Chapter 19 THE DEATH & RESURRECTION OF LORENZO RICCI

ON NOVEMBER 19, 1775 officials at Castel Sant’Angelo were presented the following deposition, given under oath and signed by Lorenzo Ricci: “The Society of Jesus that is dissolved offered no reason or pretext whatsoever for its dissolution.”

This, Ricci’s last official statement, is a masterpiece of mental reservation, for indeed the Society had not offered a pretext or reason for its dissolution, and indeed Lorenzo Ricci had not furnished a pretext or reason for his incarceration. The Jesuits had been dissolved and Ricci imprisoned for no offered reasons whatsoever; ergo, their dissolution for all eternity was null and void. Outcome would prove this fact: the Society of Jesus would be officially restored in 1814. Since the Disestablishment was a nullity from the beginning, it must follow that the Jesuits were still technically alive as the world’s largest clandestine milice du Christ. Legally, thousands of Jesuits were still bound to their oath of obedience to the black papacy. They were free now to expand Roman Catholicism with perfect invisibility, end justifying means, dedicating their encyclopedic skills in the useful arts, law, religion, medicine, philosophy, the humanities, finance, commerce, communications, diplomacy, banking, finance, espionage, and intrigue – dedicating all to both sides of the self-extirpating Protestant belligerents. “Now, whether he kill Cassio or Cassio him, or each do kill the other, every way makes my gain!”

If the Society of Jesus could conquer though believed dead, could not its Superior General do the same? When Lorenzo Ricci “died” in his cell at Castel Sant’Angelo on November 24, 1775, what if his “death” was no more physical than the supposed disestablishment of his army? Lesser mystics than Ricci, who secretly commanded the Rosicrucians, were known to die and resurrect at the threshold of important endeavors:

According to material available, the supreme council of the Fraternity of the Rose Croix [Rosicrucians] was composed of a certain number of individuals who had died what is known as the “philosophic death.” When the time came for an initiate to enter upon his labors for the Order, he conveniently “died” under somewhat mysterious circumstances. In reality he changed his name and place of residence, and a box of rocks or a body secured for the purpose was buried in his stead. It is believed that this happened in the case of Sir Francis Bacon who, like all servants of the Mysteries, renounced all personal credit and permitted others to be considered as the authors of the documents which he wrote or inspired.¹

Was it really Ricci’s body lying in state at the cathedral of San Giovanni d’Fiorentini during the elaborate funeral mass that Pius VI arranged for him? Was it really Lorenzo Ricci who was entombed beneath the Church of the Gesu a week later, in the vault reserved for Generals of the Society? Or was it a wax effigy sculpted by artisans upon a corpse of Ricci’s dimensions under the direction of John Carroll’s collaborator, man-about-Rome and art agent extraordinaire Francis Thorpe?

Of course, Lorenzo Ricci would have covered his tracks in sublimely Sun-Tzuan fashion, so we can never be sure. But is it not consistent with his authority, resources, motives, and modus operandi, as well as the verifiable outcome of American Independence, that the General would feign death at precisely this opportunity and sail to America in order to conduct his orchestrations personally? Reflect on his counsel in The Thirteen Articles of Sun- Tzu, particularly –

The great art of a General is to arrange for the enemy never to know the place where he will have to fight & to carefully withhold from him knowledge of which posts he must guard. If he manages that & can also hide the slightest of his movements, then he is not only a clever General, he is an extraordinary man, a prodigy. Without being seen, he sees. He hears without being heard.

Go to places where the enemy would never suspect that you intended to go…. Do not think of gathering the fruits of your victory until his entire defeat has put you in a position where you can yourself reconnoitre surely, tranquilly & with leisure.

If the General did sail to America rather than lie in state, he would arrive not as a conquering hero but as a gentle, harmless, nameless, scholarly old man who spent most of his time reading. And during the course of his stay, inevitably, someone would observe his subtle power over great patriots and write about it. Just such a person was observed and written about.

DURING the fall of 1775, Congress authorized a committee made up of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Lynch, Benjamin Harrison and George Washington to consider and recommend a design for the first united colonial flag. The so-called “Flag Committee” traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts. There, according to the only known account of its proceedings, given in Robert Allen Campbell’s book, Our Flag (Chicago, 1890), the Committee mysteriously shared its authority with a total stranger. This stranger was an elderly European transient known only as “the Professor.”

He had arrived from parts unknown at summer’s end. (The prisoner of Castel Sant’Angelo had not been publicly seen in two years – ample time to manage Braschi’s election to the papacy, relax, pack important things, die the philosopher’s death, and take a three-month voyage to Boston Harbor). Since his arrival, the Professor had occupied a guestroom in a private Cambridge home whose hostess, “one of his earnest and intelligent disciples,” would remember him in her diary (cited in Campbell’s book) as “a quiet and very interesting member of the family.”

What the hostess records about the Professor matches remarkably what is known about the character of Lorenzo Ricci. For example, the Professor is perceived to be “more than three-score and ten” years of age; Lorenzo Ricci was seventy-two. The Professor spoke many languages fluently, displayed an encyclopedic knowledge of history, and was “seemingly at home upon any and every topic coming up in conversation.” We might expect the very same of Lorenzo Ricci, a distinguished professor of literature, philosophy and theology at the Roman College and a well-established confidant of Europe’s leading intellectuals, philosophes, and mystics. The Professor kept “locked away in a large, old fashioned, cubically shaped, iron bound, heavy, oaken chest, a number of very rare old books and ancient manuscripts,” which he spent much of his time “deciphering, translating, or rewriting.” We might expect as much of Lorenzo Ricci, the voracious scholar and publisher of oriental masterworks.

On the morning of December 13, 1775, the committeemen arrived in Cambridge for a midday feast. The Professor greeted them as we might expect Lorenzo Ricci would, “with an ease, grace and dignity [evidencing] his superior ability, experience and attainments, and … with a courtly bow that left no room to doubt that he had habitually associated with those in acknowledged authority.” When Benjamin Franklin was presented to him, the hostess watched the patriarchal Doctor lock hands with the patriarchal Professor, “and as fingers closed upon fingers, their eyes also met, and there was an instantaneous, a very apparent and a mutually gratified recognition.” What had the woman witnessed? The Ultimate Summit? Unknown Superior revealing himself to America’s Grandest Freemason?

The table talk soon focused on subjects that had occupied Lorenzo Ricci’s attention since the beginning of his generalate. The hostess witnessed them discussing “the relation of the Colonies to each other and to the Mother Country.” She saw them discuss “the related question of one’s duty to the Colony, as related to his allegiance to Great Britain.” She saw the Professor take “a noticeable, though not at all an obtrusive, part in the conversation, himself possessed of a wonderful fund of varied and accurate information concerning the Colonies, an understanding of their progress, condition and needs, and a familiarity with the principles and operations of British and European statesmanship.” Wouldn’t we expect as much from the Superior General of the world’s best intelligence agency?

After lunch, General Washington and the committeemen held a “brief, undertone conversation.” Then Dr. Franklin rose and stated: “As the chairman of this committee, speaking for my associates, with their consent, and with the approval of General Washington, I respectfully invite the Professor to meet with the Committee as one of its members; and we, each one, personally and urgently, request him to accept the responsibility, and to give us, and the American Colonies, the benefit of his counsel.”

Taking the floor, the Professor accepted the responsibility. Then, startlingly, he proposed that his disciple, the hostess, be placed on the committee “because she is our hostess, because she is a woman, and above all, because she is a superior woman.” (The committee considered this an innovation; yet the Jesuits had been employing female coadjutors for centuries.) The proposal was “immediately and unanimously adopted.” Luncheon was adjourned. The committee would reconvene at seven in the evening, “in the guest chamber usually occupied by the Professor.”

Franklin and the Professor spent the afternoon together walking about Cambridge. When they returned, the hostess noted that “both of them wore the relieved and confident look of earnest and determined men who had, in a satisfactory way, solved a perplexing problem, and of victors who had successfully mastered a difficult and dangerous situation.”

At the evening session, Franklin turned the meeting over to “his new-found and abundantly honored friend.” The subject was a flag. Addressing the committee as “Comrade Americans,” the Professor explained that, since the colonies were still dependent upon Great Britain, “we are not expected to design or recommend a flag which will represent a new government or an independent nation,” but instead one “that will testify our present loyalty as English Subjects,” a flag that was “already in use,” a flag that had been recognized by the British government for “half a century,” a flag having a field of alternate horizontal red and white stripes with the Grand Union Flag of Great Britain in the upper left corner.

“I refer,” he said, “to the flag of the East India Company.”

To hide the fact that Americans would be fighting under the private flag of an international mercantile corporation controlled by Jesuits, the Professor provided a plausible cover whereby the flag could be “explained to the masses:”

“The Union Flag of the Mother Country is retained as the union [upper left corner] of our new flag to announce that the Colonies are loyal to the just and legitimate sovereignty of the British Government. The thirteen stripes will at once be understood to represent the thirteen Colonies; their equal width will type the equal rank, rights and responsibilities of the Colonies. The union of the stripes in the field of our flag will announce the unity of interests and the cooperative union of efforts, which the Colonies recognize and put forth in their common cause. The white stripes will signify that we consider our demands just and reasonable; and that we will seek to secure our rights through peaceable, intelligent and statesmanlike means – if they prove at all possible; and the red stripes at the top and bottom of our flag will declare that first and last – and always – we have the determination, the enthusiasm, and the power to use force – whenever we deem force necessary. The alternation of the red and white stripes will suggest that our reasons for all demands will be intelligent and forcible, and that our force in securing our rights will be just and reasonable.”

The Professor reminded the committee that “the masses of the people, and a large majority of the leaders of public opinion, desire a removal of grievances, and a rectification of wrongs, through a fuller recognition of their rights as British Subjects; and few of them desire and very few of them expect – at this time – any complete severance of their present political and dependent relations with the English Government.” That severance would occur “before the sun in its next summer’s strength” – indicating that the Professor foreknew, as Lorenzo Ricci would have foreknown, a July declaration of independence. At that time, the East India Company flag could be “easily modified” by replacing the Union Jack with stars against a blue background, “to make it announce and represent the new and independent nation.”

Washington and Franklin lavished the Professor’s idea with “especial approval and unstinted praise.” The committee formally and unanimously adopted the East India Company’s banner, known as “The Thirteen Stripes,” as the “general flag and recognized standard of the Colonial Army and Navy.” Just before midnight, they adjourned.

On January 2, 1776, at a formal ceremony attended by the Flag Committee, George Washington personally hoisted the East India Company flag “upon a towering and specially raised pine tree liberty pole,” unfurling it to the breeze and displaying it for the first time “to his army, the citizens of the vicinity, and the British forces in Boston.” The British officers at Charlestown Heights perceived the event to mean that General Washington had thus announced his surrender to them. At once, they saluted “The Thirteen Stripes” with thirteen hearty cheers. They immediately followed this spontaneous outburst of British Enthusiasm with the grander and more dignified official salute of thirteen guns, the thirteen- gun salute being the highest compliment in gunpowder, the military “God speed you.”

By so colorfully equivocating both his enemies, the Professor had made himself God of Confusion. The redcoats were toasting the good health of the rebels, who in turn were fighting for the East India Company. One of the few places in the world where such ludicrous phenomena are considered standard and routine is in the pages of Lorenzo Ricci’s Thirteen Articles: “The General decides everything; he knows how to shape, at will, not only the army he is commanding but also that of his enemies.”

LORENZO Ricci’s post-mortem attendance in America is strongly suggested in yet another pivotal episode, the famous “mission to Canada.” This strange exercise is normally regarded by historians as a colossal failure. It began on February 15, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress resolved to send Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll to Montreal with full authority “to promote or form a union” with Canada against England.

Just before the committee left Philadelphia, John Adams proposed a curious last-minute resolution. On the record, he requested “that Charles Carroll prevail on Mr. John Carroll to accompany the committee to Canada, to assist them in such matters as they shall think useful.” Congress adopted the resolution.

How might a priest have assisted the committee in promoting or forming a union with Canada? The answer lies in demographics. Canada then was largely Quebec, and Quebec, though ruled despotically by the British since 1763, was mostly Roman Catholic. A Jesuit priest, armed with the right Vatican paperwork or password, could exert powerful influence on Canadian foreign policy. The same priest, if accompanied by the combined head of the black papacy and international Freemasonry, could make that policy.

The mission arrived in Montreal only to learn that Bishop Briand of Quebec had ordered Pierre Floquet, the Jesuit superior in Montreal, to consider John Carroll persona non grata. Floquet, however, defied his bishop and invited Carroll to say a mass in his home anyway, for which Floquet was immediately suspended from his priestly functions. The incident colored the mission with disaster (although Floquet was restored, according to Walsh’s American Jesuits, after a simple apology). Disaster was verified when the committee returned to Philadelphia with no prospect for any union whatsoever with Canada. Congress lamented that America’s first diplomatic legation had failed.

But America’s first diplomatic legation was Sun-Tzuan and Jesuitic, and Jesuit diplomacy can be expected to conceal victory behind mishap. As the Thirteen Articles put it, “You must have a real advantage when the enemy believes you have sustained some losses.” So we examine the Canadian mishap for a real advantage and discover something far more valuable than the originally- sought union. While Bishop Briand was outwardly demeaning John Carroll, the mission was obtaining from Canada a position of neutrality. This was a significant achievement, considering Canada’s good relationship with Great Britain on the one hand and two centuries of hostilities toward New England on the other. For the colonists, Canadian neutrality removed the threat of a powerful northwestern enemy and cleared the way for a declaration of independence. At Montreal, as at Cambridge, I sense the presence of someone infinitely more commanding than mere committeemen appointed by Congress. I sense the presence of the “honorary” committeeman unlisted in any record – the Professor, the fugitive Vicar of Christ.

Returning from Canada, Benjamin Franklin fell ill. It was John Carroll who escorted him to Philadelphia. At Franklin’s invitation, Carroll moved into his home. Franklin acknowledged the fact in a letter dated May 27, 1776, mentioning “Mr. Carroll’s friendly assistance and tender care of me.” These were critical weeks of countdown to the Declaration of Independence. I wonder who else might have been found under the Franklin roof? Perhaps the Professor, with his dynamic oaken chest?

Philadelphia was crawling just now with social activists from all over, the very people Lorenzo Ricci had appointed John Carroll, as Prefect of the Sodality, to organize. The home of America’s pre-eminent Freemason, with Carroll and perhaps even Ricci in residence, would have become the main clearing-house for sub rosa congressional business.

ON July 3, 1776, John Adams took pen in hand and dashed off a letter to his wife Abigail. Adams was a writer of Mozartean facility, concentration, and confidence. Everything he ever wrote was first-draft and good. He never struck through words, never edited. His moving hand, having writ, just moved on. “Yesterday,” he scribbled,

the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to have, full power to make war, conclude peace, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which other States may rightfully do. The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable date in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore.

If the black papacy truly had orchestrated America’s breakaway from England, we would expect to find the second day of July to be rich in cabalah and in Roman Catholic liturgical color. The Liturgical Calendar is a process, authorized nowhere in the Bible, through which faithful Catholics may plead with Almighty God for favors through the merits of ascended saints on special feast days. Supposedly, the prayerful performance of an act on a date the Church has consecrated to a saint endows the act with the mystique of the saint as well as the saint’s intercessory prayers to God for success.

Maryland history, for example, is grounded in the Liturgical Calendar. We recall how the original settlers of Maryland, many of whom were Roman Catholics, set sail from England, under the spiritual direction of Jesuit father Andrew White, on November 22, 1633. November 22 is the Feast Day of St. Cecilia, a third century Roman martyr and traditional patroness of musicians. Did Cecilia’s spirit bless the voyage with musicality to cheer up an otherwise oppressive boredom? The voyagers reached landfall the following year on March 25, Annunciation Day, feast of the angel Gabriel’s announcement to the Virgin Mary that she is pregnant with the Son of God. Annunciation Day contains the joyful mystery of an angel’s announcing the planting of the divine seed within a virgin matrix. Did the settlers imagine themselves planting the seed of a new social order in a strange wilderness, the whole enterprise blessed by God through the merits of the Virgin Mary’s unique relationship to Him? Then, exactly one year later, on Annunciation Day 1634, Father White consecrated the colony of Maryland to the Virgin Mary.

The second day of July in the year 1776 was Visitation Day, commemorating the event recorded in the first chapter of Luke wherein the Virgin, pregnant with the Messiah, visits her cousin Elizabeth, who is pregnant with John the Baptist. (Nowadays Visitation Day is celebrated on May 31, but in the year 1776 it was celebrated on July second, as it had been celebrated, according to the New Catholic Encyclopedia’s article entitled “Visitation of Mary,” every year since the Council of Basel in 1441.)

No day in the Liturgical Calendar is more suited to Bellarminian liberation theology than Visitation Day. Ste. Margaret-Marie Alacoque, whose visions inspired the Jesuit social-action cult of Sacred Heart, was a member of the Visitandines, an order of nuns devoted to the Visitation. Visitation Day’s scriptural basis is the Virgin Mary’s ecstatic sermon to Elizabeth at Luke 1:46-55. This famous ejaculation, known as the Magnificat (the opening word in the Latin Vulgate’s rendering of the passage, meaning “it magnifies”), literally defines the social action called for by Sacred Heart in Philadelphia on the second day of July, 1776:

My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away….

Scattered the proud, put down the mighty, exalted them of low degree, filled the hungry, emptied the rich…. This is the rhetoric of Christian redemption, yes, but in the context of Lorenzo Ricci’s agenda it’s the rhetoric of rebellion-to-tyranny, the very point of the Declaration of Independence, and it’s spoken by the Virgin Mary, Patroness of the Society of Jesus, Patroness of Maryland, indeed, Patroness of Roman Catholic Conquest, on the day particular to her.

Even the year of Independence seems divinely validated by the perfect design of sixes and sevens contained within its expression in Roman numerals, MDCCLXXVI:

MDC = 1600 = (1+6) = 7
CLX = 160 = (1+6) = 7
XVI =16 = (1+6) = 7

Particularly fascinating is the way the Latin equivalent of 1776 is structured upon 666 and 777. Swiss theologian E. W. Bullinger, in his scholarly guide to biblical arithmography, Number In Scripture, says that 6 in the Bible is always associated with humanity, 7 with divinity. The two numbers total 13, which Bullinger says is biblically associated with rebellion.

MDCCLXXVI, 1776, really does seem to be a unique convergence of time and human rebellion in the service of a divine ordination. This is eerily corroborated by John Adams’ letter to Abigail on July third. He confides to his wife that independence should have been declared in December of 1775:

Had a Declaration of Independency been made seven months ago, it would have been attended with many great and glorious effects. If I could write with freedom, I could easily convince you that it would, and explain it to you the manner how.

Adams never fully explained how the earlier declaration would have produced great and glorious effects. However, the numbers suggest it would have rather fizzled. Roman numerals for 1775 fall into the following groups:

MDC = 1600 = (1+6) = 7
CLX = 160 = (1+6) = 7
XV = 15 = (1 + 5) = 6

Plain to see, December 1775 fails as cabalah. It gives no indication of divine approval to rebellious humanity. This is why, I believe, Lorenzo Ricci held out for 1776.

Of course, a sufficiently gnostic Jesuit would see in MDCCLXXVI more than good numbers. He would see an encapsulation of the very origins of the Society of Jesus. MD C would give him milice du Christ (“Christian militia”), the official classification of the Knights Templar and the Society of Jesus. MD C also produces Medici, the family name of Pope Leo X, whose degeneracy provoked Martin Luther to create the Protestant movement, which in turn created the need for the Society. CLX specifies the Ignatian era, which historians have ever since called the “Century of Leo X.” And the last three numerals name the Century of Leo X, the sixteenth century, XVI.

WHEN it came time to sign the Declaration of Independence, how could Lorenzo Ricci not be present? How could he who had labored more than seventeen years for this superbly Bellarminian ambiance not participate in the excitement?

There is a story, usually told in conjunction with the Professor and the Flag Committee, involving another mysterious stranger, one who suddenly appeared in the legislative chamber of the old State House in Philadelphia on the night of July fourth.

The moment was tense. Independence had been resolved, but the document lacked signatures. Some were having second thoughts about the risks. Masonic historian Manly P. Hall writes:

It was a grave moment and not a few of those present feared that their lives would be the forfeit for their audacity. In the midst of the debate a fierce voice rang out. The debaters stopped and turned to look upon the stranger. Who was this man who had suddenly appeared in their midst and transfixed them with his oratory? They had never seen him before, none knew when he had entered, but his tall form and pale face filled them with awe. His voice ringing with a holy zeal, the stranger stirred them to their very souls. His closing words rang through the building: “God has given America to be free!” As the stranger sank into a chair exhausted, a wild enthusiasm burst forth. Name after name was placed upon the parchment: the Declaration of Independence was signed. But where was the man who had precipitated the accomplishment of this immortal task – who had lifted for a moment the veil from the eyes of the assemblage and revealed to them a part at least of the great purpose for which the new nation was conceived? He had disappeared, nor was he ever seen again or his identity established.²

Be warned. This is only a story, unsupported by primary source material. John Adams, the most talkative of the framers, said not a word about it. But we know from Adams’ own pen that some kind of gag order had been imposed upon the signers – “if I could write with freedom” he had told Abigail in that letter dated the third of July. Could Manly Hall have received the story through Freemasory’s well-insulated oral tradition? Could the stranger whose voice rang “with a holy zeal” have been the Professor, Lorenzo Ricci? Could the “wild enthusiasm” with which the legislators signed the declaration have resulted not from Ricci’s inspiring pep-talk but upon his disclosure of documents taken from the oaken chest, documents easy for the Vicar of Christ in his capacity as Freemasonry’s Unknown Superior to obtain, guaranteeing that the international monetary network would indemnify the signers for their action? My mind, informed by an ever-increasing knowledge of how the greatest clandestine warriors fight, has no problem whatsoever believing this to be the case. It is exquisitely consistent with the formation of a Febronian union of thirteen Protestant colonies, ordained to be ruled from a federal city named “Rome,” a city situated within the See of Baltimore, under the protection of the Patroness of the Society of Jesus.

One of the more intriguing clues that the United States of America was established under Regimini militantis ecclesiae is the new republic’s Great Seal. As we shall see in the next chapter, the Seal is legal proof that America’s true founding fathers were indeed priests of Rome.