craft. By 1830 tens of thousands of Northern Masons had disbanded their lodges. It was at this time Masonic Mormonism was born! On April 6, 1830, in the very same state out of which arose the anti-Masonic movement, Mason Joseph Smith (boldly calling himself “a Second Mohammed”) privately founded a “New Religious Society” (surnamed after the “Society of Jesus”)—“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” Fully intending to build “the temple of Zion, the center of the earthly kingdom of Jesus Christ,” Zionist Smith fell into disrepute over his polygamy. In 1844 he was murdered in jail by a mob while giving the Masonic “Grand Hailing Sign of Distress,” and Brigham Young became “The Prophet.” In 1846 at Council Bluffs, while moving 10,000 of his followers West, Young met with one of the Order’s most powerful American Jesuits, Pierre-Jean De Smet. The Jesuit directed Young to move his “Saints” to the Great Valley of the Salt Lake; Young obeyed, and upon arrival organized his new nation of “Deseret” along the lines of the Order’s socialist Paraguayan Reductions. In 1857 Masonic President James Buchanan, controlled by the Jesuits since his early 1857 arsenic poisoning, began a political agitation over the governorship of Utah, igniting the bloodless “Utah War.” He dispatched a military force led by Masonic Army Colonel Albert Sydney Johnston to put down Masonic Young’s refusal to submit to Federal jurisdiction. In this, Young’s “Deseret” only benefited, Johnston allowing Mormon raiders to “steal” 800 Army oxen. That same year Young ordered Bishop John D. Lee to lead a force composed of Mormons and Paiute Indians to murder nearly 130 “heretic” Protestant emigrants at Mountain Meadows—pursuant to the Order’s wicked Council of Trent and bloody Jesuit Oath. In the Spring of 1858 Masonic President Buchanan arranged for a free pardon if the Mormons would submit to Federal authority. The chief negotiator between both parties was the Jesuit, Pierre-Jean De Smet! Jesuit Coadjutor Brigham Young died in 1877, and will one day answer to the Lord Jesus Christ!"

Vatican Assassins Wounded In The House Of My Friends

Third Edition

by Eric Jon Phelps https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uQl1CmWeLL87RWVtzKttGFKm0frSNR8D/view?usp=sharing

Figure 18 — Famous Morman/Mason during Anti-Masonic Movement.

3rd degree Joseph Smith (1805-1844)

Founder of the Mormon Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). Born in a poor family that migrated to Palmyra NY in 1815.

The angel Moroni is said to have revealed the Book of Mormon to Smith, written on golden plates, which he was able to transcribe by the use of "Urim and Thummim," instruments of magical power.

His critics say that the Book of Mormon is based on an imaginative tale written in Biblical style by a former Presbyterian minister, Samuel Spaulding, but never published.

The manuscript was delivered to Smith by Sidney Rigdon, who helped revise it. Shortly afterwards Rigdon became one of the presidents of the church.

Book of Mormon was printed in Palmyra, NY in 1830, during the height of the Anti-Masonic Movement. The church was founded on April 6 of that year at the home of Peter Whitmer in Fayette, NY. Smith's first wife was the widow of former Freemason Capt. William Morgan, who was murdered by three Masons four years earlier. In 1831, Smith, with his new wife and band of Mormons, moved to Kirtland, OH, then to Missouri in 1838.

The Mormons ran into trouble at Independence and Far West, MO, and were removed from the state by the militia and settled at Commerce, IL.

Smith, Rigdon, and others were arrested for "murder, treason, burglary, arson and larceny," but allowed to escape and join the others at Commerce.

Commerce was renamed Nauvoo by the Mormons. Here Smith governed despotically with the aid of a small group of advisors.

In Commerce was a Masonic Lodge to which the leaders of the Mormons attached themselves. When the Mormons renamed the city Nauvoo, so too was the Lodge renamed. In Smith's journal, March 15, 1842, he wrote:

"I officiated as Grand Chaplain at the installation of the Nauvoo Lodge of Freemasons at the Grove near the Temple. Grand Master Jonas, of Columbus, being present, a large number of people assembled for the occasion. The day was exceedingly fine; all things were done in order. In the evening I received the first degree in Freemasonry in Nauvoo Lodge." The following day Smith added, "I was with the Masonic Lodge and rose to the sublime degree." At the same time Sidney Rigdon received his degrees "at sight" with Smith.

Over the next five months, the Nauvoo Lodge initiated (1O) 256 candidates and raised (3rd degree) 243. Consequently, Bodley Lodge No. 1 of Illinois preferred charges against Nauvoo Lodge on July 15, 1842, asking the Grand Lodge of Illinois to "make inquiry into the manner the officers of Nauvoo Lodge were installed by the Grand Master of this State, and by what authority the Grand Master initiated (1O), passed (2nd degree) and raised (3rd degree) Smith and Rigdon to the first three degrees of Freemasonry all at once. A special Masonic committee visited Nauvoo, inspected the records and work and recommended that the lodge be permitted to resume labor. After this inspection by Grand Lodge, the Mormons did so much Masonic work that two more lodges were established; Rising Sun Lodge at Montrose, IA, and a dispensation requested at Keokuk, IA. Again the Grand Lodge ordered an investigation, and this time the Mormons refused the committee access to the minutes. The Grand Lodge then struck all the Mormon Lodges from its rolls. However, Mormon Lodges refused to recognize this, and continued their Masonic work. On Friday, April 5, 1844 the Mormons dedicated the Masonic Hall at Nauvoo.

In the History of the Church, Smith wrote that he attended the ceremonies; that about 550 Masons from various parts of the world were present and took part in a procession that was formed, accompanied by the Nauvoo brass band; that the ceremonies were in charge of Hyrum Smith, Worshipful Master; that the principal address of the occasion was delivered by Apostle Erastus Snow; and that he, Joseph Smith and Dr. Goforth also addressed the assembly; and that all visiting Masons were given dinner in the Masonic Hall at the expense of Nauvoo Lodge.

If the above dedication is the same ceremony and date as the cornerstone laying, there is a discrepancy. In 1954 the Mormon Church purchased the old hall for restoration as an historic shrine. The cornerstone box was removed and sent to Salt Lake City, where in the presence of President David O. McKay and the twelve apostles, it was opened; the original documents were retained in Utah, and photostatic copies returned, to be redeposited in two new boxes in the cornerstone at Nauvoo. This ceremony took place June 24, 1954, being reported in the newspapers as "exactly 111 years after the first ceremony."

Inside the cornerstone a document states that Smith was not present in the procession or ceremony, as he was then being sought on an extradition warrant issued by Governor Ford of Missouri. (Missouri never had a man named Ford as governor; Gov. Reynolds had recently died and Lt. Gov. Marmaduke had taken his place.) Although Smith's signature is among the 50 or more names of the prominent Mormons on the document, it was noted therein that it was added later.

When Smith claimed the revelation of Polygamy in 1843, the church split. On June 27, 1844, Smith and his brother Hyrum were both arrested and jailed at Carthage IL. Before nightfall, both men were shot and killed by a mob. Smith must have recognized the mob as Masons, for he gave the Masonic grand hailing sign of distress just before he was shot.

Many of the symbols and ceremonies used by the Mormon Church today are of Masonic origin. For example, carved in the stone walls of the Mormon Temple in Utah is the Masonic Square & Compass and all seeing eye. On the building which houses the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is the Masonic 6-pointed star. See S&B, Vol. 1, 3rd ed, Introduction and Appendix 18."

3rd degree Hyrum Smith (? - 1844)

Brother of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. Killed with his brother by a mob in the jail at Carthage IL on June 27, 1844. He was first Senior Warden of the Nauvoo Lodge at Nauvoo IL. After the Grand Lodge had ordered the dispensation for this lodge returned, it continued work clandestinely, with Hyrum as Master. In this capacity he officiated at the dedication ceremonies of the Masonic Hall at Nauvoo on April 5, 1844, and his signature is one of those in the cornerstone documents. It has been claimed that both Hyrum and Heber C. Kimball were Masons in Ontario Co. NY, before becoming Mormons.

The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Missouri is simply an arm of Freemasonry.

32nd degree Frederick M. Smith

(1874-1946)

Scottish Rite Mason — York Rite Mason — Shriner

Frederick was president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (1915-1946). He was son of Joseph Smith, first president of the reorganized branch, who was the namesake and grandson of Prophet Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism.

Frederick's father established the reorganized branch of the church in opposition to the Brigham Young group in Utah. Frederick was a graduate of Graceland College in 1898 and 1923; at U. of Missouri, 1908 09; A.M. from U. of Kansas in 1911; and Ph.D. from Clark U. in 1916. He was first counselor of the church, 1902-15, and on the death of his father in 1914, succeeded him as the second president. Frederick was associate editor of The Saints' Herald, 1900-04, and editor after 1917. Frederick became a Mason in 1917. On March 16 of that year, he was raised (3rd degree) in Carbondale Lodge No. 70, Carbondale KN. He was affiliated with Orient Lodge No. 546, Kansas City, MO on April 28, 1928, and was Master of the Lodge in 1934; Grand Orator of the Grand Lodge of Missouri in 1929-30; and Grand Chaplain, Grand Lodge of Missouri, 1940-41.

Frederick was Exalted in Orient Chapter No. 102, R.A.M., Kansas City, June 26, 1928; Greeted in Shekinah Council No. 24, R.&S.M., Kansas City on Sept. 12, 1928; Knighted in Oriental Commandery No. 35, K.T., Kansas City, Dec. 21, 1928; and affiliated with Palestine Commandery No. 17, K.T., of Independence, MO, June 2, 1938. Received 32nd degree AASR (SJ) at Fort Scott KN on April 26, 1927 and affiliated with Western Missouri Consistory in Kansas City, Jan. 25, 1933. He received Shrine in Mirza Temple, Pittsburg KN, May 25, 1927 and affiliated with Ararat in Kansas City, Oct. 8, 1929, and was Potentate in 1941. Served on the board of directors of Shrine Hospital, St. Louis. Was Member of Missouri Lodge of Research."

Two Faces of Freemasonry

by John Daniel

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B66Pc9x2hkIrOVNqS0tvbnJXZjA/view?usp=share_link&resourcekey=0-DrJ1Wp9h_PjjBWVMiXcTnw

The Eccles Building, Fed Headquarters, Washington, D.C., 1989 #365

As Hawaii’s Laie Mormon Temple was patterned after the ancient Temple of Solomon, even so the Eccles Building resembles the historic Jerusalem Temple. Distinct from the location and function of the Department of the Treasury, this impressive “pagan cathedral” built for the Federal Reserve Board illustrates the power of the Black Pope decreeing the Empire’s economic policies. The Fed is controlled through the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) with offices in both New York City and Washington, D.C. The CFR is overseen and guided by the Jesuits of Georgetown University; the Order’s enforcers, keeping all politicians in line who may be a threat to its Fed, is the FBI/CIA—the co-assassins of JFK! Know Your Government: The Federal Reserve System, Gary Taylor, (NY: Chelsea House Pubs., 1989) p. 56."

Freemasons FDR and Marriner S. Eccles, Fed Chairman, 1935 #363

With the Company using short seller Joseph P. Kennedy and its Federal Reserve Bank to cause the Great Depression of 1929, the Order’s calculated solution was its socialist New Deal. A key player was the son of a rich Utah banker, Mormon Freemason Marriner S. Eccles (far right). Following the socialist rhetoric of the Order’s radio priest, Charles Coughlin, Eccles advocated deficit spending in the form of paternal relief measures, including a minimum wage law, unemployment insurance and old age pensions. Appointed Secretary of the Treasury in 1933, ten months later he became Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board (1934-1948). He wrote the Banking Act of 1935 (signed into law above) thereby perfecting the Fed by centralizing all power in its Federal Reserve Board and establishing the independence of the Board from the Treasury. Eccles, giving the appearance of saving the Bank, in fact created the monster it is today: its New York Branch and Federal Reserve Board in Washington are now ruled by Georgetown Jesuits through key Bank officers who are notorious CFR members. Eccles went on to become the U.S. delegate to New Hampshire’s 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, which created the Black Pope’s World Bank and International Monetary Fund thus paving the way for world commerce under “that man of sin—the beast.” Like Romanism, the Mormon Empire under the guise of religion is a tentacle of the Order’s “Invisible Empire,” Jesuit Pierre De Smet directing Mason Brigham Young to the Great Salt Lake when they met at Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1846.

Know Your Government: The Federal Reserve System, Gary Taylor, (NY: Chelsea House Pubs., 1989) p. 56."

Vatican Assassins

by Eric Jon Phelps

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uQl1CmWeLL87RWVtzKttGFKm0frSNR8D/view?usp=sharing

The History and Legend of Scottish Rite Origins

The Story Unfolds…

Like much of early Masonic history, the origins of the Scottish Rite are uncertain. This is primarily due to the lack of historic documentation prior to the early 1700’s and not to any great veiled mystery. The few records kept were subject to loss, fire, weather and aging. So we can at best only speculate on many of our origins by looking at the few documents, historical references and legends that remain.

What We Know

In 1754, near Paris, Chevalier de Bonneville established the Chapter of Clermont. The Chapter resided in the College of Jesuits of Clermont, hence the name. It is said to have been created to honor the Duc de Clermont, then Grand Master of the English Grand Lodge of France.

The Chapter of Clermont was a “Chapter of the Advanced Degrees” and initially entailed six degrees and was later extended to 25 known degrees. The six initial degrees were 1˚, 2˚ and 3˚ St John’s Masonry, 4˚ Knight of the Eagle, 5˚ Illustrious Knight or Templar, 6˚ Sublime Illustrious Knight.

Interestingly enough historically, prior to the time of the Rite’s creation, James II had been in residence at Clermont in exile from Britain from 1688 to his death in 1701. As noted by German Masonic historian, Lenning… “whilst in exile, James II residing at the Jesuit College of Clermont in France, allowed his closest associates to fabricate certain degrees in order to extend their political views.” Lenning believed this to have been an attempt on the part of James and his associates to regain control of the British throne for the House of Stuart. If Lenning is right, this places the origins of the “Rite of Perfection” in the hands of James II and the Jacobite (Stuart) Freemasons who at the time were in exile from Great Britain throughout France and Italy. Lenning also contends that these degrees were introduced into French Freemasonry under the name of the Clermont System.

James II died in exile in 1701. His son James III is said to have continued his father’s Masonic legacy and later created further higher degrees.

Perhaps James II saw in the Jesuit morality plays of the College of Clermont a vessel for passing on a set of moral lessons. Some of the world’s greatest playwrights had emerged from Clermont. Jesuit tutelage had previously produced great writers such as Lope de Vega, Moliere, Racine, and the Corneille brothers. Ensconced in exile, I believe James II did find the inspiration and the training to help produce what would later become the first six degrees. From out of the darkness… comes light.

To be continued… (Author’s note… An in depth look at the Templar influence in Scottish Rite masonry’s origins can be found by visiting the Rosslyn Templars’ website.)"

https://web.archive.org/web/20190615041607/http://www.traversecityscottishrite.com/scottish-rite-history.html

PART VI 1THE PERSONAL LIFE OF THOSE ALREADY ADMITTED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE BODY OF THE SOCIETY

SECTION 1: THE APOSTOLIC CHARACTER OF OUR VOWS IN GENERAL

143 §1. Our consecration by profession of the evangelical counsels, by which we respond to a divine vocation, is at one and the same time the following of Christ poor, virginal, and obedient and a rejection of those idols that the world is always prepared to adore, especially wealth, pleasure, prestige, and power. Hence, our poverty, chastity, and obedience ought visibly and efficaciously to bear witness to this attitude, whereby we proclaim the evangelical possibility of a certain communion among men and women that is a foretaste of the future kingdom of God.[1]

§2. Our religious vows, while binding us, also set us free:

free, by our vow of poverty, to share the life of the poor and to use whatever resources we may have, not for our own security and comfort, but for service;

free, by our vow of chastity, to be men for others, in friendship and communion with all, but especially with those who share our mission of service;

free, by our vow of obedience, to respond to the call of Christ as made known to us by him whom the Spirit has placed over the Church, and to follow the lead of all our superiors.[2] [1] See GC 32, d. 4, no. 16; see GC 31, d. 16, no. 4; d. 17, no. 2; d. 18, no. 3. [2] GC 32, d. 2, no. 20. 215

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

Rito Scozzese

Antioco Ed Accettato

History

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is the final and the only result of a complex reform that involves various Masonic Systems which developed separately one from another during the XVIII century in the range of the so called Scottish Regime. This regime originated from the advent of the Scottish Masters since about 1738 and continued with the Chapters of Clermont (1754), the Emperors of the Orient and the Western world (1758) which put in practice rituality defined as the Rite of Perfection or the Rite of Heredom. The aim of the reform, that unified all in one single Order, was aside from these veins, also minor branches with more recent manifestation among which the Primitive Rite and others.

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is the rituality that characterises a particular Masonic Body which it adopts and makes his. This Masonic Body is called “The Supreme Council of the Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the 33 rd and Last Level of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite”.

The first Supreme Council (SC) called Mother of the World was founded in Charleston, Carolina, USA on the May 31st 1801 and presently has headquarters in Washington DC, USA.

In some ten years the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, under the impetus of the SC of Charleston, practically spread to all the world through further Supreme Councils which were formed in national territorial Jurisdictions, each independent and autonomous, jealous of their very sovereignty.

The Scottish Rite in Italy

The SC of Italy, that today is denominated “the Supreme Council SS.GG.II.GG. of the 3 rd and Last Level of the Free Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for the Italian Jurisdiction – Grand Orient of Italy – Palazzo Giustiniani” as shown in a manuscript handed down as the Verbal of the Foundation, also called the “Seal of Foundation” which was founded and installed ritually in Milan on March16th 1805 by the Count Alexandre Francois Auguste De Grasse Tilly S.G.C. of the SC of France (1804), duly assisted by the French and Italian Brothers, with Licenses conferred by the SC Mother of the World of Charleston. The SC of Italy was a direct emanation of this Ritual Body.

In the same constitutional act of the SC of Italy, it is formally declared that it “creates and constitutes by its sovereign authority a General Grand Lodge in Italy under the name of G.O. Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite“. The Grand Orient of Italy, thus founded, was ritually installed on June 20th 1805 by the same founders of the SC of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

The SC of Italy with headquarters in Milan, had jurisdiction only in the territory of the Italian Kingdom and the Sovereign Grand Commander was the Vice King Eugenio Beauharnais.

Subsequently, on the not yet unified Italian territory, other SS.CC ‘s were formed among which (in Naples) a SC called of the two Sicilies (1809), a SC of Palermo (1860), a SC of Naples (1860). Following the unification of Italy initially a SC was formed with the fusion of the SC Milan with that of Turin (1862), then with the transfer of the capital to Florence another SC of this city (1864) was formed. A further SC was established in 1870 in Rome, permanent Capital of the Kingdom. Following numerous agreements and with much difficulty, the unification between the various SS.CC in a single SC of Italy was achieved with headquarters in Rome.

From a schism which occurring 1908, a second SC was born called “Piazza del Gesù” which since 1912 was recognized by many SS.CC. of the world opposed to that of 2Palazzo Giustiniani”. The fascist period, during which all Masonic activity in Italy was prohibited, actually eliminated the problem of this atypical duplication between the historical continuity and the possession of recognition of the various Jurisdictions.

The separation between the Jurisdictions of the Grand Orient of Italy and the SC was sanctioned in 1922. The conference of Paris of the SS.CC. of the world, held in 1929, authorized this principle for all the SS.CC.

Upon recommencement of Masonic activity in 1943, after the failures of unification attempts, those who possessed the Supreme Level of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, formed two SS.CC. of “Palazzo Giustiniani” and “Piazza del Gesù”.

From 1960 to 1973, the residual incomprehension between the two historical blocks of Italian Masonry were settled. Since then, in spite of other efforts of schism, in particular that of 1977 which failed owing to the loyalty of the Scottish Brothers of Italy and the wisdom of SS.CC. of the rest of the world, the SC of “Palazzo Giustiniani” represents the regularity for 54 Supreme Councils in the world.

https://www.ritoscozzese.it/en/rsaa/history/

Note 370.—"Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. The 32nd degree of the Ancient and Accepted rite, and for many years, or until the institution of the 33d degree, this was the highest degree, or ne plus ultra of Masonry. The body is styled a Consistory, and should be held in a building of two stories. The officers are, a Thrice Illustrious Commander, First and Second Lieutenants, a Minister of State, a Grand Chancellor, a Grand Treasurer, a Grand Secretary, and a Grand Captain of the Guard. In the East a throne, elevated on seven steps, which is the seat of the Thrice Illustrious Commander, who wears a robe of royal purple, and he and the Lieutenants, wear swords. The collar of this degree is black, lined with scarlet, and in the center, at the point, a double-headed eagle, of silver or gold, on a red Teutonic cross. The apron is of white satin, with a border of gold lace, one inch wide, lined with scarlet; on the flap is a double-headed eagle, on each side of which is the flag of the country in which the body is located, the flag of Prussia and the Beause- -ant of the Kadosh degree; on the apron is the camp of the Crusaders, , which is thus explained; it is composed of an enneagon, within which is ' inscribed a heptagon, within that a pentagon, and in the center an equilateral triangle, within which is a circle. Between the heptagon and pentagon are placed five standards, in the designs of whigjl are five letters, which form a particular word. The first standard is purple, on which is emblazoned the ark of the covenant, with a palm, tree on each side; the ark has the motto Laus Deo. The second is blue, on which is a lion, of gold, couchant, holding in his mouth a golden key, with a collar of the same metal on his neck, and on it is the device, Ad majorem Dei gloriam. The third is white, and displays a heart in flames, with two wings; it is surmounted by a crown of laurels. The fourth is green, and bears a double-headed black eagle, crowned, holding a sword in his right claw, and a bleeding heart in his left. The fifth bears a black ox. on a field of gold. On the sides of the enneagon are nine tents, with flags, representing the divisions of the Masonic army; on the angles are nine pinions, of the same color as the flag of the tent that precedes it. The hall of the Consistory is hung with black, strewed with tears of silver. The jewel is a double-headed white and black eagle, resting on a Teutonic cross, of gold, worn attached to the collar or ribbon. ^The members are called Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret. The moral of the degree teaches opposition to bigotry, superstition, and all the passions and vices which disgrace human nature.

—Macoy's Encyclopaedia and Pictionary of Freemasonry, Article Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret

MISSIONS FROM THE SUPREME PONTIFF

252 §1. To be truly Christian, our service to the Church must be anchored in fidelity to Christ, who makes all things new; to be proper to the Society, it must be done in union with the successors of Peter[32]

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts

THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES SAINT LOUIS, 1996

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President Nelson About the Church in the Coming Years: "Eat Your Vitamin Pills. Get Some Rest. It's Going to Be Exciting."

By LDS Living October 31, 2018 06:22 PM MDT

"If you think the Church has been fully restored, you're just seeing the beginning," President Russell M. Nelson said about the Church in a video during his South American tour.

While on the nine-day tour, which included the dedication of the Concepción Chile Temple, President Nelson and Elder Gary E. Stevenson shared their thoughts on the Church.

"This is a calling," President Nelson says. "It's a cause. It's the Lord's work and it's a privilege for us to participate in any way. We love it."

Noting the rapid growth in South America over the past 90 years, President Nelson and Elder Stevenson said they were excited to see new converts and families with four-generations of membership among the thousands that greeted them on the tour.

"We go to the venues and the children and others are anxious to be in the room with the prophet," Elder Stevenson shares. "But it's different than a worldly celebrity. . . this is a longing that they have to be with the mouthpiece of a loving Heavenly Father who they have a heartfelt testimony of these plain and precious truths."

And as the gospel continues to reach thousands throughout the world, President Nelson says there is more to come in restoring the gospel to the earth.

"Wait till next year, and then the next year," President Nelson says. "Eat your vitamin pills. Get some rest. It's going to be exciting."

https://www.ldsliving.com/president-nelson-about-the-church-in-the-coming-years-eat-your-vitamin-pills-get-some-rest-its-going-to-be-exciting/s/89632

Mormon President and Pope Francis meet for the first time, after decades of hidden diplomacy

The two leaders met for 33 minutes at the Vatican and exchanged gifts, the day before Russell M. Nelson was due to dedicate the first Mormon temple in Rome

Michelle Boorstein

Sunday 10 March 2019 20:38 GMT

The head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints met with a pope for the first time on Saturday, an event that reportedly followed decades of behind-the-scenes relationship building between denominations whose leaders share a concern over secularism.

Pope Francis and President Russell. M Nelson – both men who hold offices of profound spiritual significance for their faiths – met for 33 minutes at the Vatican to discuss the shared priorities of protecting religious rights, traditional family values and young people and opposing secularism, according to the Mormon Church-affiliated Deseret News.

The visit comes a day before Nelson was to dedicate the first Mormon temple in Rome.

There are about 16 million Mormons in the world, compared with more than 1.1 billion Catholics.

However, in a chaotic era when many people are leaving organised religion, leaders of the two denominations share goals, including responding together to disasters and poverty and promoting traditional families and involvement with Christian institutions.

“We talked about our mutual concern for the people who suffer throughout the world and want to relieve human suffering,” Mr Nelson told his church’s news website.

“We talked about the importance of religious liberty, the importance of the family, our mutual concern for the youth of the Church, for the secularisation of the world and the need for people to come to God and worship Him, pray to Him and have the stability that faith in Jesus Christ will bring in their lives.”

The two groups work together on relief efforts in 43 countries.

“What a sweet, wonderful man he is,” Mr Nelson said of Francis, the Mormon Church news site reported. “And how fortunate the Catholic people are to have such a gracious, concerned, loving and capable leader.”

The Vatican put out no detailed statement about the meeting Saturday, except to include it on the list of people and groups who had audiences with the Pope that day.

The meeting and the existence of the new temple are especially significant for Mormons, said Kathleen Flake, a historian of American religion and an expert on the Latter-day Saints.

The church teaches that it isn’t just generically “Christian” but is the authentic restoration of Jesus’s church.

Establishing the temple in Rome, a centre of global Christianity, and the meeting with the pope give credibility to the Mormon Church as fully Christian, Ms Flake said. That’s important for a group still fighting for acceptance.

In the United States, for example, 97 percent of Mormons consider themselves Christian, compared with just more than half of US adults who recognise Mormonism as a Christian faith, according to a 2016 analysis by the Pew Research Centre.

Asked to volunteer one word that best describes the group, Pew found, the most commonly offered response by non-Mormons was “cult”.

Ms Flake said it was significant that the visitors’ centre of the new temple in Rome features a dramatic Christus sculpture along with sculptures of the 12 apostles.

“There’s a resonance there. It’s a claim...to replicate those statutes, in that place, there’s nothing else it can be. It’s symbolically an assertion of their claim to be the restored Church of Jesus Christ with its apostolic authority,” she said.

Mr Nelson and Pope Francis, she said, are unique. “Are there any other men but those two who believe they stand in the shoes of St. Peter?”

According to the Deseret News, Francis gave Nelson two gifts: some of his writings on the family and on the Islamic faith.

Nelson gave the pope a Christus statue – an image common in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – and a copy of a core 1995 church document on the family.

Other high-ranking Mormon Church leaders have met with top Catholic leaders in the past, including Henry B Eyring, whose title was the first counselor in the First Presidency. That happened in 2014 when he and Francis spoke at a Vatican conference about marriage, the Deseret News wrote Saturday.

The news site noted that a meeting between men in these positions “would have been unimaginable to leaders and members in both churches” until at least the 1960s, when followers officially were told to limit interactions with other faiths, including weddings and funerals.

But behind-the-scenes connections were happening, the Deseret News reported, and have intensified in the past decade.

The Mormon president, the news site reported, would go in the 1950s to Salt Lake City’s Holy Cross Hospital – which is Catholic-run – “under the guise of visiting a Latter-day Saint patient, then slip into the office of Bishop Duane G Hunt.

They used their private sessions to talk about community issues and the tensions between their members in Utah,” said Monsignor J Terrence Fitzgerald, a Salt Lake City priest interviewed by the site.

“The Catholics were trying to get the Latter-day Saints not to bad-mouth the Catholics at every conference,” Mr Fitzgerald said. “And the Latter-day Saints were trying to get the Catholics to put in a good word for them on the national level.”

Interfaith relations opened significantly with the Second Vatican Council, a major meeting of the Catholic Church in the 1960s.

Both sides have become more open and, in the United States especially, have shared the cause of protecting traditional religious values in public life, such as government-affiliated faith groups’ choice not to offer health benefits to same-sex couples or to place foster or adopted children in their homes.

Leaders of both faith groups have warned about liberalising changes in sexuality, reproductive technology and gender norms and about a decrease in people’s firm belief in God.

“Secularism is prevalent in many Western countries, and many people have lost their faith in Jesus Christ,” Latter-day Saint presiding bishop Gérald Caussé told the Deseret News. “And to have all Christian faiths join together and defend our values is important.”

In Utah, the two communities have developed strong relations in recent decades, the church’s news release said on Saturday.

Washington Post

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-mormon-leader-meeting-rome-vatican-lds-church-latterday-saints-a8816421.html

Head:

1. See Illness, mental

2. The superior general, head of the Society [666]"

page 463

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts

THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES SAINT LOUIS, 1996

https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

Can. 666 In the use of means of social communication, necessary discretion is to be observed and those things are to be avoided which are harmful to one’s vocation and dangerous to the chastity of a consecrated person."

TITLE II. RELIGIOUS INSTITUTES (Cann. 607 - 709) CODE OF CANON LAW

https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib2-cann607-709_en.html

Revelation 13:18

New International Version

18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.[a] That number is 666.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

Revelation 13:18 Or is humanity’s number"

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2013

5 children among 8 dead in Utah murder-suicide after wife sought divorce, officials say

Updated on: January 5, 2023 / 5:26 PM EST / CBS/AP

Crime

5 children among 8 dead in Utah murder-suicide after wife sought divorce, officials say

Updated on: January 5, 2023 / 5:26 PM EST / CBS/AP

A Utah man fatally shot his five children, his mother-in-law and his wife, then killed himself two weeks after the woman had filed for divorce, according to authorities and public records.

Enoch Police Chief Jackson Ames said during a Thursday press conference that officers had been involved in investigations involving the 42-year-old man and his family a "couple of years prior." He did not elaborate.

The crime rocked Enoch, a small town in southern Utah about halfway between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas.

It's one of the fastest-growing areas of the country and communities of new homes are made up of large families that belong, like most of Utah, to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church.

Enoch City Manager Rob Dotson said the deceased were well-known in the town.

"Many of us have served with them in church, in the community and gone to school with these individuals," Dotson said Wednesday night. "This community at this time is hurting. They're feeling loss, they're feeling pain and they have a lot of questions."

Officials said that they believed that Michael Haight had killed his wife, his mother-in-law and the couple's five children, and that each of the victims had gunshot wounds.

Court records show that Tausha Haight, 40, filed for divorce from her husband on Dec. 21. Her lawyer said Thursday that Haight had been served with the divorce papers on Dec. 27.

Tausha Haight and other members of the family were seen the night before the killings at a church group for young women, Mayor Geoffrey Chesnut said.

Police were dispatched to the family's home Wednesday afternoon for a welfare check after someone reported that Tausha Height had missed an appointment earlier in the week, city officials said.

The victims were found inside the house. The children ranged in age from 4 to 17 and included three girls and two boys, authorities said. The other victim was Tausha Haight's 78-year-old mother, Gail Earl.

The five children attended schools in the Iron County School District, officials said in a letter sent to parents.

According to CBS Salt Lake City affiliate KUTV, the letter said, "It is with deep regret that we inform you about a tragic loss to our school community. This afternoon, on Jan. 4, eight members of a family residing in Enoch with five students in our schools tragically passed away. This loss is sure to raise many emotions, concerns, and questions for our entire school district, especially our students."

James Park, who represented Tausha Haight in the divorce case, said she had not expressed any fear that her husband would physically hurt her but he declined to elaborate, citing the investigation into the killings. Park said he only met with her twice, mostly recently on Tuesday, and said she "was an incredibly nice lady."

The home where the victims were found was decorated with Christmas lights and located in a neighborhood of newly built single-family houses on a ridge overlooking the farming community of Enoch. It has a view of houses with snow-covered roofs and mountains in the distance. Half the surrounding block was cordoned off by police tape.

Enoch is on the outskirts of Cedar City, one of the fastest growing cities in Utah, which is one of the U.S.'s fastest-growing states. Cattle and sheep line the highway that runs through the town, along with signs that advertise "Custom New Homes," and recreation in southern Utah's famous national parks and recreation areas.

Sharon Hunstman of Cedar City came to the neighborhood with a bouquet of white flowers Thursday morning. She said the deaths had deeply rattled Iron County and cried as she arranged the bouquet.

"It's just one big community," she said. "We all have one heavenly father."

Archives from the local newspaper show that Haight's first birthday was commemorated with an announcement in the local newspaper in 1981 alongside a baby picture of him laughing.

He was in Boy Scouts as a young boy and earned the "Faith in God" award as a fourth grader. Two years later in 1992, another newspaper article showed that he had won a "Gospel in Action" award from his church.

His picture appeared again in the newspaper in 1998 when he was finalist for an academic award in high school for business and marketing. After high school, he served a church mission in Brazil and then married Tuasha at a church temple in St. George, in 2003. She was from Overton, Nevada, located just two hours south of Cedar City, where he grew up.

As an adult, Haight worked as an insurance agent and Allstate gave him an award for customer satisfaction. His wife's Facebook page showed pictures of the family looking happy in picturesque settings of Utah, and in front of a large statue of Jesus. Haight would have turned 43 on Jan. 7.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/enoch-utah-eight-family-members-five-kids-shot-dead-at-home/

How the Murder of a Utah Family Sparked Another Online Battle Over Mormonism

“So many men knew about this … I’m so f—ing furious.”

By Haley Swenson

Jan 20, 20235:21 PM

On Jan. 4, Enoch, Utah, police arrived at the home of Michael and Tausha Haight to perform a welfare check after a friend of Tausha’s had become alarmed when she hadn’t shown up for an appointment. In the home, police found eight bodies—those of Tausha, her five children, ranging in age from 4 to 17, and her mother, Gail Earl, who had all been shot to death, as well as the body of Michael Haight, who had apparently died by suicide after murdering the family.

In the following weeks, the case has drawn public attention from far beyond southern Utah. According to gun-violence research organization Everytown, an average of 70 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner every month in the U.S. We’ve already had several other mass murders in 2023 that could be characterized as “family annihilation,” whether attempted or accomplished. None of these have attracted the online attention the Haight case has. The family were active and seemingly devout members of the Mormon Church—or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as it prefers to be called—and well-known members of their community, a small, rural, mostly Mormon town outside Cedar City, Utah, approximately 215 miles south of Salt Lake City and 60 miles north of St. George. And after the deaths, both the Haight and Earl families released statements drawing on their religious faith that confounded onlookers inside and outside of Mormonism.

As often happens when an event involving members of the LDS church rises to the level of national scrutiny, the public has divided into various camps on just what parts of this horrible story are the religion’s “fault.” Here we have horrific domestic violence committed by a member of a church that promises a surefire plan for family peace and togetherness. Outside the church, the response has been one of both horror and disbelief at the quickness to forgive that has been demonstrated publicly by the families and by the Enoch community. Within the church, the case has stoked calls for reform and acknowledgement of the danger of patriarchal authority to women and children in the faith, but also defensiveness—a feeling that the church had nothing to do with the crime, and that to blame Mormonism is an act of anti-Mormon prejudice.

As of this week, the following facts in the case have been verified:

Michael and Tausha Haight had been married for 19 years, and had five children: 17-year-old Macie; 12-year-old Briley; 7-year old twins, Ammon and Sienna; and 4-year old Gavin. About two weeks prior to the murders, on Dec. 21, Tausha Haight filed for divorce. Gail Earl was staying with the family to help Tausha with the children in the midst of the divorce. According to Tausha Haight’s sister, Jennie Earl, Michael Haight had removed all firearms from the Haight home in the days leading up to the murders.

Local police confirmed early on that the family had previously been known to them due to a prior investigation. On Wednesday, reporters from the Associated Press published a piece drawn from the files associated with that investigation of Michael Haight for alleged child abuse against the couple’s eldest daughter, Macie. The case had apparently been opened in 2020 after a friend of the family raised concerns with the Utah Division of Child and Family Services.

Macie told police her father had choked her until she thought she might die, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pushed her into the sofa. Michael told police he had not intended his actions to be violent, but that Macie had been “mouthy,” and that he had been having a tough year due to his father’s death. A police officer warned Michael his behavior was “close to assaultive.” The investigation also uncovered that Michael was controlling and demeaning toward Tausha, including monitoring her text messages and surveilling her email. Tausha told police that she preferred charges not be filed against Michael, hoping the investigation would be a “wake-up call.” Police decided not to press charges. When questioned following the investigation about why charges had not been pressed, they told reporters there was insufficient evidence. The Enoch city manager has defended the police’s decision.

Those are the facts, and they are, sadly, familiar to anyone who follows how these crimes of family annihilation unfold. (Unconfirmed stories about the abuse that were posted by friends of the family members on Facebook—friends I tried to contact, and who have since taken down their accounts or did not reply—added upsetting corroborating details.) But it’s been the public response of the community that surrounded the Haights that’s drawn the biggest reaction.

On Jan. 6, Tausha’s family released a statement on the tragedy to the media and public, acknowledging the hurt they and the community were feeling and expressing their faith in God and the “plan of salvation that extends far beyond the mortal loss of those most precious to us.” They cautioned the media and public against politicizing the family’s story, particularly in order to motivate gun control or reform. Instead, they noted that all the adults in the household were trained in using firearms to protect themselves, and blamed the removal of those guns for the tragedy. They also called on the media to “turn their attention to the weightier matters surrounding this event,” which include the value of life, God’s ability to “render a forgiving heart,” and religion’s power to heal and promote love.

Arguably a political statement in its own right, the family’s advice to the media in this press release drew early scrutiny about the community’s and the family’s culture and politics. Here was a family with ample access to “protective arms,” unfettered by local authorities (despite, as it would later become clear, a prior complaint of child abuse), and with a clear history of devout religiosity, and their surviving relatives were arguing that the weightiest matters to cover following the tragedy were the need for expanded access to guns and the following of Christian religious principles. If one religious man could simply remove his family’s guns and their ability to defend themselves, despite both of the adults involved having gun rights under local law, and then murder his entire family, exactly how useful are guns and faith in preventing such tragedies?

Then came the obituary, which has now been removed from both the Spectator, the local news outlet that originally published it, and the local mortuary’s memorial page for Michael Haight. The obituary went viral after Shannon Watts, an activist with the gun control advocacy organization Moms Demand Action, tweeted it along with her own commentary on the family’s reactions:

Obituary for the Utah man who fatally shot his five children, mother-in-law and estranged wife: “Michael made it a point to spend quality time with each and every one of his children. Michael enjoyed making memories with the family.” https://t.co/p412A5qZSC

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) January 14, 2023

The obituary, which Watts posted screenshots of after it was taken down, and whose authors have not been named, entirely omitted the facts of the end of Michael Haight’s life and the ends of his family’s lives, most significantly the fact that everyone concerned died by his hand. It painted instead a picture of a flawless family man, a service-minded father and churchgoer, detailing Haight’s time as a missionary for the church as a young man as well as his leadership in the church’s lay ministry. As a Boy Scout, the anonymous author or authors wrote, Michael “achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.” In fact, the obituary claimed, “He excelled at everything he did.”

His obituary noted the births, but not the deaths, of each of his children. “Each of these children were truly a cherished miracle” to Tausha and Michael, the authors wrote, adding: “Michael made it a point to spend quality time with each and every one of his children. Michael enjoyed making memories with the family,” and had recently sold his insurance business “to allow more flexibility to spend time with his family.” The remembrance went on to list the family members he is survived by, but not those who preceded him in death.

The obituary post on the mortuary’s memorial page included an open comment section, which had gathered about 30 comments from members of the Haights’ church community before it was deleted. Some comments praised Haight as a joy to work with in positions of church authority, while other community members expressed their appreciation for his work as an insurance agent. “Michael was our insurance agent,” wrote one. “We drove all the way from St. George to have him help us,” wrote another. “He was always good to us and always willing to lend a helping hand. We don’t know the whys and how’s but I do know it’s not our right to judge. And the Lord loves Michael very much.”

A self-identified family member of Michael’s wrote, “Michael was funny. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the time we visited the cowboy/ghost town and Michael decided to be the wife in the cut outs. I’m grateful for his example of Christlike love and service, his life and his friendship. I pray that peace and comfort will come to his family left behind, with the reassurance that you will be together again one day.”

No one in the comments mentioned his murdered children, wife, or mother-in-law directly.

Among some progressive Mormons, the case has prompted conversations about the role of the religion’s unique beliefs about the afterlife in producing this oddly calm response. Was the idea that righteous Mormons will be connected to their families of origin for eternity perhaps making people’s efforts to cope with the murders a bit too easy?

Mormon LGBT advocate Calvin Burke tweeted, “My fellow Latter-day Saints, if you believe that it ‘isn’t your place to judge’ the actions of a member of our church who murdered his entire family—including his five children—Repent now. Or you will go to hell. And you will deserve it.” Others replied asking for a more nuanced view of Michael: “I’m for condemning the actions, but my theology requires waterfalls of grace for him as much as for his family. There is no room for wrath in my faith. It’s just too large a burden to bear.”

Progressive Mormon writer Meg Conley drew attention to the religion’s elevation of men’s testimony and the downplaying of women’s, as well as double standards around morality and sin.

Two years ago, his then 14 year old daughter told the police he was going to kill her.

And the police did nothing. How many of them were LDS? How many of them were taught the witness of women isn’t as powerful as the witness of men?

He did kill her. And everyone else. https://t.co/c6Kn6VoU6e

— Meg Conley🕸homeculture.substack.com (@_megconley) January 18, 2023

Writer Gabrielle Blair, who grew up in a small Mormon town in southern Utah, cast blame on the men in charge of the town for not raising flags about Haight’s behavior. In addition to blaming the police, Blair wrote that she suspected that church leaders—who are all men, due to the church’s beliefs that only men can be priests, and who interview all active members regularly about their lives, faith, and general well-being—were likewise alerted to complaints, either from Haight’s children or his wife, prior to the divorce: “I’m no prophet, but as details have come to light, it turns out my assumptions were exactly right. I’m so fucking furious,” Blair wrote. “So many men knew about this … Specific men, who had specifically agreed to care for vulnerable people in their community, and who had authority to do something about it, knew how shitty this guy was. And they did fucking nothing.”

How might things have gone differently if someone in the Haights’ religious circles, those who claim to have admired Michael so greatly, even after he committed such heinous crimes, had instead confronted him about his behavior or his attitude toward his family? And if, on the other hand, no men in the Haights’ church community suspected anything was wrong with Michael’s behavior, and never heard a complaint from his wife or children, despite the leadership structures Blair mentions, then truly—just what are they good for?

Others have criticized the Earl family’s GoFundMe page for the victims, which had raised just over $100,000 at the time of writing, for “any funeral expenses if needed, legal fees, and a memorial fund in honor of Tausha’s children.” The page features a family photo of the Haights that originally included Michael, Tausha, and all five of the Haight children, but Michael has been edited out of the photo and replaced with an illustration of Jesus Christ that’s commonly circulated in Mormon media. Christians and non-Christians alike took issue with the photo, including some who made small-dollar-amount contributions to the GoFundMe for the pleasure of arguing about the tastefulness of the edited photo in the donor comments section. Wrote one $5 donor: “This man murdered his five children, his wife, and his mother-in-law instead of accepting an impending divorce and seeking therapy. How dare you replace his face with that of Jesus Christ, your lord and savior. How dare you.”

Another donor wrote back, “For everyone who is angry that they replaced that horrible man with Jesus, consider that Jesus is the one who is with them now. Not the man responsible for taking their lives. You are all misinterpreting the meaning behind it. They wanted him out of the photo. This family is grieving and your insults are making it worse.”

As a former Mormon myself, this latter reading of the photo seems to me to be the right one. To remove Michael from the photo and replace him with Jesus indicates a belief on the part of the family that Michael is not with the children any longer, and that instead, the Haight family is under the protection of Jesus Christ in the afterlife. Despite their politicized early statement against gun control and in favor of greater religiosity as the answer to tragedies like this one, reports from the funeral last week for the children, Tausha, and her mother Gail indicate that even with the family’s belief that all of these lost loved ones are reunited with Christ, they miss them dearly and are just beginning to reckon with their loss. Belonging to the LDS church doesn’t mean you don’t feel grief, and things people say online in the aftermath of a tragedy can’t represent the entirety of their feelings and reactions.

Generally, the public and media have an unspoken commitment to not criticizing or questioning the families of the deceased as they mourn and make sense of the tragedy in their own ways. Who are we, some might say, to quibble with how a family facing this tragedy mourns their loss and comforts themselves? To many, casting blame on a grieving community and family feels uncharitable. After all, what do you say when something so horrific, something that so defies our understanding of family, of parenting, of humanity itself, happens in your community or in your family? And if faith is bringing them peace, who are we to judge?

There is a world in which an entirely secular reading of the case could suffice to explain Michael Haight’s apparent crimes. Domestic violence and gun violence are in no ways unique to conservative religions. In fact, intimate-partner mass killings like this one are more common in the United States than the more high-profile public mass shootings most of us hear about. “A guy who kills his wife and children and sometimes kills himself is the most common type of mass killing,” criminologist James Alan Fox told USA Today as part of a study on mass killings last year.

Perhaps much of the public controversy around the killings and the family and community response could be quelled if the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were to wade in and offer some clarity. According to their beliefs, just what is the likely eternal fate of a man who kills his whole family? What kind of grace, if any, does the church believe Michael deserves, and what can it say to dissuade any further crimes like this among its believers? What resources do they offer families facing an abusive and controlling patriarch, and where might they have done more in the case of the Haight family?

So far, church leadership has been silent regarding the case. Its last statements on child abuse came last year, regarding a lawsuit from three children who were sexually abused by their father over the course of many years, and whose Mormon bishop had heard a confession about the abuse from the father himself and had been encouraged by church legal representatives not to report it to law enforcement. That statement began, “For generations, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have spoken in the strongest of terms about the evils of abuse and the need to care for those who are victims or survivors of abuse …We echo those sentiments and teachings today. Our hearts are broken as we learn of any abuse. It cannot be tolerated. It cannot be excused. The Savior Jesus Christ wants us all to do better and be better.”

Perhaps the statement that “Good dads, good men, do not hurt, do not shoot, and do not kill their families” feels so obvious and uncontroversial it shouldn’t need to be made. The Haight case suggests it may be worth saying out loud after all.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/01/michael-haight-murders-mormon-obituary-gofundme.html

6. The delegates commit to working with the schools to enhance the way parents and families are invited into our education and formation.

The Rio Papers International Congress for Jesuit Education Delegates Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 2017

The Rio Papers (googleusercontent.com)

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ce18dDJhSfoJ:https://jesuitinstitute.org/Resources/Rio%2520Papers.pdf&cd=51&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

What does the Bible say about family?

Answer

The concept of family is extremely important in the Bible, both in a physical sense and in a theological sense. The concept of family was introduced in the very beginning, as we see in Genesis 1:28, "God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'" God’s plan for creation was for men and women to marry and have children. A man and a woman would form a "one-flesh" union through marriage (Genesis 2:24), and they with their children become a family, the essential building block of human society.

We also see early on that family members were to look after and care for one another. When God asks Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" Cain’s response is the flippant "Am I my brother’s keeper?" The implication is that, yes, Cain was expected to be Abel’s keeper and vice versa. Not only was Cain’s murder of his brother an offense against humanity in general, but it was especially egregious because it was the first recorded case of fratricide (murder of one’s sibling).

The Bible has a more communal sense of people and family than is generally held in Western cultures today, where citizens are more individualized than people in the Middle East and definitely more so than the people of the ancient near East. When God saved Noah from the flood, it wasn’t an individual case salvation, but a salvation for him, his wife, his sons and his sons’ wives. In other words, his family was saved (Genesis 6:18). When God called Abraham out of Haran, He called him and his family (Genesis 12:4-5). The sign of the Abrahamic covenant (circumcision) was to be applied to all males within one’s household, whether they were born into the family or are part of the household servant staff (Genesis 17:12-13). In other words, God’s covenant with Abraham was familial, not individual.

The importance of family can be seen in the provisions of the Mosaic covenant. For example, two of the Ten Commandments deal with maintaining the cohesiveness of the family. The fifth commandment regarding honoring parents is meant to preserve the authority of parents in family matters, and the seventh commandment prohibiting adultery protects the sanctity of marriage. From these two commandments flow all of the various other stipulations in the Mosaic Law which seek to protect marriage and the family. The health of the family was so important to God that it was codified in the national covenant of Israel.

This is not solely an Old Testament phenomenon. The New Testament makes many of the same commands and prohibitions. Jesus speaks on the sanctity of marriage and against frivolous divorce in Matthew 19. The apostle Paul talks about what Christian homes should look like when he gives the twin commands of “children, obey your parents” and “parents, don’t provoke your children” in Ephesians 6:1–4 and Colossians 3:20–21. In 1 Corinthians 7, the unbelieving spouse is “sanctified” through the believing spouse, meaning, among other things, that the unbelieving spouse is in a position to be saved through the witness of the believing spouse.

Let’s now turn our attention to the theological concept of family. During His three-year ministry, Jesus shattered some prevailing notions of what it meant to be part of a family: "While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.’ He replied to him, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matthew 12:46-50). Now we must clear up some misconceptions with this passage. Jesus is not saying that biological family isn’t important; He is not dismissing His mother and brothers. What He is doing is making the clear theological point that in the Kingdom of Heaven, the most important family connection is spiritual, not physical. This is a truth made explicitly clear in John’s Gospel, when the evangelist says, "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God" (John 1:12-13).

The parallels are quite clear. When we are born physically, we’re born into a physical family, but when we are "born again," we are born into a spiritual family. To use Pauline language, we are adopted into God’s family (Romans 8:15). When we are adopted into God’s spiritual family, the Church, God becomes our Father and Jesus our Brother. This spiritual family is not bound by ethnicity, gender or social standing. As Paul says, "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:26-29).

So what does the Bible say about family? The physical family is the most important building block to human society, and as such, it should be nurtured and protected. But more important than that is the new creation that God is making in Christ, which is comprised of a spiritual family, the Church, made up of all people who call upon the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. This is a family drawn "from every nation, tribe, people and language" (Revelation 7:9), and the defining characteristic of this spiritual family is love for one another: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:34-35).

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-family.html

Colossians 3

1599 Geneva Bible

3 1 Against earthly exercises, which the false apostles urged, 2 he setteth heavenly: 5 and beginneth with the mortifying of the flesh, 8 whence he draweth particular exhortations, 18 and particular duties which depend on each man’s calling.

1 If [a]ye then [b]be [c]risen with Christ, [d]seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.

2 Set your affections on things which are above, and not on things which are on the [e]earth.

3 [f]For ye are dead, [g]and your life is hid with Christ in God.

4 When Christ which is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

5 [h] Mortify therefore your [i]members which are on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, the inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry.

6 For the which things’ sake the wrath of God [j]cometh on the children of disobedience.

7 Wherein ye also walked once, when ye lived in them.

8 But now put ye away even all these things, wrath, anger, maliciousness, cursed speaking, filthy speaking, out of your mouth.

9 Lie not one to another: [k]seeing that ye have put off the old man with his works,

10 And have put on the new, [l]which is renewed in [m]knowledge after the image of him that created him,

11 [n]Where is neither Grecian nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond, free: But Christ is all, and in all things.

12 Now therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, [o]put on the [p]bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering:

13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel to another: even as Christ forgave, even so do ye.

14 And above all these things put on love, which is the [q]bond of perfectness.

15 And let the peace of God [r]rule in your hearts, to the which ye are called in [s]one body, and be ye thankful:

16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you plenteously in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing your own selves, in [t]Psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with a grace in your hearts to the Lord,

17 And whatsoever ye shall do, in word or deed, do all in the [u]Name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God even the Father by him.

18 ¶ [v]Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, as it is [w]comely in the Lord.

19 [x]Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter unto them.

20 ¶ [y]Children, obey your parents in [z]all things: for that is well pleasing unto the Lord.

21 [aa]Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

22 ¶ [ab] Servants, be obedient unto them that are your masters according to the flesh, in all things, not with eye service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God.

23 And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not to men,

24 Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the [ac]reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.

25 [ad]But he that doeth wrong, shall receive for the wrong that he hath done: and there is no respect of persons.

Footnotes

Colossians 3:1 Another part of this Epistle, wherein he taketh occasion by the reason of those vain exercises, to show the duty of a Christian life: which is an ordinary thing with him after he hath once set down the doctrine itself.

Colossians 3:1 Our renewing or new birth, which is wrought in us by being partakers of the resurrection of Christ, is the fountain of all holiness, out of which sundry arms or rivers do afterwards flow.

Colossians 3:1 For if we be partakers of Christ, we are carried as it were into another life, where we shall need neither meat nor drink, for we shall be like unto the Angels.

Colossians 3:1 The end and mark which all the duties of Christian life shoot at, is to enter into the kingdom of heaven, and to give ourselves to those things which lead us thither, that is to true godliness, and not to those outward and corporal things.

Colossians 3:2 So he calleth that show of religion, which he spake of in the former Chapter.

Colossians 3:3 A reason taken of the efficient causes and others: you are dead as touching the flesh, that is, touching the old nature which seeketh after all transitory things, and on the other side, you have begun to live according to the Spirit, therefore give yourselves to spiritual and heavenly, and not to carnal and earthly things.

Colossians 3:3 The taking away of an objection: while we are yet in this world, we are subject to many miseries of this life, so that the life that is in us, is as it were hidden: yet notwithstanding we have the beginnings of life and glory, the accomplishment whereof which lieth now in Christ’s and in God’s hand, shall be assuredly and manifestly performed in that glorious coming of the Lord.

Colossians 3:5 Let not your dead nature be any more effectual in you, but let your living nature be effectual. Now the force of nature is known by the motions. Therefore let the affections of the flesh die in you, and let the contrary motions which are spiritual, live. And he reckoneth up a great long scroll of vices, and their contrary virtues.

Colossians 3:5 The motions and lusts that are in us, are in this place very properly called members, because that the reason and will of man corrupted, doth use them as the body doth his members.

Colossians 3:6 Useth to come.

Colossians 3:9 A definition of our new birth taken of the parts thereof, which are the putting off of the old man, that is to say, of the wickedness which is in us by nature, and the restoring, and repairing of the new man, that is to say, of pureness which is given us by grace: but both of them are but begun in us in this present life, and by certain degrees finished: the one dying in us by little and little, and the other coming to the perfection of another life, by little and little.

Colossians 3:10 Newness of life consisteth in knowledge, which transformeth man to the image of God his maker, that is to say, to the sincerity and pureness of the whole soul.

Colossians 3:10 He speaketh of an effectual knowledge.

Colossians 3:11 He telleth them again, that the Gospel doth not respect those external things, but true justification and sanctification in Christ only, which have many fruits, as he reckoneth them up here: But commendeth two things especially, to wit, godly concord, and continual study of God’s word.

Colossians 3:12 So put on, that you never put off.

Colossians 3:12 Those most tender affections of exceeding compassion.

Colossians 3:14 Which bindeth and knitteth together all the duties that pass from man to man.

Colossians 3:15 Rule and govern all things.

Colossians 3:15 You are joined together into one body through God’s goodness, that you might help one another as fellow members.

Colossians 3:16 By Psalms he meaneth all godly songs, which were written upon divers occasions, and by hymns, all such as contain the praise of God, and by spiritual songs, other more peculiar and artificious songs which were also in praise of God, but they were made fuller of music.

Colossians 3:17 Call upon the name of Christ, when you do it, or, do it to Christ’s praise and glory.

Colossians 3:18 He goeth from precepts which concern the whole civil life of man, to precepts pertaining to every man’s family, and requireth of wives, subjection in the Lord.

Colossians 3:18 For those wives do not well, that do not set God in Christ before them in their love, but this Philosophy knoweth not.

Colossians 3:19 He requireth of husbands, that they love their wives, and use them gently.

Colossians 3:20 He requireth of children, that according to God’s Commandment they be obedient to their parents.

Colossians 3:20 In the Lord, and so is it expounded, Eph. 5:19.

Colossians 3:21 Of parents, that they be gentle towards their children.

Colossians 3:22 Of servants that fearing God himself to whom their obedience is acceptable, they reverently, faithfully, and from the heart, obey their masters.

Colossians 3:24 For that that you shall have duly obeyed your masters, the time shall come, that you shall be made sons of servants, and then shall you know this of a surety, which shall be when you are made partakers of the heavenly inheritance.

Colossians 3:25 He requireth of masters that being mindful how that they themselves also shall render an account before that heavenly Lord and Master, which will revenge wrongful doings without any respect of masters or servants, they show themselves just and upright with equity, unto their servants.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians%203&version=GNV

https://www.facebook.com/4williamdunn/posts/pfbid0Pr3RMscEVQq3BGmbo5kasbp54xUqbbcq2D7t1f18Zrw3WrMGCW98M6SZUeo9aFcnl

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