This is Part III of a three part series. Part I can be found here.
Now, the “other endeavors” I discussed in Part II are generally well documented, or at least in your average, run-of-the-mill newspaper outlet (i.e. Deseret News, etc) has covered these topics in some degree or another. Pretty much anyone can find some information on these items if they but know what they’re searching for. This next section deals with a slightly more nuanced, and hidden topic, one that is hard to pin down and find good information upon which to base this write-up. Perhaps that is how it should be. Perhaps I just haven’t searched using the correct terms or have not, as of yet, been led to something more concrete. In any case, it does touch on some of the issues of this article thus far, but none more so than the Deseret Ranch in Florida.
Namely, this section discusses the possible link between larger, more nefarious financial connections and the LDS Church, as initially connected through the Deseret Ranch, at least through the point of view of someone. It’s even slightly more difficult to pin down because of the scope of this article (generally speaking, the discussion of church finance) is a topic that is altogether avoided in Mormondom. Outside of the COB, very few people actually know any details regarding church finance. I count myself among the very many who know next to nothing about the details of church finance.
Cultural Hypocrisy
As some have noted elsewhere, I am likewise bewildered at how the wider church membership, which trends toward the conservative side of the political spectrum, react and respond to the church at large. While this conservative mass decries “secret combinations” in the government, decries the lack of transparency at all levels – from local and state governments to the federal taxing authority and to the behemoth that is the (not so) Federal Reserve – and generally belittles any public figure who feigns ignorance on any given topic or those who plead the need for privacy. Those special whipping boys include Ben Bernanke, Harry Reid and others, but the story is generally the same: give us details on where our tax money is going, who owns or controls you, disclosure on balance sheets, etc.
One recent example included the call by many “conservative” thinkers to get full disclosure of those banks receiving money from the recent federal stimulus programs. Those against public disclosure stated, among other things, “Our member banks are very concerned about real-time disclosure of information that could cause a run on banks.”[1] And, who is to say it’d be wrong to call for such disclosure? But, alas, that’s not the point of my raising the issue. My point is to suggest and point out that Mormons by and large were joining in on these requests by the boatload, led chiefly by their ringleader Mr. Glenn Beck. [Aside: I did find it interesting that in going to that link, the only advertisement on that page was for the “…And, I’m a Mormon!” campaign. See this: Mormon Advertising (1).]
It seems incredibly ironic that Mormons in general (especially those who lean conservative) usually lament the lack of transparency at governmental and corporate levels of all shapes and, and yet blindly accept what goes on inside the Church Office Building. For example, if a Mormon gives $10,000 to any given charity, or pays $10,000 in local and federal taxes, you’d be right to assume that that Mormon (or anyone for that matter) is going to monitor that money to ensure its being used as efficiently as possible. And, if it isn’t, that Mormon will at the very least petition the taxing authorities or whomever it is through letters to the editor, complaints, calls, or by voting those members out of office. If it’s a charity, and the Mormon isn’t happy with where the money is going or what’s happening with it, they’ll move on and donate to a different charity the next time around. Point is: they vote with their pocketbook, and rightly so.
But, place that same Mormon in a temple recommend interview where they just wrote out a year end check for $10,000 in order to officially be recognized as “worthy” and this member won’t think twice about where the money is going. That money enters the black hole that is the Church Office Building, never to be seen or heard from locally. Whereas the member will require accountability on behalf of anyone not named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ™, inside Mormondom we Mormons somehow develop an amazing ability to not only forget about the money given to the church (or at least the details of what happens to it), but also never think twice about it. Some would even readily give more were they able (and some do – it’s a pay-for-rewards scheme. You pay your tithing and miraculously you purchase fire insurance and receive a key to unlock the windows of heaven). To hell with the “poor and needy,” what we need here is a few extra billion pouring into projects like the City Creek Center. It seems the transparency issue only works outside the walls of church.
And, if that weren’t enough, bishops near and far neither question nor think about what’s going on. They routinely see sums in the tens of thousands of dollars (if not much more) leaving their ward or branch on its merry old digital way to Salt Lake City, never to see, hear or touch these funds again, and never stop to think about what’s happening, or if it’s the way the Lord would want it to be. Tithing paid locally not only does not help local congregations, but is often spent on things that just don’t matter at all. Whereas the 2010 Church Handbook of Instructions suggests that “The Lord has given bishops the sacred trust of receiving and accounting for the tithes and other offerings of the Saints (See D&C 119; 42:30-33),”[2] these same bishops “may not use tithing funds for any purpose.”[3]
Did y’all catch that? The Church™ states that local bishops are entrusted with the “sacred trust” of “receiving and accounting” for local donations, no matter their reason, but in no way can they use these same funds “for any purpose.” So, what does a bishop do if he needs funds to help his ward members? Ah, fear not dear reader, the church™ has answered this question by providing wards with “budget allowances.” Who needs tithing when the church has graciously allotted various “budget allowances.” These budget allowances are based on “attendance” at Sacrament meeting, Young men and women classes, primary and young single adults. If your attendance is high, your budget amount goes up. If it’s low, it goes down. It’s that simple. These budget allowances were created to “reduce the financial and time burdens” on members.[4] Yes, that’s right, a ward – for example – might pay $100,000 in tithing over the course of the year. Based solely on attendance (and notably based neither on the needs nor wants of its individual members)[5], and is then allotted a budget allowance of $5,000 or so to spend amongst its various organizations (Young mens, Young womens, Primary, Relief Society, Sunday School, activities, etc.). The remaining $95,000 is shipped off to Salt Lake City and then invested in Babylonian investments (i.e. stocks, bonds, businesses, hedge funds, etc) for two to three years. At the end of the two to three years, the Church™ uses the original $95,000 for “church” purposes (i.e. Temple construction, meetinghouse construction, general upkeep of properties, salaries of Church Office Building employees, and God knows what else), while approximately $25,000 (the “investment income” earned while the tithing funds were invested) is spent on for-profit projects (i.e. City Creek Center, the new Laie, Hawaii hotel[6], etc.).
So, somehow shipping 95% of local funds (my estimate, though I doubt the “actual” ratio is much different) off to a “black hole” where things go to never be heard from again is not viewed as a “financial and time burden,” but allowing the local congregations to keep the other 5% is viewed as a way to “reduce” these same financial and time burdens. Holy smokes, Batman, is that some funky, contorted logic. How about keeping 95% of all tithes and offerings local, while sending in 5% for the collective good of the organization? How much help could a righteous local bishop provide with $95,000 at his disposal, versus $5,000, spread across ~300 members or so? Act local should be the mantra (in my opinion), but instead it’s “ignore” local and think “global.” After all, the COB knows better than we strangers in Babylon ever could. They do employ, after all, financial advisors and investment managers to manager untold billions of dollars and are thereby much more qualified than I or you are. Trust me. They have the certifications to prove it and, after all, certifications are certified by some certifiably certified body of certified certifieds.
Institutional Insanity
In this scheme, and many other, the current status quo reinforces is the supremacy of the institution at the expense of the individual. Wayne Jacobsen wrote about the “institution” in his book, So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, and couldn’t have penned more appropriate words:
“The institution provides something more important than simply loving each other in the same way we’ve been loved. Once you build an institution together you have to protect it and its assets to be good stewards. It confuses everything. Even love gets redefined as that which protects the institution and unloving as that which does not. It will turn some of the nicest people in the world into raging maniacs and they never stop to think that all the name-calling and accusations are the opposite of love. … Institutionalism breeds task-based friendships. As long as you’re on the same task together, you can be friends. When you’re not, people tend to treat you like damaged goods. … Any human system will eventually dehumanize the very people it seeks to serve and those it dehumanizes the most are those who think they lead it. … Over time institutions … become abusive when the demand for conformity takes over. … Once people are in love with the program and grow dependent on it as the spiritual component of their lives, they won’t see its limitations. It cannot substitute for their own life in him and it can only produce an illusion of community because it is based on people doing what it takes to sustain the institution … ”[7]
Ah, but I digress.
Paul Drockton on the Rothschild’s and Dick Cheney
Returning to the whole “secrecy” issue and high-finance, a fellow named Paul Drockton has written a few articles on the subject at large. In researching this topic, I reached out to Drockton and found him to be far too short on offering any further details to a virtual (literally) stranger.[8] And, as a result, you’re left reading my words as opposed to some other fellow, who is more than likely much more in tune and smarter than I.
In order to understand this topic, one might start by thinking back to a few years to where Dick Cheney (of all people) was awarded an “honorary doctorate” from BYU and BYU President Cecil O. Samuelson. The background information leading up to Cheney giving the commencement speech is perhaps worthy of its own discussion, elsewhere, but those readers familiar with Stephen Jones’ work on 9/11 may know some of these details. And, while at this same commencement ceremony where Cheney was lauded and applauded, J. Craig McIlroy, then president of the BYU Alumni Association, offered the following words of praise on the Rothschild family[9], of all families:
“As new graduates, many of you may be focusing on the possibilities that lie ahead to create wealth for yourselves. Might I suggest that you consider wealth creation as a commodity made up of financial, human, and intellectual capital. Business people know that they must spend 70 to 80 percent of their time growing assets. In families, growing the human and intellectual assets is often overlooked. The members in the family are the human capital. Their collective life experiences and knowledge make up the intellectual capital. The financial capital supports the growth of the other two. James E. Hughes, Jr., suggests these concepts to us in his book, Family Wealth.
He reminds us that:
In the mid-eighteenth century, Mayer Amschel Rothschild founded the House of Rothschild. This creator of the Rothschild fortune had five sons, each of whom he set up in the banking business in one of the era’s five principal European financial capitals: Frankfurt, Vienna, London, Paris, and Naples. He lent them the money to get started at lower than normal interest with the proviso that they pay him back. He directed that each son keep the profits of his individual bank once the original loan had been repaid. He also charged interest in the form of intellectual currency. He requested each of his sons relay to him every bit of financial information he gained in his city. He agreed to share this intellectual interest with his other sons. In modern terms, he created an effective information network.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild also used a powerful investment technique to manage the risk to his family’s human capital. By sending each son to a different city, he diversified his human assets into five separate investments, thereby increasing the probability that at least one of the branches would survive political and economic risks. Ultimately, only the London and Paris branches survived and continue to prosper. Today, some 250 years later, the name Rothschild is synonymous with wealth. [James E. Hughes, Jr., Family Wealth: Keeping It in the Family: How Family Members and Their Advisers Preserve Human, Intellectual, and Financial Assets for Generations (Princeton: Bloomberg Press, 2004), 32; adapted by permission]
Mayer Amschel Rothschild understood that two important elements of a family’s wealth are its human and intellectual capital. He saw to it that all family members were well educated and that they worked. He also provided specialized mentorship opportunities as his sons entered the workforce.
Like the Rothschild children, you have been given a figurative loan, if you will, in the form of a financial subsidy of your tuition by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You represent the human and intellectual capital of your own families and, in a broader sense, of the Church.
I’ll excuse you if you need to go vomit after reading that drivel. In my book, equating humans as “capital” is as nefarious and heretical a doctrine or idea as there is, but certainly one not lost on your average member or your average congregation. Life is, after all, about making money, ascending the corporate latter and, as a result, giving back of your time and money to the “church.” Ironically, this very mindset fits in with the “Rothschild” mindset where humans are mere tools to use to make money. I’m not so sure that Christ would ever refer (or insinuate or imply or even think about) to us as “capital” to both society and the church, and think that we should do more to ponder such statements. And yet, irony abounds within this context. Mormons are known as some of the more industrious and obedient people there are. Right-wing Mormons (if I may resort to categorizing) who are entirely against “secret combinations” yet give people like McIlroy and Cheney standing ovations (as was done at Utah Republican Conventions dating back to the mid-1990s where Cheney was present).
Perhaps it should be noted that McIlroy is a Certified Financial Planner who just happens to live in a $500k home in the Denver area whose entire career is predicated on people amassing large sums of wealth, and thus the idea that (a) defining people as “capital” and (b) amassing “wealth” is in his best interests.[10] I’m sure there’s no coincidence there. Or, perhaps he’s merely positioning himself to manage the untold billions in church investments somewhere down the line.
Likewise, perhaps it’s just mere coincidence, but the championing of the Rothschild’s at a BYU commencement ceremony the very same day that Dick Cheney received his honorary degree from the “hallowed” institution seems a bit bizarre. Then again, there are no real coincidences in life. Just opportunities for us “capital” to miss out on underlying meanings that are too nuanced for our pea brains – after all, if all we’re good for is capital then we’d be better off spending our time thinking about how to make a dollar or five for our employers and the church. For those of you unfamiliar with the whole fiasco created by Cheney’s insistence that he be the commencement speaker[11] and the resultant wake it left for Dr. Steven Jones and his career there at BYU, here’s a footnote[12] to a good article on the topic. Dr. Jones offered his own account of the story, stating that he was placed on administrative leave on Sept 7, 2006.[13]
It All Revolves Back to Henry Moyle
But, getting back to the financial aspect of the Rothschild’s and the LDS church, one would have to go back to the mid 1900s, if not earlier, to understand what was going on. Back then Henry Moyle was running the church into financial ruin with an “if you build it, [church growth] will come.” Some even credit Moyle, and the aggressive building program, with the rather infamous “baseball baptisms” of the 1960s[14] that troubled many a missionary in the latter half of the 20th century and probably even today.
This very same Moyle, incidentally, was the same to teach Boyd K. Packer the principle that it’s OK and acceptable to ignore inconvenient questions and, in lieu of answering the inconvenient questions, it’s perfectly OK and reasonable to provide answers to those questions someone should have asked instead:
“Later, as we were returning to the car, I said, “President Moyle, that was marvelous, just marvelous. How did you do it?
“President Moyle asked, “What do you mean?”
“I said, “All those antagonistic questions he asked you; it was just marvelous the way you handled them. He was so antagonistic and bitter and yet the interview itself was successful.”
“I have never forgotten his answer. He said, “I never pay any attention to the questions – that is, if the interviewer is antagonistic. If he doesn’t ask the right questions, I give answers to the questions he should have asked.”[15]
“That short statement from President Moyle held great wisdom, and on a number of occasions I have been rescued from difficult situations by referring back in my mind to his comment.”
Should I ever meet Packer, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if he’d give me answers to the questions I “should have asked” if I were to ask him about this building programs, or about the Deseret Ranch, or some other topic wholly unrelated to the whole “follow the prophet” meme. Even so, Moyle was the one in charge of buying the Deseret Ranch in the swamplands of Florida. Barnett describes the purchase in the following terms:
“After a visit to the Sunshine State in 1949, western cattleman and church leader Henry D. Moyle became convinced that Florida’s climate would make it an ideal place to raise cattle. (The key to the industry, as uncomplicated as it may seem, is growing grass.) Moyle pitched his idea for a Florida ranch to fellow members of the church’s first presidency – the Mormons’ worldwide leadership council. The council bought the original 54,000-acre tract in 1950. In 1952, a dozen Mormon families sold their homes out west and moved to the property to help the church turn wetlands and tangled forests into roads and pasturelands.”[16]
Moyle, it seems, was an avid businessman (who’d have known that the church and business go hand-in-hand?), as well as a successful cattleman.[17] Combine his business, cattle and church interests (and positions) and perhaps the investment in a huge cattle ranch, somewhere, was all too certain. Throw in a location near Orlando where Disney was out buying up land to build its own empire and speculation and profit-making motives are more than likely going to get a hold of people’s best interests. So, in 1950 Moyle spearheaded the church’s efforts to purchase the Deseret Cattle and Citrus Ranch by buying some 54,000 acres, or roughly 85 square miles worth of land in central Florida. There are some who suggest that this land deal, when combined with the additional acreage the church purchased later on to equal today’s total of 312,000 acres, nearly 500 square miles of land, nearly pushed the church to insolvency in the early 1960s. Paul Drockton is one such person.
It’s no secret that the church had some severe financial problems as a result of its massive building program under Moyle. What we don’t know, unfortunately, is what details contributed to this near-insolvency. Was it this land grab or that land grab, or everything lumped together? Drockton’s article suggests that this land deal indeed pushed the church to the precipice of insolvency, only to be rescued by one Roberto Vincent de Oliverri – and, if you’ve never heard of this man you wouldn’t be alone in that thinking. De Oliverri, according to Drockton’s article, was a billionaire who somehow was tracked into by the local LDS missionaries. De Oliverri was taken by the message (or taken by the opportunity to infiltrate the LDS church, depending on who you blieve), accepted baptism and then proceeded to infiltrate the church in behalf of the Rothschild dynasty by helping repay the $500 million loan on the Deseret Ranch once it reached default status.
The problem I have with this article is that De Oliverri doesn’t exist, at least according to the Google seerstone I have before me, outside of this article. This is the only article (though it’s been picked up by the likes of Rense and others), where he is ever mentioned in any context. I understand anonymity, but for someone quoted as being “the second richest Rothschild in the world at the time” who somehow met the missionaries who knocked on his door, I would think there’d be a few more details somewhere on the internet. Perhaps that’s asking too much, but one would think that he exists somewhere outside of this article.
And, when was the last time you knew of a missionary to proselyte in the richest of the rich neighborhoods? I served my mission along the Mediterranean amidst the richest of the rich. While there I spent approximately seven months among the richest city in the particular country where I served. We’d frequently see Lamborghinis, Ferraris and every other car imaginable drive up and down the streets where we lived. We also walked some of these “richest” neighborhoods – after all, we were 20 year olds who loved a big house and fancy car as much as any other 20 year old guy – to see just how big these houses were and spot whatever fancy car we could spot. These were houses overlooking the Mediterranean amongst reinforced steel gates, walls taller than we were in order to keep our eyes off of their stuff and lush vegetation wrapped around the houses to further obstruct our views. Now, I only mention this to discuss some of my skepticism regarding this story. We simply didn’t proselyte in these rich areas and, when we did, it was either a “no answer” (95% of the time) or a maid/butler/employee who answered our intercom calls. If De Oliverri was indeed the 2nd richest Rothschild at the time, then odds are he’d be approaching the 2nd richest person in the world at that time.[18] And yet somehow not only did the missionaries find his home, but they also managed to get into his house and teach him the gospel? A few dots aren’t lining up.
But, even so, suppose Drockton’s reporting is even remotely accurate. Suppose somehow De Oliverri did join the church. Would his records then be accessible via FamilySearch.org? Perhaps, but the only thing I could find that even remotely resembled his name, as reported in Drockton’s article, was one “Robert Bra Oliveri”[19] who was born in Maryland in 1920 and died in 2002. This Robert would have been around the right age to match the article and perhaps it was indeed him. I don’t know. Or maybe he’s not yet dead. Maybe he’s still alive today shrouded in secrecy and anonymity. I only raise these questions as a way to verify what Drockton wrote/reported in his original article.[20]
Knee Deep in Mud (that link will take you to Joseph Smith’s last recorded dream, which is well worth the read.)
It’s entirely possible that this person exists and that this story happened, but I tend to believe that the church’s financial dependence on, and co-mingling with, Babylon happened long before De Oliverri would have or could have came along to rescue Moyle and the Church™ from insolvency. Susan Staker, in compiling Wilford Woodruff’s biography, wrote how Woodruff was then (1880s and 1890s) courting financial power brokers to help stave off “temporal” disaster with the church. In fact, in Waiting the Worlds End Staker relates a vision/story Woodruff had on 23 August 1868 wherein he stated his belief that by 1898 Logan, Utah, would be home to over one million “Saints” and these “Saints” would already have been to Jackson County, Missouri, with President (of both the church and the U.S.A.) Brigham Young and built the temple at New Jerusalem. Instead, almost 30 years to the date, Woodruff was cozying up with the financial power brokers and the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. Staker describes it this way:
“In fact thirty years later on 27 August 1898, Wilford was in heathen territory – at a meeting of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, California – rather than in New Jerusalem’s temple in Jackson County, Missouri. He died in San Francisco a few days later on 2 September. The distance could scarcely have been greater between the scenario predicted by Wilford and warranted by Young and the very different story which unfolded for Wilford and the church during the 1890s (with Wilford not Young as prophet). A temple did stand on the Logan bench as Wilford predicted, but in an ironic twist, temples, rather than the signs of power he predicts, displayed church weakness within fin-de-siècle political and economic arenas.”[21]
Less than 30 years after Woodruff’s initial meetings with the Bohemian Club / Grove, one of his eventual successors, Heber J. Grant, was meeting with his own financial power brokers. In 1923, President Grant and his associates took out a $30 million loan, using the entire temple block in Salt Lake City as collateral[22]. [For those interested, $30 million in 1923 would, today, be worth the equivalent of $374 million and change. Let’s not be too bashful about it, shall we.] The tabernacle, the lands, the Salt Lake Temple, Deseret Gymnasium, the Beehive House and everything in between was mortgaged to the hilt in order to finance various “business ventures.” And, it was a mortgage that lasted into the 1970s. One of the chief financiers of this venture was Chase National Bank.
An official affidavit of this event reads 
“… one mortgage document issued by the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company in the year of 1936 to the Wells-Fargo Trust Company of San Francisco; and also one mortgage … issued by the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company to the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the purpose of securing certain debts contracted by the latter corporation form the Chase National Bank.”
So, whether the dabbling in Babylon began with Brigham Young and the multi-million dollar empire he created thanks in large part to his access to the church’s coffers, interest free[23], Wilford Woodruff and his cozying up with the Bohemians and financiers in San Francisco, Heber J. Grant and his penchant for using temples built by others as collateral on multi-million business loans in order to invest in sugar beets and God knows what else, or Henry Moyle and his leading of the church to the brink of insolvency through expansive building programs that may or may not have required a “bailout” from the Rothschild’s, I don’t think it really matters. Suffice it to say that this sort of dabbling has been going on for decades, if not centuries and is far from an “once-in-a-lifetime” type of endeavor.
Neither Deseret Ranch and Cattle Company, nor City Creek Center is the beginning, nor, unfortunately, the end of the church’s investment in for-profit enterprises that have nothing to do with Christ, nothing to do with Zion and nothing to do with creating a gathering of saints. Whereas the church initially began creating and starting businesses as a way to help members and to help create a Zion which had zero reliance on Babylon, however misguided they may have been,[24] today the church contents itself on creating businesses and business models that have little-to-no relation with the church or church members at all. The only real relation has to do with using membership rolls and obligating tithing in order to make an extra dollar or two.
Heaven help us. We sure need it.
Yea, verily I say unto you again, the time has come when the voice of the Lord is unto you: Go ye out of Babylon; agather ye out from among the nations, from the bfour winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
– D&C 133:7
[1] Madrak, Susie. “Banks Vow to Fight All the Way to Supreme Court to Keep Fed Aid A Secret.” April 15, 2010. Retrieved 10/15/2010.
[2] Church Handbook of Instructions, Handbook 1 (2010), 14.6.1
[3] Ibid, 14.4.1.
[4] Ibid, 14.7.2.
[5] Mosiah 18:29 – “And this he said unto them, having been commanded of God; and they did awalk uprightly before God, imparting to one another both temporally and spiritually according to their needs and their wants.”
[6] This hotel is estimated to cost at least $30 million as of 2007, though Hawaii Reserves, Inc. (the land management arm of the church in Hawaii) admits this cost is outdated. The 220-room hotel will supposedly be operated by Marriott International and operated as one of Marriott’s “various brands.” Given Marriott’s penchant for allowing “adult” channels within their hotels, it will be interesting to see whether this particular hotel follows suit. See “Hawaii Reserves plans 220-room Laie Hotel” for more information.
[7] Jacobsen, Wayne. “So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore.” 2008.
[8] In preparing for this article, I reached out to Drockton on several occasions (via email) in hopes of getting more information on some of the questions I had about his articles. My biggest concern largely revolved around the sources, lack of corroborating information and scanty details in many of his articles. His only response to my various inquiries was, “All info is on the website.” Needless to say, that was about as clear as mud. (Cue sarcasm.) So, if any of you that read this know Drockton, feel free to pass along my appreciation. (End sarcasm.) For a man dedicated to truth and exposing certain things, he sure wasn’t willing to share any details or open up about anything to a stranger like myself.
[9] McIlroy, J. Craig. “Stewardship, Sacrifice and Ownership.” Apr. 26, 2007.
[10] It’s quite amazing just how much information you can cull from the internet given a few extra minutes. For example, in a matter of five minutes, I was able to find out where McIlroy lives (a 3000 sq. ft. house on ½ an acre valued at $500,000 in a bucolic suburb of Denver) and works (Lincoln Financial Group as a CFP). Heck, I even know how much McIlroy donated to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign a few years back.
[11] Nadar, Ralph. “Cheney and the BYU 25.” Apr. 30, 2007. In this article Nadar opines, “Could anyone have imagined that the major commencement protest at a University graduation thus far occurred April 26 at Brigham Young University (BYU)? Probably not.” But then could anyone have imagined that the Vice President with the lowest approval rating in modern American history would request and receive an invitation to be the commencement speaker?
[12] Allan, Sterling D. “Silencing Cheney Dissent – How BYU Obstructed 911 Justice,” Greater Things. Feb 7, 2010.
[13] Jones, Steven. “BYU and Prof. Steven Jones Revisited.” May 9, 2010.
[14] See this article on Baseball baptisms for more information. Retrieved 10/04/2010.
[15] Packer, Boyd K. “Teach Ye Diligently,” page 63.
[16] Barnett. “The Church’s Ranch.”
[17] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_D._Moyle. Retrieved 10/8/2010.
[18] Drockton, Paul. “Did Rothschilds Buy Mormon Church.” Retrieved 10/11/2010.
[19] See www.familysearch.org for more details and to perform your own search.
[20] It should also be noted that Drockton’s original article was based on news from one Steven Davis whose father, Clyde, happened to be cozy with the Rothschilds (at least according to Drockton’s article). Steven Davis, if the names are correct, penned a lengthy letter to then U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales regarding some rather fishy business going on over at the COB. His letter can be read here, though I admittedly haven’t had the time (or interest, at least not yet) to delve further into its contents and accuracy.
[21] Staker, Susan. Waiting the World’s End. Pages VIII-XXI.
[22] Salt Lake County Recorder’s Office, Deed No. 501, 787, Bk. 11 U, page 440, dated Nov. 19, 1923, and recorded Nov. 21, 1923. Issued by Heber J. Grant, Trustee in Trust for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Two other deeds followed: #501,790 and #502,184 also issued by Heber J. Grant. Despite this legal documentation, President Grant publicly denied it had occurred – Deseret News, 4 April 1936.
[23] See “Brigham Young’s Estate” for more information on his money issues. Leonard Arrington, LDS Historian, once wrote, “This ability to draw, almost at will, on church as well as his own funds, was a great advantage to Brigham Young and was certainly one of the reasons for his worldly success…. while Brigham Young was probably the largest borrower of funds from the trustee-in-trust, he was certainly not the only one.” (“The Settlement of the Brigham Young Estate,” 1877-1879, Reprinted from the Pacific Historical Review, vol. 21, no. 1, Feb. 1952, p.7-8)
[24] Brady, Rodney H. “Church Participation in Business.” 1992. Retrieved 10/16/2010.
Truth Hurts 