A movie tells a story, appropriately:

The name’s Bond. James Bond.

In his unmistakable Scottish brogue, Sir Sean Connery was the first man to utter film history’s most famous introduction.

The perfect combination of dangerous and suave, for many fans, he is the ultimate 007.

Connery was a jobbing actor when he was picked for Dr No in 1962, a role that set the man from humble beginnings on a path to becoming a Hollywood legend.

James Bond author Ian Fleming was initially resistant to the casting, describing him as an “overgrown stuntman” who was not refined enough for the role.Advertisement

However, he was later so impressed with his performance that he created a Scottish ancestry for the character in subsequent books.

Connery would become the British spy seven times in total, also starring in From Russia With Love, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, Never Say Never Again, and Goldfinger, arguably the greatest Bond film of all, in 1964.

More from Sean Connery

• Sir Sean Connery: James Bond actor dies aged 90

His career in entertainment spanned seven decades, with smaller roles before Bond and films afterwards including The Rock, Highlander, The Untouchables and of course, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, in which he played Indy’s father, Professor Henry Jones.

However, it is his licence to kill that he will undoubtedly be best remembered for.

Thomas Sean Connery was born in Edinburgh’s Fountainbridge area on 25 August 1930. The elder of two boys, he left school at an early age and took his first job as a milkman, complete with horse-drawn cart.

He enlisted in the Royal Navy at 16, but was discharged on medical grounds three years later after suffering with a stomach ulcer.

Various jobs included a stint as a bricklayer, work as a lifeguard and sitting as an artist’s model for the Edinburgh College of Art. Under the name Thom Connery, he was placed third in the tall man’s division (he was 6ft 2in) of the 1950 Mr Universe contest.

Also a gifted footballer, his life could have turned out very differently, after he was offered a contract by former Manchester United manager Sir Matt Busby, who had seen him on the pitch during a friendly match.

Connery’s first major acting credit came in 1957 British gangster film No Road Back.

But it was Bond that launched him to stardom five years later.

He quit the role after You Only Live Twice in 1967, saying he was frustrated by the repetitive plots, but was enticed back after successor George Lazenby failed to make the grade.

Connery’s big screen career took a dip after Bond, but was revived with The Untouchables in 1987, with his role as tough gang-busting Irish policeman Jim Malone winning him an Oscar for best supporting actor.

In 1989, the US magazine People voted him Sexiest Man Alive, to which the then 59-year-old replied: “Well, there aren’t many sexy dead men, are there?”

In 2000, he was knighted by the Queen – an honour said to have been delayed by his vocal support for the Scottish National Party (SNP) – and received the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.

Once voted the greatest living Scot, in 2009 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Edinburgh Napier University for the achievements throughout his career.

The star never lost his much-imitated accent, despite his many years living abroad. From his home in the Bahamas, he remained a fervent supporter of independence for Scotland.

He had two tattoos – one reading “Mum and Dad” and another, “Scotland Forever”.

Connery is survived by his son Jason and his second wife, French artist Micheline Roquebrune, whom he married in 1975.

UPDATED:OCT 23, 2020ORIGINAL:FEB 3, 2017

Here’s Why These Six Ancient Civilizations Mysteriously Collapsed

Many thanks to History.com for this fascinating glimpse of six vanished worlds

From the Maya to Greenland’s Vikings, check out six civilizations that seemingly disappeared without a trace.JESSE GREENSPAN

M and M, Inc/Corbis/Getty Images

1. Maya

Arguably the New World’s most advanced pre-Columbian civilization, the Maya carved large stone cities into the jungles of southern Mexico and Central America, complete with elaborate plazas, palaces, pyramid-temples and ball courts. Known for their hieroglyphic writing, as well as their calendar-making, mathematics, astronomy and architecture skills, the Maya reached the peak of their influence during the so-called Classic Period, from around A.D. 250 to A.D. 900. But at the end of the Classic Period, in one of history’s great enigmas, the populace suddenly deposed its kings, abandoned the cities and ceased with technological innovation.

Dozens of theories have been put forth to explain what happened. Some historians, for instance, point to a major drought, exacerbated by deforestation and soil erosion, as the impetus for the societal collapse, while others put the blame on a disease epidemic, a peasant revolt against an increasingly corrupt ruling class, constant warfare among the various city-states, a breakdown of trade routes or some combination thereof. Though dispersed, the Maya never disappeared. Millions of their Mayan-speaking descendants continue to inhabit the region to this day.

READ MORE: Why the Maya Abandoned Their Cities 

2. Indus

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The Indus began building settlements in present-day India and Pakistan as early as 8,000 years ago, making them one of the earliest civilizations. By the third millennium B.C., they occupied over 386,000 square miles of territory—much more than their better-known contemporaries in Egypt and Mesopotamia—and accounted for an estimated 10 percent of the world’s population. They also developed a writing script that’s still yet to be deciphered, and their cities contained sanitation systems that remained unequaled until Roman times.

Around 1900 B.C., however, the Indus, also known as the Indus Valley or Harappa civilization, went into freefall. The population abandoned the cities and purportedly migrated to the southeast. Originally, scholars believed that an Aryan invasion from the north brought about the Indus collapse, but that theory is no longer in vogue. Recent research instead suggests that the monsoon cycle essentially stopped for two centuries, making agriculture nearly impossible. Other factors, such as earthquakes or outbreaks of malaria or cholera, may have also played a role.

3. Anasazi

In the dry Four Corners region of the present-day United States, the Anasazi built spectacular stone dwellings into the sides of cliffs during the 12th and 13th centuries, some of which contained hundreds of rooms. No other U.S. building would be taller until the construction of the first skyscrapers in the 1880s. Yet the cliff dwellings did not remain occupied for long, and the end apparently wasn’t pretty.https://56d8e53cb0db2a2be84f18e4f12c3a02.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

Researchers have uncovered signs of massacres and cannibalism, as well as evidence of deforestation, water management problems and a crippling long-term drought that many believe precipitated the slide into violence. Religious and political upheaval, akin to what Europe faced following the Protestant Reformation, may have added to the chaos, which ultimately forced the Anasazi to abandon their homeland by A.D. 1300 and flee south. Their modern-day descendants include the Hopi and Zuni peoples, some of whom consider the term Anasazi offensive, preferring instead to say “ancestral (or ancient) Puebloans.”

READ MORE: Ancient Native Americans Once Thrived in Bustling Urban Centers

4. Cahokia

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READ MORE: Ancient Native Americans Once Thrived in Bustling Urban Centers

Thanks to the spread of corn cultivation from Mexico, indigenous villages began popping up around 1,200 years ago in the fertile river valleys of the American Southeast and Midwest. By far the largest of these was Cahokia, located a few miles from present-day St. Louis, Missouri, which at its peak hosted a population of up to 20,000 (similar to that of London’s at the time). Surrounded by a high wooden stockade, this inaugural U.S. city featured many plazas and at least 120 earthen mounds, the largest of which, known as Monks Mound, stood 100-feet tall and was built with some 14 million baskets of soil.

Meanwhile, just outside the wall, a ring of red cedar posts, dubbed “Woodhenge,” likely served as a sort of solar calendar. The city, a natural trade hub due to its position near the confluence of the Mississippi, Illinois and Missouri rivers, seemingly thrived in the 1000s and 1100s. But it allegedly started declining around A.D. 1200, right when a calamitous flood is known to have hit, and was long deserted by the time of Columbus’ arrival. In addition to the flood, researchers have fingered overexploitation of natural resources, political and social unrest, diseases and the so-called Little Ice Age as possible causes for Cahokia’s fall.

5. Easter Island

Setting out by canoe sometime between A.D. 300 and A.D. 1200, Polynesians somehow found and settled Easter Island, one of the world’s most remote places, located about 2,300 miles west of Chile. Even more remarkably, despite lacking wheels or pack animals—much less cranes—they managed to erect hundreds of giant stone statues, called moai, the largest of which stood 32-feet tall and weighed 82 tons. (Another moai, nicknamed “El Gigante,” stood 72-feet tall and weighed at least 145 tons, but never made it out of the quarry.) By the 1800s, however, every statue had been toppled, the population had crashed and the island’s chiefs and priests had been overthrown.

By analyzing charcoal fragments and the pollen in sediment cores, scientists have since discovered that Easter Islanders cut down almost every last tree, and that rats ate the trees’ seeds before the forest could re-germinate. This ecological catastrophe, which eliminated the ability to make rope or seagoing canoes and reduced the populace to burning grass for fuel, may have then ushered in a period of mass starvation and civil war. The arrival of Europeans only added to the decimation, starting in 1722 when the first Europeans to set foot on Easter immediately shot to death several islanders. By the 1870s, several waves of smallpox, along with a major Peruvian slave raid, had reduced the number of natives to roughly 100.

6. Greenland’s Vikings

According to the Icelandic sagas, Erik the Red led a fleet of 25 boats to colonize Greenland around A.D. 985, not long after he was temporarily banished from Iceland for manslaughter. Setting up two colonies—a larger Eastern Settlement and a smaller Western Settlement—these Vikings herded goats, sheep and cattle, built stone churches that can still be seen today, and hunted caribou and seals. Thriving, or at least surviving, for hundreds of years, their population grew to roughly 5,000. Yet when a missionary expedition arrived in 1721, intent on converting them to Protestantism, it found nothing but ruins.

Archeologists have since determined that the Western Settlement failed around A.D. 1400 and that the Eastern Settlement was abandoned a few decades later. The onset of the Little Ice Age in the 14th century was almost certainly a contributing factor, as it clogged the route in and out of Greenland with sea ice and shortened growing seasons on what were already highly marginal lands. To make matters worse, the market collapsed for the Viking Greenlanders’ main export: walrus ivory. No one knows, however, what delivered the final deathblow.

Some experts believe they simply packed up and returned to Iceland or Scandinavia, whereas others think they starved to death, succumbed to the Black Plague or were exterminated by the Inuit, which had arrived in Greenland from Canada around A.D. 1200. At any rate, the Vikings were far from alone in their failure. At least three other societies have likewise perished on Greenland, including the Dorset, which for a brief time cohabited the island with both the Vikings and the Inuit.

READ MORE: DNA Suggests Viking Women Were Powerful Warriors

Many thanks to History.com for this fascinating glimpse of six vanished worlds.

A Welsh guitarist, harmonica player, and vocalist, Spencer Davis became one of the elder statesmen of mid-’60s British rock. As part of the Spencer Davis Band, which formed in Birmingham in 1963, Davis scored chart-topping hits on both sides of the Atlantic, including “Keep on Running” and “Somebody Help Me” in the U.K. and a pair of Top Ten singles, “Gimme Good Lovin'” and “I’m a Man,” in the United States. The band — which also featured a teenaged Stevie Winwood on vocals, guitar, and organ, Muff Winwood (Stevie‘s brother) on bass, and Pete York on drums — continued to mix commercial pop tunes and blues-inspired R&B until the Winwoods departed in 1967. Inspired by American blues musicians, including Leadbelly and Muddy Waters, Davis left a career as a college English professor to form the Rhythm & Blues Quartet. After performing a series of gigs at Birmingham nightclub, the Golden Eagle Pub, the group became the club’s resident band. Soon after adding regular Tuesday night sessions at the Marquee in London to their schedule, they changed their name to the Spencer Davis Group.

Although he briefly kept the band together following the departure of the Winwood siblings and recorded two minor hits, “Mr. Second Class” and “Time Seller,” Davis disbanded the group. After a short stint playing alongside guitarist Alun Davies, he then moved to California in 1970. Remaining active as a musician, he recorded a solo album that quickly went out of print, formed a new blues-pop band called Davis, York, Hardin & Fenwick in 1973, and then launched an acoustic blues band with Richard Landis and Peter Jameson. For much of the remainder of the ’70s and early ’80s, Davis worked behind the scenes. After serving as a consultant for a California video company, he worked as an independent producer and publicist for Island Records, where he helped to guide the early careers of Robert Palmer and Bob Marley, and served as head of A&R for a small Hollywood-based independent label. In addition to recording an impressive solo album, Crossfire, featuring guest appearances by Dusty Springfield, Flo & Eddie and Booker T. Jones, he produced the Spokane, WA-based group USK and Canada’s Downchild Blues Band.

Forming a new version of the Spencer Davis Group in 1984, Davis toured throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. By 1987, the group averaged more than 100 shows a year. Davis appeared as a guest during concerts by the Grateful Dead, Gary U.S. Bonds, Levon Helm, Bruce Springsteen, Peter “Herman” Noone, Downchild, and Alvin Lee.

Joining with ex-Iron Butterfly and Blues Image guitarist/vocalist Mike Pinera, ex-Rare Earth drummer/vocalist Peter Rivera, and ex-Sugarloaf bassist/vocalist Jerry Corbetta, Davis formed the Classic Rock All Stars in 1993. During the two years that he worked with the group, Davis was featured on an album, Double Live and performed in North America and Japan. Davis‘ original songs were featured in such films as Iron Eagle, Big Chill, Mr. Destiny, Days of Thunder, Mr. Holland’s Opus, and Notting Hill. He recorded numerous advertising jingles in the mid-’90s and appeared in a co-starring role on the television comedy Married with Children. The following decade saw him continuining to record new material, and the solo effort So Far was issued in 2008.

Deceased

1939–2020

Date of death: October 19, 2020

The Little General of The Big Red Machine, baseball’s oldest professional team, best second basemen in history, now guards second base in Heaven Above.

Joe Morgan

American athlete, entrepreneur, and sports broadcaster

Joe Morgan, in full Joseph Leonard Morgan, (born September 19, 1943, Bonham, Texas, U.S.—died October 11, 2020, Danville, California), American professional baseball player who won consecutive National League (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards in 1975–76, when he led the Cincinnati Reds to back-to-back World Series championships.

Morgan, a second baseman, played his first major league game at age 19. In 1965, his first full season, he was named the NL Rookie of the Year for the Houston Astros; he hit 14 home runs, scored 100 runs, and had a .271 batting average. He remained with the Astros through 1971, being named to the All Star team twice (1966 and 1970).

Morgan was one of eight players involved in a trade between the Astros and the Cincinnati Reds, and he played in the 1972 World Series his first year in Cincinnati. The Reds captured consecutive World Series titles in 1975 and 1976, while Morgan earned two MVP awards. In 1975 he had 17 home runs, 94 runs batted in, 107 runs, and 67 stolen bases and hit .327. The following year he had 27 home runs, 111 RBIs, 113 runs, 60 stolen bases, and a .320 batting average. His slugging percentage of .576 was the league’s best. He made the All Star team during each of his eight seasons with the Reds and received the Gold Glove Award five times (1973–77).

Morgan spent his final five seasons (1980–84) with four teams: the Houston Astros, the San Francisco Giants, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Oakland Athletics. He played in his final World Series with the Phillies in 1983, finishing with 20 hits in 23 World Series games. In 22 seasons Morgan had 2,517 hits, 268 homers, 1,133 RBIs, 1,650 runs, 689 stolen bases, and a .271 batting average. He hit 266 of his home runs while playing second base, breaking Rogers Hornsby’s record for most home runs by a second baseman. Ryne Sandberg later broke Morgan’s record.Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription.Subscribe today

Morgan was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990. After his retirement from professional baseball, he was a television analyst for network baseball broadcasts, as well as the owner of a beverage company.

Heaven has Her first string second baseman to guard that base for little angel ballplayers.

Amen

Whitey Ford, who pitched the Yankees to 11 American League pennants and six World Series championships in the 1950s and ’60s and who still holds the highest winning percentage (.690) among all modern-day major league pitchers with at least 200 wins, died Thursday night at his Long Island home. He was 91.

Nicknamed “the Chairman of the Board” by teammate Elston Howard for his calm demeanor in pressure situations, Ford spent his entire 16-year career with the Yankees. for whom he went 236-106. The Yankees signed the left-hander out of high school in 1947 for $7,000, outbidding the crosstown Giants and the Boston Red Sox.

Ford, who retired midway through the 1967 season due to a circulation problem in his pitching arm that surgeries failed to correct, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974, his second year of eligibility. Waiting that extra year for his enshrinement after falling short by 29 votes allowed Ford to enter the Hall alongside former teammate, close friend and late-night running mate Mickey Mantle.

19Whitey Ford gets congratulated in 1950 after a six-hit shutout propelled the Yankees into first place

Getty Images

A 21-year-old Ford arrived in The Bronx in 1950, a year ahead of Mantle, and immediately made his mark. In July of that year, he joined a rotation loaded with veterans Vic Raschi, Eddie Lopat, Allie Reynolds and Tommy Byrne and went 9-1 with a 2.81 ERA while finishing second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting. He started Game 4 of the World Series that October, recording a 5-2 victory over the Phillies to complete the sweep.

Ford spent the next two seasons in the Army, missing out on two world championships, but returned in 1953 to help the Yankees win their record fifth consecutive World Series. He went 18-6 that season, then averaged 15 wins a season over the next seven years.

While manager Casey Stengel was protective of his ace, never pitching Ford more than 255 innings at a time when staff aces routinely threw more than 275 innings per season, Ralph Houk, who succeeded Stengel in 1961, had no such qualms. The former Yankees catcher promised he would pitch his former teammate every fourth day — as was the custom at the time — and the lefty responded with the best season of his career. He went 25-4 and won his only Cy Young Award in 1961.

The aging Stengel, who was fired after the Yankees lost the 1960 World Series in seven games to Pittsburgh, may have sealed his own fate that October when he bypassed Ford as his starter in Game 1. The Yankees split the first two games at Forbes Field and Ford, whom Stengel held back to pitch the first game at Yankee Stadium, tossed a shutout in Game 3. The Yankees split the next two games and Ford again shut out the Pirates in Game 6. But he was a spectator in Game 7 as the Yankees fell, 10-9, on Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off home run in the ninth.

“It was the only time I ever got mad at Casey,” Ford said in his 1987 autobiography, “Slick,” written with Phil Pepe. “I felt I should have started that game so I could pitch three times if it was necessary. … Casey had this thing about saving me for Yankee Stadium to take advantage of the big area in left field and left-center, Death Valley to right-handed hitters. … I was so annoyed at Stengel, I wouldn’t talk to him on the plane ride back to New York.”

Stengel was fired days later and Ford always believed the Yankees would have won that World Series had he been allowed to start three games. He may have had a point.

When he retired, Ford held a fistful of Fall Classic records, including most games pitched (22), innings pitched (146), wins (10), and strikeouts (94). He also had a streak of 33 ²/₃ consecutive scoreless World Series innings.

The Yankees won the World Series in 1961 and 1962, but lost to the Dodgers and Cardinals, respectively, the next two Octobers before the bottom dropped out on the dynasty. But even during that 1965 season when the Yankees recorded their first losing season since 1925 and finished in sixth place in the 10-team American League, Ford went 16-13.

Battling arm injuries, Ford would go a combined 4-9 in 1966 and ‘67. He walked off the Tiger Stadium mound after the first inning during a May game that final season and kept right on going. Before he headed to the airport, he left a note in Houk’s locker: “Dear Ralph. I’ve had it. Call you when I get home. Whitey.”

Edward Charles Ford — his nickname was given to him by former big-league pitcher Lefty Gomez, his first minor league manager — was born in Manhattan on Oct. 21, 1928. An only child, he moved with his parents — his father worked for Con Edison — to 34th Avenue in Astoria, Queens, at the age of 4. Also growing up in that neighborhood, which Ford described as a mixture of second-generation Irish, Italian and Polish families, was a kid a few years older who liked to sing named Anthony Benedetto. He’d later make his name and fortune as Tony Bennett.

Ford attended the Manhattan School for Aviation Trades because Bryant, his local high school, didn’t have a baseball team and, having already established himself as a pretty fair first baseman, he wanted to play ball.

“There really was no earthly reason for me to be at Manhattan Aviation,” Ford said. “I wasn’t a good student and I wasn’t a very good mechanic. … I think the only reason I graduated was that I never missed a day of school and one of the reasons I didn’t miss school was that I wanted to remain eligible to play baseball.”

Ford said he always regretted never going to college and getting an education.

“I consider myself very lucky to have made my living in baseball,” said Ford, who didn’t really become a pitcher until after he failed to get a ball out of the infield while batting during a tryout at Yankee Stadium. A Yankee scout in attendance quickly — and presciently — asked Ford if he had ever pitched.

Ford and Mantle, who remained close friends until Mantle’s death in 1995, were in the middle of one of the most memorable off-field incidents in Yankee history. During the 1957 season, they were among a group of Yankees who went to the Copacabana nightclub in Midtown to celebrate Billy Martin’s birthday. A fight broke out among some of the Yankees and the members of a bowling team seated at a nearby table.

No charges were filed, although Ford said he, Martin and Mantle were each fined $1,000 by Yankees general manager George Weiss for their involvement in the incident. A month later, Martin — deemed a bad influence on his two infinitely more talented teammates — was traded to Kansas City.

In his autobiography, Ford revealed what had long been suspected, that he doctored baseballs to gain an advantage as his skills began to erode. He’d use spit and dirt or deface the balls with a specially designed ring, his belt buckle or a cooperative catcher’s shin guard

“I want to emphasize that I didn’t begin cheating until late in my career, when I needed something to help me survive,” he said. “I didn’t cheat when I won the 25 games in 1961. … And I didn’t cheat in 1963 when I won 21 games. Well, maybe just a little.”

Ford, whose No. 16 was retired by the Yankees in 1974, is survived by his wife, Joan, son, Edward, and daughter, Sally Ann. His younger son, Thomas, died of a heart condition in 1999.

Francis’​ New Encyclical ‘Fratelli Tutti’ leaves us brothers without a Father (i.e. orphans)

I thank my friend Sean Degidon for these observations today:

Yesterday, my pastor replaced the liturgy that the Roman Catholic Church normally serves with Environmentalist Humanism. The Penitential Act replaced confession of personal with “Environmental sins,” the Glory to God was more focused on Mother Earth, and the Prayers of the Faithful and after Communion were pledges to elect public officials who will create global structures to prevent imminent Environmental doom and advance Progressive causes. As the proposed common bond is not Communion in the Blood of Christ, but “our Common Home” on Earth, the homily was consequently a saccharine, passive-aggressive remake of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (i.e. Carbon-emitters in the Hands of an Angry Gaia). However, short of petitioning our Great High Priest (Jesus Christ) it’s hard to register a complaint when the pastor’s innovations are quotes from Pope Francis’ previous encyclical Laudato si’; and Francis’ newest, Fratelli Tutti, is basically just a shift in focus from “our Common Home” to its common residents:

“Francis says he desires to contribute to the ‘rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity’ and ‘brotherhood’ between all men and women. ‘Let us dream, then, as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all,’ the Pope writes.” In Chapter One, titled Dark Clouds Over a Closed World, a bleak picture is painted of today’s world which, contrary to the ‘firm conviction’ of such historical figures as the European Union’s founders who favored integration, a ‘certain regression’ has taken place. The Pope notes the rise of ‘myopic, extremist, resentful and aggressive nationalism’ in some countries, and ‘new forms of selfishness and a loss of the social sense.

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It’s painful to admit, but this interpolation is (to use a phrase of Francis’ that deserves to survive his papacy) an “ideological colonization” of the Faith by Freemasonry:

“Bishop Schneider recalled that Freemasonry in general has always worked so that ‘the entire mankind becomes unified, with the help of the three slogans – fraternité, liberté, égalité…’ And this is to be ‘global’… ‘Liberty’ means for them ‘freedom from God and his Commandments, that we are completely free and can rule over ourselves.’ That is exactly what is taking place today…the ‘complete abandonment of the natural moral law’ and finally also ‘of God’s Commandments.’ ‘Fraternity’ means for the Freemasons that we are ‘all brothers,’ and most importantly, ‘the equality of all religions.’ Freemasonry tries to reduce mankind to a ‘mere natural level,’ ‘that we are brothers only according to the flesh’…and not anymore, ‘what Christianity had brought us, brothers in Christ, children in God.

‘”https://www.linkedin.com/embeds/publishingEmbed.html?articleId=9174139923797636290

The language of Fratelli Tutti is prefigured in Human Community in the Pandemic Age, the Vatican’s very Moralistic Therapeutic Deist response to #Covidcrisis:

“Nowhere in the document is it mentioned that God is our final end, that Christ is our hope, and that we need the grace of the Holy Spirit for both our moral conversion and a good moral life. Nowhere is the Church – the dispenser of the sacraments as a source of grace – mentioned either… In what way does the Academy’s call for solidarity, equality, and ‘access (to health care) for all without exceptions’ differ from that of secular ideologies? This is a document issued from a prestigious body of the Catholic Church, yet there is no mention of Christianity or Christians, let alone Catholics. That a document is destined for all men and women is certainly not a reason for bracketing out its Catholic identity… Instead of a reductionist vision of a merely earthly utopia where all inhabitants can ‘enjoy good living,’ the document should have invited men and women into the life of Christ; it should have offered a strong message of hope with a rich eschatological vision ‘that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us’ (Romans 8:18).

“https://www.linkedin.com/embeds/publishingEmbed.html?articleId=7076700801665882389

Only such a horizontal reduction of human nature can explain how the Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences could say that “at this moment, those who best realize the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese… They seek the common good, subordinate things to the general good.

”https://www.linkedin.com/embeds/publishingEmbed.html?articleId=7443264710640156598

This stands in stark contrast to the view of Joseph Cardinal Zen, who lives in China, and has suffered for criticizing the militantly Atheist, totalitarian state:

“The Holy See has done three things to kill our Church. The first is this secret…deal with Beijing. Because it is secret, the government can use it to demand from the people anything in the name of the Pope… The second horrible act was to legitimize the seven schismatic bishops [created within the state-established Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association]. The third, and even more terrible is this document for registration…joining the [state-controlled] Church? That’s apostasy! I raised my voice, I wrote a letter to the Pope, and then to all the cardinals of the world, and nothing happened.

“https://www.linkedin.com/embeds/publishingEmbed.html?articleId=7371753503611697212

The most plausible explanation for why Cardinal Zen’s plea has fallen on deaf ears, and that Pope Francis’ retinue is a nexus of Globalism, financial and sexual scandal generally, passes through Theodore McCarrick:https://www.linkedin.com/embeds/publishingEmbed.html?articleId=8840829789857136845

The consequences of whether one defines Catholicism by the full and consistent witness of Scripture and Tradition, or by the “hermeneutic of rupture” that uses the most recent pope or ecumenical council to negate them, works its way down to the granular level of daily life – for bishops and priests, consecrated religious and laity alike. Consider the two nuns recently featured at America’s respective party conventions:

“But the two sisters are not separated by a mere difference in appearance, or even in experience. The content of their words varies greatly. In an appeal for the defense of the unborn, Byrne reminded faithful listeners that ‘As Christians, we first met Jesus as a stirring embryo in the womb of an unwed mother and saw him born nine months later in the poverty of the cave.’ Campbell, meanwhile, got no more specific than sentimental appeals to the ‘Divine Spirit’ and one loose paraphrase of a verse from ‘the Scripture that informs the three Abrahamic traditions.’ It’s a little strange—though not entirely surprising—that Sister Dede’s speech contained more religious material than Sister Simone’s prayer.”https://www.linkedin.com/embeds/publishingEmbed.html?articleId=8739079481970372989

St. Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians 2 that “the mystery of lawlessness” and “wicked deception” are already at work, but that The Great Apostacy and The Lawless One must arise from among baptized Christians before Christ comes. Ours is not to know when the latter erupts from the former, only to “give thanks…for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth [and to] stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or in writing.”

I continue to pray for Pope Francis – indeed more frequently and fervently than for any previous pope. However, nothing about Papal Infallibility (the papal corollary to Our Lord’s vow that the Holy Spirit will not permit His Church to definitively teach error in dogma of Faith and Morals) exempts a pope from the same sins and vanities prone to us all. And if someone’s intellect is darkened, the most loving and loyal prayer we can offer is not for his intentions, but the purification of his intentions.

Washington, DC, USA

Oremus pro invicem

Always Faithfully,

Jack Begg

Oremus pro invicem

In the name of God

Amen

Oremus pro invicem~~IN THE NAME OF GOD.AMEN

####################################################################Index Librorum ProhibitorumI wear the chain I forged in life.

How short the list one could compile of those of whom it can be said that fame and money did not deprave?

IL MIGLIOR FABBRO​

 At Washington, capital city of the terminally self-absorbed, mortal man holds to fleeting, feeble and fallible opinion, God immutable fact.

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• The rich man ought not be taxed at all~~he ought be compelled to employ and train the poor man~~directly~~
• ~~The principal need in America today is~~financial and industrial De-Globalization~~to facilitate the promotion of the possibility for the average man to get and keep a good job with good benefits paid by the employer~~as was done not very long ago.~~~~Bene Nati, Bene Vestiti, Et Mediocriter Docti~~~~~La crema y nata~~~~~Artista de la conquista~ ~~In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Bonapartist~~an American Nationalist  Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~I write without fear~and without favor of~any man~~~~Finis Origine Pendet…The escape commences…~~September, 1957~~Saint Jane Frances de Chantal Catholic parochial school, called, by anyone of any background, simply: “Chan~al,” a place where, of an autumn day in 1957, school,  for me,  began and ended in the first convening of the first grade in which a tiny nun, one Sister Dom Bosco, appeared before me, just behind the window appearing at far left of this photograph, and piped out this: “I may be small, but so then, is the Atom Bomb.”~~My determination to escape school commenced immediately on hearing about this Atom Bomb business and took 16 dicey and arduous years to finally accomplish.~~~~Non SibiThe escape continues…~~September, 1966~~The Cathedral Latin School~~Finis Origine Pendet~ ~~Κύριε ἐλέησον~~Rejoice and Glad!!Amen~~~The Original Angry Bird~~The Catholic University of America Screaming Red Cardinal Mascot~~~~EX LIBRIS~~~~THEOS EK MĒCHANĒS~~Tuesday, 25th Aout,~Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 2020 Website: http://johndanielbegg.wordpress.comhttp://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=122865699&trk=tab_prohttp://www.facebook.com/JohnDanielBeggPublicAffairs http://www.tumblr.com/blog/theoldsoldiershome1952http://www.facebook.com/john.begg.33http://www.pinterest.com/johnbegg33/boards/http://independent.academia.edu/johnbegg/Papers?s=nav#addhttp://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/jtdbeggTweets: @jtdbegghttp://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=122865699&trk=hb_tab_pro_top http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=122865699&trk=hb_tab_pro_top “Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he’s the only one who’s sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own.”~~ French actor~~Alain Delon
  CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC AND ROYAL ARMY OF AMERICA (CRAA)The Catholic University of AmericaSeal of The Catholic University of AmericaMotto~~Deus Lux Mea Est~~The escape concludes…~~The Catholic University Of America, Washington, District of Columbia.~~1976, Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi.~~Acta Est Fabula.~~Deus Vult.~~Our Ubiquitous Presence~~OUR Queen~~Our Ruler now 68 years on~~Simply the best President we could ever hope to have~~ ​Oremus pro invicemAlways Faithfully,Jack Begg

Washington, DC, USA

Washington, DC 5th October 2020