The Holy Shroud of Belmont

Savoy of California

Professor Michael Fowley taught espionage at Stanford, and rescieved an e-mail from a old man who said the true Shroud of Turin was hidden in a vault under Ralston Hall in Belmont California in order to keep it out of the hands of the Nazis. Hitler wanted to form a Christianized Cult around it. What got Michael’s attention was the claim there were two shrouds, one that was Jesus’ burial shroud, and the other…The Shroud of Lazarus!

Michael wrote John Presser back, and was bewlieldered to learn John was raised in a Sanitiarum on the grounds of Notre Dame de Namur University after being placed on the chappel steps by his parents, with this note;

“This is the great grandson of William Stuttmeister and Augusta Janke, the daughter of Carl Janke, the co-founder of Belmont. His life is in danger. Take good care of him. His name is….John!”

To be continued

Italian Monks Reportedly Hid The Holy Shroud From Hitler

The Holy Shroud, said to be the burial cloth of Christ, was hidden for years.

ByANN WISE

April 8, 2010, 8:12 AM

ROME April 8, 2010— — According to an Italian monk, the real reason the Holy Shroud was hidden in a remote monastery in southern Italy during World War II was to protect it from the thieving hands of the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Officially the famous linen cloth, also known as the Shroud of Turin and believed to have wrapped the dead body of Christ, was secretly sent south by its owners, the Savoy royal family of Turin, to keep it safe from wartime bombings.

Now, on the eve of a rare public display of the Shroud, the Rev. Andrea Davide Cardin, the librarian at the Montevergine Abbey where the Shroud was concealed from 1939 to 1946, says it appears there was another reason to hide the holy relic: to keep it out of the hands of Hitler, who was said to be interested in the esoteric and the occult.

Cardin, a Benedictine monk, told the Italian paper La Stampa that he was preparing an exhibit on the Shroud in his library when he came across a document that he believes shows the Shroud was actually hidden from Hitler.

When it was returned to Cardinal Maurilio Fossati at the Turin Cathedral in 1946, according to Cardin, Fossati wrote in a church document that hiding the shroud had been the right thing to do “because the invader had been in a hurry to ask questions.”

Other historians and Shroud experts are skeptical, but Cardin tells an intriguing story.

In a recent interview with the Italian Magazine Diva e Donna, Cardin said that when Hitler visited Italy for seven days in May 1938, he did not go to Turin where the Shroud was kept in the Cathedral, but “Nazi officials asked unusual and insistent questions about the Shroud and where it was kept.”

This alarmed the Savoys and the Church, says Cardin, and the King thought the Shroud would be safest in the Vatican. But according to Cardin, Pope Pius XII did not feel the Vatican was safe and it was decided that the Shroud should be hidden in the Abbey of Montecassino.

History

The historic Spanish Colonial Revival-style Taube Center.

Notre Dame de Namur University was founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur as the Academy of Notre Dame in 1851 on 10 acres[2] in San Jose, California. The school was chartered in 1868 as the College of Notre Dame, the first college in the state of California authorized to grant the baccalaureate degree to women.[3] In 1922, the Sisters purchased Ralston Hall, the country estate of William Chapman Ralston, founder of the Bank of California. The college opened its doors in Belmont in 1923.

In 1953 the College of Notre Dame became a four-year college with 23 Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur[4] involved in the school. The college introduced evening classes in 1955, and in 1965, started the teaching credential programs. Originally a women’s institution, College of Notre Dame became coeducational in 1969;[4] three men graduated as part of the class of 1970. The college expanded its offerings to include master’s degrees in 1972 and added evening undergraduate programs in 1987.

In 2001, the college established a structure dividing the university into schools and changed its name to Notre Dame de Namur University. In 2009, the university began offering partnerships with local community colleges to provide greater access to higher education, and that same year it became a Hispanic-Serving Institution, meaning at least 25% of its undergraduate population is Hispanic, that same year. The online degree program was established in 2012, and in 2013, the university introduced one of the first PhD programs in art therapy in the nation. The university established a new campus in Tracy, California in 2015, offering evening undergraduate and graduate degree programs in business administration.[5]

Notre Dame de Namur University was one of the first universities in the United States to offer a Ph.D. in Art Therapy. The Art Therapy Ph.D., launched in 2013, is also the first doctoral program offered at the university.

Ralston Hall, built in 1864, was the country estate of William Ralston, founder of the Bank of California.

In 2016 the faculty, both full-time and adjunct, unionized with SEIU 1021. This was a historic move since tenure-line professors at Catholic universities have had trouble unionizing since the Yeshiva ruling (1980).[6][7]

In December 2017, BINA48 (a Hanson Robotics robot) successfully participated as a guest student in a full semester college course on philosophy and love created and taught by Professor William J. Barry at Notre Dame de Namur University. The robot used an algorithm framework called TQ Theory created by Professor Barry to interact with rapport with students.[8]

The history of the sanctuary of Montevergine is closely linked to the figure of William of Montevergine, a hermit monk who lived between the 11th and 12th centuries, who took pilgrimages to places of Christianity.[2] Returning to Italy after a long journey to Santiago de Compostela, he decided to undertake a new pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to prepare himself spiritually he took refuge at Mount Serico, in Atella, where he is the protagonist of the healing of a blind man.[3] Resuming the journey towards the holy land, he arrives in Ginosa, meeting with John of Matera, who advises him to give up the pilgrimage and to work for the divine service in the lands of the West: William refuses the advice of the saint and continues with his walk until he is beaten up by a group of brigands.[4] Remembering John’s words and after a long spiritual reflection, he understands the new path to follow, that is to retire in solitude and devote himself to meditation.[2] Arriving in Irpinia, he feels that God’s will is to make him reside on a mountain, known today as Partenio, at an altitude of over a thousand meters.[5]

6/11/2023

Michael McFaul

Dear Michael; Yesterday, while watching golf, I googled members of the Spogoli Institute and started with you. I was bowled over. To start with, I have been looking for you for years. I wanted to blog on the guy Putin wanted to interrogate – that Trump agreed to handover!. I sent an e-mail to Amy Zegart that is applicable to what I am asking you to do. I am kin to Ian Fleming nd began a James Bond novel that was inspired by Rena Easton of Bozeman Montana. She is the widow of Admiral Ian Easton of the British Defense Staff Washington. Do you know this organization?. I have been composing a new chapter that will take place at the Norte Dame de Namur campus that Stanford wants to purchase. I want you to represent me and my historic families’ interests in this matter. I have watched you on the Rachel Maddow show, and trust you. That you lived in Bozeman Montana is key to my novel. You have altered the direction it is taking. The claim by McCarthy and Pence that Biden has weaponized the Justice Department by indicting Trump on Espionage charges, is Karmic Justice – and more! Was Mike Pence all for handing you over to Putin – who might have hanged you?

Sincerely

John Presco

President: Belmont Soda Works

The White House has declined to rule out accepting a Russian proposal to question on US soil American people – including the former ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul – sought by the Kremlin for “illegal activities”.

The proposal arose at Monday’s summit between the US president Donald Trump and the Russian president Vladimir Putin, and any decision by Washington to assist with an adversary’s prosecution of former government employees overseas would be a stunning shift in US policy, especially as it could violate the international legal principle of diplomatic immunity.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin

“The president is going to meet with his team and we’ll let you know when we have an announcement on that,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told a news briefing. Sanders added that Trump “said it was an interesting idea … He wants to work with his team and determine if there is any validity that would be helpful to the process”.

Sanders’s comments prompted outrage in the US, including from McFaul, a vocal Putin critic.

“When Trump says Russia is no longer targeting America, that’s not how this American feels,” McFaul wrote on Twitter.

“Putin is most certainly targeting and intimidating me. And I’m an American.”

 Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Russian request for an interrogation[edit]

On July 17, 2018, the Prosecutor General of Russia announced that it was seeking to question McFaul, amongst other Americans, in relation to its investigation of allegations made against Bill Browder.[26][27] This followed a request Vladimir Putin made to President Donald Trump during the summit in Helsinki. In a White House news conference two days later, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump described Putin’s suggestion as an “interesting idea” and Trump “wants to work with his team and determine if there is any validity that would be helpful to the process”.[28][29]

Dear Amy Zegart; Did you know Ursula von der Layen attended Stanford University and born her children while getting a degree? Stanford is looking at buying the Norte Dame de Namur in Belmont where I was snubbed and ridiculed by the Historic Society after I showed them proof I am descended from Carl Janke who brought six portable houses around the Cape in 1848. These are Prussians, who offered by purchase California for seven million dollars. My kin may have been agents for this purchase – that was nixed when gold was discovered. In 2021 I suggested a School of Espionage move in to Namur. Yesterday in search of historians at Stanford – I find you! You, Ms. Zegart – are up! If you are drinking coffee right now, put that cup down, and look around at the way your reality – used to be! You have passed between the Two Pine Trees of Belmont, and the bronze doors to the Janke-Stuttmeister crypt in Colma. Carl Janke and his wife were dug up from their graves in the middle of the night, and ended up in the Union graveyard in Redwood City. If Dr. Stuttmeister knew where they were, he would have interred them in our crypt, where he put Carl’s bloodline – after they were evicted from the Oddfellow’s cemetery! I am claiming Twn Pines Park, because in looking at you – and all of this intrigue – I saw The Light shining through. The Truth came in between the two trees, and falling upon my beloved ancestors.

In 2018, after discovering I am kin to Ian Fleming, via Liz Taylor, I began my own Bond novel ‘The Royal Janitor. I researched what spies do. They look at a lot of data, and analyze it. In your book, you attest to this, and then say spy novels, and fake spies, ruin the real work.. I had the stars of my Bond book become lovers, and then get married after seeing a video of Putin’s Cossacks whipping members of Pussy Riot. I knew I was throwing away an opportunity to have a pay day, but I am driven to do the right thing. I suspect you are too.

I suggest you approach the President of Sandford and ask for the funds to conduct a investigation – that will include us meeting in Belmont to look for evidence I am the rightful Heir of Twin Pines Park. I believe we are destined to author a book, or two. I see your husband is a screenwriter. I suggest you both take good notes. I was poised to send Vice President Kamala Harris the second part of my message – that will now include this e-mail. When I mentioned her to the Belmont Historic Society in March of 2021, there was a conspiracy to get rid of me – and take my infraction for another book. I have sent messages to the Mayor of Belmont and the City Council. I am feared!

I believe you are Victoria Rosemond Bond, and I am Miriam Starfish Christling, Here they are having breakfast. Carl Janke founded a German Theme Park that may be the first in California. Walt Disney was inspired by Fairyland in Oakland. Putin and Patriarch Kirill invaded Ukraine to do harm to the LGBTQ folks. Consider Governor DeSantis – doing the same! Zelenskyy is in Japan at the G-7. as I type.

Your destiny awaits you. This e-mil will self-destruct. You made the cover of my newspaper for the arts. Oh. I forgot. My Muse, Rena Easton inspired me to write a Bond novel because in a letter she said she committed a million poems to memory. She had two children by Admiral Ian Easton, head of the British Defense Staff Washington. Have you heard of this agency? I am the Union of The Fake and The Real – Spy! Your study – is flawed! Don’t worry. We can fixt it! Here is your chance to work – in the field!

John Presco

President: Royal Rosamond Press

Montana Alpenglow

Posted on April 22, 2023 by Royal Rosamond Press

Interesting Photo of the Day: Matterhorn Alpenglow in the Swiss Alps

McFaul stepped down in February after two tough years as ambassador to return to his job as a top political science professor at Stanford University. He gave a public talk Thursday at Montana State University on the Ukraine-Russia conflict and what it means for the United States.

On July 19, shortly before the Senate was to vote on a resolution opposing the idea, Sanders stated that Trump “disagreed” with the Putin proposal.[30] The Senate approved the non-binding “sense of the Senate” resolution on a 98–0 vote; it stated that no current or former diplomat or other government employee should be made available to the Russians for interrogation.[31]

Michael Anthony McFaul (born October 1, 1963)[1] is an American academic and diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014. McFaul is currently the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor in International Studies in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, where he is the Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also a Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.[2][3][4][5] He is also a contributing columnist at The Washington Post.[6] Prior to his nomination to the ambassadorial position, McFaul worked for the U.S. National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and senior director of Russian and Eurasian affairs.[7] In that capacity, he was the architect of U.S. President Barack Obama‘s Russian reset policy.

Early life and education[edit]

Born in Glasgow, Montana, McFaul was raised in Butte and Bozeman, where his father worked as a musician and music teacher.[8] While attending Bozeman High School, McFaul participated in policy debate; his partner was current U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R) of Montana.

While an undergraduate at Stanford University he spent time in the Soviet Union, first in the summer of 1983 studying Russian at the Leningrad State University (now Saint Petersburg State University), and then a semester in 1985 at Pushkin Institute in Moscow.[8] He earned a B.A. in international relations and Slavic languages and an M.A. in Slavic and East European Studies from Stanford in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a DPhil in international relations from St John’s College, Oxford, in 1991.[7] He wrote his dissertation on U.S. and Soviet intervention in revolutionary movements in southern Africa.[8]

McFaul received an honorary doctorate from Montana State University during the university’s fall commencement in 2015.[9][10]

Career[edit]

In 1994, McFaul and one-time close friend and colleague Sergey Markov helped found the Moscow Carnegie Center.[8]

McFaul’s past engagement with Russian political figures included a denunciation of him in 1994 by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and a member of the State Duma (the Russian parliament),[11] and a subsequent shooting incident in which a shot was fired into McFaul’s office window in Moscow.[11] Two years later, Alexander Korzhakov, a confidante of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, invited McFaul to the Kremlin during the 1996 Russian presidential election, because of McFaul’s research on electoral politics.[11]

Professor of political science[edit]

President Barack Obama is briefed during a flight to Moscow, 2009

Barack Obama, Joe Biden and McFaul with former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, March 20, 2009

In his capacity as a professor of political science at Stanford University, McFaul was the director of the university’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.[7] A Hoover Institution Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, McFaul is a Democrat who was the architect of U.S. President Barack Obama‘s policy on Russia.[12]

Russia advisor to Obama (2009-2011)[edit]

McFaul (end on right) at meeting between U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia in March 2011

In 2009, McFaul joined the Barack Obama administration as a senior adviser in Washington, D.C., where he was the architect of the so-called “Russian reset” policy.

In March 2011, McFaul attended, in his official White House capacity, the meeting between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, which Biden characterized in his memoir as “argumentative.”[13] The two met again in a 2021 summit.[14]

Ambassador to Russia (2011-2014)[edit]

Secretary of State John Kerry and McFaul tour Red Square in Moscow on May 7, 2013

In November 2011, Obama nominated McFaul to be the 7th post-Soviet United States Ambassador to the Russian Federation. On December 17, 2011, the United States Senate confirmed McFaul by unanimous consent.[15] McFaul became the first non-career diplomat to be the U.S. ambassador to Russia.[12] He arrived in Russia just as huge protests were erupting over Vladimir Putin‘s resumption of the presidency. As ambassador he was accused of “fomenting revolution” by the Russian state media, meeting with Russian pro-democracy activists and commenting frequently on Twitter in English and Russian.[16] In his Washington Post article though he argued that these meetings were in line with Obama’s policy.[17]

In a 2012 interview for the news portal Slon.ru, McFaul described himself as “specialist on democracy, anti-dictator movements, revolutions”.[18]

On January 17, 2012, soon after McFaul was appointed the new United States Ambassador to Russia and arrived in Moscow to assume his post, opposition politicians and civil activists visited the Embassy of the United States in Moscow. At the entrance to the embassy, they were encountered by pro-Kremlin activists. The visitors to McFaul included Yevgeniya Chirikova (environment activist), Boris Nemtsov (leader of the People’s Freedom Party at the time; assassinated in 2015), Lev Ponomarev (human rights activist), Sergey Mitrokhin (leader of Yabloko party), Oksana Dmitriyeva (deputy head of A Just Russia), Lilia Shibanova (head of the GOLOS Association elections monitor group). Leonid Kalashnikov from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation also attended.[19]

Reaction to the visit was mixed: then president Dmitry Medvedev, in his public comments at Moscow State University, largely exonerated McFaul by saying that meeting with opposition figures was a routine occurrence, although he warned the new U.S. ambassador that he was on Russian soil and should respect Russian political sensibilities.[20] The incident sparked a highly negative reaction in the state-controlled Russian media, which accused him of conspiring with the opposition, but was appreciated by activists and social media users.[16]

McFaul announced his resignation as ambassador to Russia on February 4, 2014, effective after the Sochi Olympics.[21] John F. Tefft was confirmed as the next ambassador to Russia.[22]

Return to academia (2014-present)[edit]

House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on “U.S. Policy Toward Putin’s Russia,” on June 14, 2016. McFaul testified as Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, center left, sat behind him.

McFaul returned to Stanford as a professor of political science. He also became a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He continued to be involved in geopolitics.[23] In October 2014, he stated that he believed the Russians continued to bug his and his wife’s cell phones in the United States.[24] In 2014 he was placed on the Kremlin’s sanction list of people who are not allowed to enter Russia.[16][25]

Russian request for an interrogation[edit]

On July 17, 2018, the Prosecutor General of Russia announced that it was seeking to question McFaul, amongst other Americans, in relation to its investigation of allegations made against Bill Browder.[26][27] This followed a request Vladimir Putin made to President Donald Trump during the summit in Helsinki. In a White House news conference two days later, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump described Putin’s suggestion as an “interesting idea” and Trump “wants to work with his team and determine if there is any validity that would be helpful to the process”.[28][29]

On July 19, shortly before the Senate was to vote on a resolution opposing the idea, Sanders stated that Trump “disagreed” with the Putin proposal.[30] The Senate approved the non-binding “sense of the Senate” resolution on a 98–0 vote; it stated that no current or former diplomat or other government employee should be made available to the Russians for interrogation.[31]

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine[edit]

In 2022, following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, McFaul and Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andrii Yermak headed an expert group called the Yermak-McFaul Expert Group on Russian Sanctions, which developed an individual sanctions roadmap with plans to tighten sanctions against Russia.[32]

McFaul debated the Russian invasion with John Mearsheimer in May 2022. McFaul has taken a position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine identifying Putin as a culprit in conducting the invasion of Ukraine against the position of Mearsheimer that Putin is pursuing a realist geopolitical plan to secure Russian national interests in the presence of perceived threats from an expanding NATO.[33]

Books[edit]

McFaul was already in 2011 the author of more than 20 books,[12] amongst which are:

Political positions[edit]

In 2003 McFaul supported regime change in Iraq.[34]

After the 2016 presidential election, he became a regular commentator on MSNBC and social media, and was frequently critical of the policies and actions of President Donald Trump with regard to Russia.[16]

McFaul supported the Iran nuclear deal.[35]

In July 2019, McFaul wrote that Communist Party of China‘s officials “champion the advantages of their system — an ability to undertake massive infrastructure projects, the capacity to manage income inequalities and a commitment to harmony in government and society. In contrast, polarized U.S. politics in the Trump era seem to impede any major initiative, be it infrastructure development or addressing income inequality.”[36]

Recognition[edit]

Coit D. Blacker called McFaul “the leading scholar of his generation, maybe the leading scholar, on post-Communist Russia” and a Stanford news release said his knowledge of Russia “was an important resource to politicians. He advised President George W. Bush on his dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin“.[11][37]

c

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