Greetings to the Conti Family and Friends. It is with warm affection and love to the relatives of Gene I write this. My name is Ted Flynn. and I wish to relay a story about Gene. I’ll stick to one, but I have dozens. Approximately ten years ago Dr. Gene Conti called the office of our family publishing company and Catholic Apostolate called Signs of the Times. I was not in the office to take the call. He and Barbara had been subscribers for over 20 years, give or take to our quarterly magazine, maybe 25 years. Our magazine is now in its 33rd year of operation, and Gene called while he was still living in Virginia Beach. He said he wanted to have lunch. I said sure. I figured he lived close by. Well, I am in Herndon, Va, near Dulles Airport, and Gene was four hours away with no traffic issues driving to have lunch. I said why don’t we just talk on the phone. He said, “no, I want to meet and talk.” I said, “really, the food isn’t that good to drive 8 hours round trip.” We had lunch. Gene had read several books I had written that dealt with subjects he enjoyed. One was on the political philosophy of the New World Order, and the other one that he liked was on the Blessed Mother’s apparitions in world history. He drove up and we met at Clydes Restaurant in Reston, Va. Gene had a deep knowledge of Creation Science, and I had about zero knowledge of it, but what I did know was that man did not walk the earth because of an ape. But, I wasn’t articulate in the arguments, and he was. That became abundantly clear during that first conversation, and more over time. I saw him as a one of a kind Catholic, or at least the only one I knew who could talk about Intelligent Design, Creation Science, Darwin, evolution, and blend it in with Magisterial Catholic thinking, philosophy and Scripture. He felt that my writings touched on those subjects, but I stopped short of doing the deep dive intellectually into the subject. I explained to him that it was not the case because I just felt that the cause of most problems in the world was due to “UNBELIEF.” To the lunch he brought a few books, charts, graphs, and writings from people I was aware of most of them, and some I had written about. I knew the philosophy of atheism, but what was not as clear in my thinking was the genesis of nearly all of it is due to Darwin, Lyell, and others. Gene’s thesis was that Darwin was a great contributor to atheism in youth, which then bleeds out out into the rest of our thinking. Thus, what we see today in our depraved and reprobate culture. This is what Gene was talking about. I was intrigued, but still couldn’t buy that Darwin was the principal culprit. Again, in hour three of the lunch, I still saw the real culprit as the devil creating division in the world. The battle in Genesis of, “I will not serve.” He agreed, but continually said that Darwin was the origin of the thinking in our modern culture, and he codified his material as a book that created incalculable damage in the world. I had never met anyone like him, and for him to drive 8 hours to have a lunch, I knew there was not only knowledge, but passion in his argument. Well it was now hour four, and neither of us had gotten up to take even a pee. We left the lunch, and I still said it was not Darwin, but UNBELIEF that was the root of man’s problems. It was never a contentious meeting, but just a difference of opinion on a a philosophical approach of mankind. I loved his thinking. For the next 40 weeks, Gene and Barbara sent me over 40 DVD’s on the subject to my home, and my wife and I not only watched them once, but twice. Once a week right on schedule they arrived. He sent about a half dozen books which validate the subject of Creation Science that man is not hundreds of thousands years old and the earth is not millions either. I saw quickly that what Gene was saying was correct. Darwin’s evolution scheme had been Satan’s Finest Hour to deceive man. Gene had the knowledge and the courage to say it as it was, and I saw that. It remains for me one of the most amazing days of my life because I saw the world differently after that day. My paradigm of world view was expanded to greater truth. Gene and Barbara several years later took Maureen and I to the opening of the Ark in Kentucky, and the Creation Museum outside Cincinnati. One full day at the Ark, and one full day at the Museum. Up and back I read his manuscript Satan’s Gambit, which he later published in a three volume set. People who have read it, like it. Over the four day trip, I saw again what Gene said was right, and science and Scripture back it up. Eight hours in a car each way is a lot of conversation. Over the years, as Gene would roll down the road to work, and I would do errands, we would chew the fat on the phone and what is going on in the world. It was always not only entertaining, but informative for me. I learned an awful lot about what life is like in the Emergency Room over the last 10 years I can tell you that. We all know Gene is not a fan of socialized medicine!!! We hiked down near Findcastle every year, grilled, saw each other near Thanksgiving when he and Barbara came up to see Camille. Over the years we have grown close to Camille. We will miss him terribly, and he has gone home to his eternal reward. He is now with the chorus of Heaven. God Bless you Gene. Ted, Maureen, & Colleen Flynn