Just A Whole Lot of Stuff to Know In A Little Bit of Time

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The Circus of the Midget Naturalists has featured a lot of performers who have had their moments in the center ring.

Former Massachusetts Governor Willard Mitt Romney had been in the center ring for a while, although he always seems to be in a side ring very close to the center.

United States Representative Michele Bachmann was in the center ring for a while before a series of gaffes had her shunted off to a different tent rather the big top itself.

Texas Governor Rick Perry was in the center ring for a while until he began to implode in debates long before his now infamous "oops" moment on Saturday, November 12, 2011, in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

It appears as though Herman Cain's time in the center ring has passed. His act was very thin, premised upon a catchy phrase that turned the number of the beast mentioned by Saint John the Evangelist in the Book of the Apocalypse upside now. Other than that, however, there was no "there" there. Cain is glib. He is also very superficial. So are most of our contemporary naturalists:

 

Herman Cain became badly flustered on Monday when asked to assess President Obama’s policy toward Libya, raising new questions about his command of foreign policy as he lurched over five minutes from awkward pauses to halting efforts to address the issue.

Video of Mr. Cain’s appearance on Monday before editors and reporters at The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel went viral almost immediately after it was posted online, and drew immediate comparisons to Rick Perry’s recent stumble in a debate when he froze in discussing which federal agencies he would eliminate.

At the interview in Milwaukee, after he was asked his thoughts on Mr. Obama’s handling of Libya, Mr. Cain leaned back and appeared to search for an answer: “O.K., Libya,” he said.

“President Obama supported the uprising, correct?” he said. “President Obama called for the removal of Qaddafi — just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing before I say ‘Yes, I agree,’ or ‘No, I didn’t agree.’  ”

Mr. Cain said he disagreed with the president’s approach “for the following reasons” — then changed course.

“Nope, that’s a different one,” he said. “I’ve got to go back and see.”

He added: “I’ve got all this stuff twirling around in my head.”

Some analysts have grown sharply critical of Mr. Cain’s foreign policy pronouncements in debates and interviews, saying he shows a basic lack of understanding of critical regions of the world. Mr. Cain himself has sometimes fed into this, and in Monday’s interview he said: “Some people want to say, ‘Well, as president, you’re supposed to know everything.’ No you don’t.”

His comments about Libya came after a string of other provocative remarks about foreign policy and related issues.

Those include a statement published Monday in which Mr. Cain suggested that most American Muslims are extremists; a contradictory answer about waterboarding during a Republican presidential primary debate on Saturday focusing on foreign policy; and his statement that if Al Qaeda or another terrorist group demanded, he would consider authorizing the release of every detainee at Guantánamo Bay in return for the release of one American soldier.

J. D. Gordon, Mr. Cain’s spokesman and national security adviser, said the candidate had not been at his sharpest in Milwaukee because of a lack of sleep amid a long day of traveling.

“We were all going on four hours sleep, so he was tired,” Mr. Gordon said in a telephone interview. “When he got the Libya question, it took him a while to get his bearings on it, but he got the answer right.”

Mr. Gordon said Mr. Cain did repeat several times what he said was the correct answer — that the Obama administration should have done a better job assessing the Libyan opposition to Qaddafi and how it would govern.

Even on this point, though, Mr. Cain seemed to contradict himself at the end of the interview, when he said, “I don’t know that they were or were not assessed.”

Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, was unforgiving in a post on his blog at foreignpolicy.com.

“There’s a mercy rule in Little League, and I’m applying it here — unless and until Herman Cain surges back in the polls again, or manages to muster something approaching cogency in his foreign policy statements, there’s no point in blogging about him anymore,” Mr. Drezner wrote. “I can only pick on an ignoramus so many times before it feels sadistic.”

Jamie Fly, executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative, said Mr. Cain’s answer was further argument for additional foreign policy debates by the candidates.

“Past presidents have often been tested very early in their terms,” Mr. Fly said. ”We elect a president solely on an economic rationale at our own peril.”

In the Cain comments about Muslims that were released on Monday, he told GQ magazine he believed that most American Muslims held “extremist views,” explaining that a “Muslim voice” he knows — whom he would not name — told him that was the case.

“I have had one very well-known Muslim voice say to me directly that a majority of Muslims share the extremist views,” Mr. Cain said.

Though the transcript indicates Mr. Cain explicitly said he was talking about Muslims in the United States, Mr. Gordon said Mr. Cain had actually been talking about those in another country. “He doesn’t believe most Muslims in America have extreme views,” Mr. Gordon said.

Mr. Gordon said some other criticisms of Mr. Cain’s foreign policy comments had been unfair.

He also said that Mr. Cain had been spending anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours a day boning up on national security issues, including conversations with some ambassadors, and that he had spoken to the first President Bush and former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.

“It’s frankly just a lot of stuff to know in a little bit of time,” he said. (Cain Stumbles on Foreign Policy.)

Just a lot of "stuff" to do know in a little bits of time. Ah, yes, the joys of living in our world of naturalism, a world where even those without what used to be required of high school students, a grasp of basic current events is no longer necessary to be considered a serious candidate for the presidency of the United States of America.

This is the Herman Cain who said Red China did not have nuclear weapons.

This is the Herman Cain who showed basic confusion concerning the taking of innocent human life under cover of the civil law:

MORGAN: Abortion. What's your view of abortion?

CAIN: I believe that life begins at conception. And abortion under no circumstances. And here's why --

MORGAN: No circumstances?

CAIN: No circumstances.

MORGAN: Because many of your fellow candidates -- some of them qualify that.

CAIN: They qualify but --

MORGAN: Rape and incest.

CAIN: Rape and incest.

MORGAN: Are you honestly saying -- again, it's a tricky question, I know.

CAIN: Ask the tricky question.

MORGAN: But you've had children, grandchildren. If one of your female children, grand children was raped, you would honestly want her to bring up that baby as her own?

CAIN: You're mixing two things here, Piers?

MORGAN: Why?

CAIN: You're mixing --

MORGAN: That's what it comes down to.

CAIN: No, it comes down to it's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you're not talking about that big a number. So what I'm saying is it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make.

Not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn't have to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive issue.

MORGAN: By expressing the view that you expressed, you are effectively -- you might be president. You can't hide behind now the mask, if you don't mind me saying, of being the pizza guy. You might be the president of United States of America. So your views on these things become exponentially massively more important. They become a directive to the nation.

CAIN: No they don't. I can have an opinion on an issue without it being a directive on the nation. The government shouldn't be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to social decisions that they need to make.

MORGAN: That's a very interesting departure --

CAIN: Yes.

MORGAN: -- from the normal politics.

CAIN: Exactly. (Piers Morgan - CNN.com - Transcripts.)

 

Leaving aside the business of those harassment allegations against Cain, Firing Blanks At The Messengers,  the former chief executive officer of Godfather Pizza's time in the center ring is over. He is an ignoramus.

There was once a time when naturalists knew something, however distorted, of history and were very conversant in the details of current events, public policy and even constitutional law. The late Richard Milhous Nixon could discourse extemporaneously at length on foreign policy and the state of the world, admitting, of course, that his was a practitioner of amorality whose "foreign policy" involved the government of the United States of America in the business of funding international "family planning" organizations for the very first time. On other matters, however, especially on matters pertaining to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law, Nixon shared a lot with the current crop of midget naturalists by making things up as he went along.

Ronald Wilson Reagan made all manner of gaffes on matters of history and even of policy from time to time. So did George Walker Bush. And don't forgot Leslie Lynch King, Jr.'s (aka Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr.) infamous "liberation" of the countries behind the Iron Curtain in his debate with the equally gaffe prone James Earl Carter, Jr., in San Francisco, California, on October 6, 1976. John Frederick Kerry said that he followed the teachings of "Pope Pius XXIIII." Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and Sarah Heath Palin tripped all over themselves in factual errors and policy gaffes. There have been others, William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama, who just fabricate things about themselves or who carelessly stated policy facts as true that they knew to be false.

As has been noted in so many other commentaries on this site over the years, naturalism breeds ignorance. The level of ignorance that envelopes us today is evocative is vast, compounded by the paucity of grace in the world as a result of the sacramental barrenness of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. The level of ignorance is so vast that most people do not realize how utterly ignorant they are and, worse yet, they do not care to know how ignorant they are. Hence it is that Herman Cain still has a significant level of support among voters planning to vote in the organized crime family of the false opposite of the naturalist "right's" farce of primaries and caucuses starting early next year. Then again, the ultimate ignoramus of them all, Caesar Barackus Obamus Ignoramus, still leads most Republicans rather handily in the public opinion polls at this time and it is my contention that he stands an excellent chance to win re-election next year regardless of the state of the economy.

Circuses are only that, circuses, performances that are detached from reality, which can be understood only through the eyes of the true Faith. For the "whole lot of stuff we have to know" about the good of the public order has been provided us by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His true popes:

[1] I am the true vine; and my Father is the husbandman. [2] Every branch in me, that beareth not fruit, he will take away: and every one that beareth fruit, he will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit. [3] Now you are clean by reason of the word, which I have spoken to you. [4] Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. [5] I am the vine: you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing. [John 15:5]

Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely Wise, Good, and Just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men. It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the States and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which  it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the teachings of the Gospel it does not reveal itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but It is still more the internal source of justice and charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the doctrine of its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and privileges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes. It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty. Not does it infringe upon the rights of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

 

The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

Let the Princes and Rulers of peoples remember this truth, and let them consider whether it is a prudent and safe idea for governments or for states to separate themselves from the holy religion of Jesus Christ, from which their authority receives such strength and support. Let them consider again and again, whether it is a measure of political wisdom to seek to divorce the teaching of the Gospel and of the Church from the ruling of a country and from the public education of the young. Sad experience proves that human authority fails where religion is set aside. The fate of our first parent after the Fall is wont to come also upon nations. As in his case, no sooner had his will turned from God than his unchained passions rejected the sway of the will; so, too, when the rulers of nations despise divine authority, in their turn the people are wont to despise their human authority. There remains, of course, the expedient of using force to repress popular risings; but what is the result? Force can repress the body, but it cannot repress the souls of men.  (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914.)

There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.

It is apparent from these considerations that true peace, the peace of Christ, is impossible unless we are willing and ready to accept the fundamental principles of Christianity, unless we are willing to observe the teachings and obey the law of Christ, both in public and private life. If this were done, then society being placed at last on a sound foundation, the Church would be able, in the exercise of its divinely given ministry and by means of the teaching authority which results therefrom, to protect all the rights of God over men and nations.

It is possible to sum up all We have said in one word, "the Kingdom of Christ." For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by His teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one's life by the living according to His law and the imitating of His example. Jesus reigns over the family when it, modeled after the holy ideals of the sacrament of matrimony instituted by Christ, maintains unspotted its true character of sanctuary. In such a sanctuary of love, parental authority is fashioned after the authority of God, the Father, from Whom, as a matter of fact, it originates and after which even it is named. (Ephesians iii, 15) The obedience of the children imitates that of the Divine Child of Nazareth, and the whole family life is inspired by the sacred ideals of the Holy Family. Finally, Jesus Christ reigns over society when men recognize and reverence the sovereignty of Christ, when they accept the divine origin and control over all social forces, a recognition which is the basis of the right to command for those in authority and of the duty to obey for those who are subjects, a duty which cannot but ennoble all who live up to its demands. Christ reigns where the position in society which He Himself has assigned to His Church is recognized, for He bestowed on the Church the status and the constitution of a society which, by reason of the perfect ends which it is called upon to attain, must be held to be supreme in its own sphere; He also made her the depository and interpreter of His divine teachings, and, by consequence, the teacher and guide of every other society whatsoever, not of course in the sense that she should abstract in the least from their authority, each in its own sphere supreme, but that she should really perfect their authority, just as divine grace perfects human nature, and should give to them the assistance necessary for men to attain their true final end, eternal happiness, and by that very fact make them the more deserving and certain promoters of their happiness here below.

It is, therefore, a fact which cannot be questioned that the true peace of Christ can only exist in the Kingdom of Christ -- "the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ." It is no less unquestionable that, in doing all we can to bring about the re-establishment of Christ's kingdom, we will be working most effectively toward a lasting world peace. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

 

It is because none of the midget naturalists know "this stuff" that they are prone to be so ignorant as those who do not understand First and Last Things will never be able to understand the daily events of the world.

Today is the Feast of Saint Gertrude the Great, to  whom Our Blessed Lord ad Saviour revealed the secrets of His Most Sacred Heart:

Now, as the end of time approaches, He says to us what He once announced by the beloved Apostle of His Sacred Heart [Saint Gertrude the Great]: "Let him who thirsts for happiness, grace, and peace, come to My Divine Heart, their source, and draw from it 'gratis' whatsoever he will. My merciful Heart, which desires before the end of time to glorify itself by a supreme manifestation, and to love men to the utmost bounds of affection, has arranged all for this end.

"Let these languid souls come only to Me, confide in My goodness, and abandon themselves to My love. Let them be at rest in the meekness of My Heart, unite themselves to My humility and obedience, and they will no longer feel the weight of My yoke through the abundant consolation with which I will favor them. Come, then, without fear or delay, and abandon yourselves lovingly and for ever unto Me." (Father Andre Prevot, Love, Peace and Joy: Devotion to the Sacred Heart According to St. Gertrude, published originally in 1911.)

 

Let us repose in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as we approach this Font of Mercy and of Love through the Heart out of which It was formed, the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Let us accept the chastisement of the moment, a chastisement each of us deserves most richly because of our sins, and use it as a means of making reparation for our sins and those of the whole world by defending the Catholic Faith without any compromises with the naturalists of the false opposites of the "left" or of the "right." Let us proclaim Catholicism as the one and only foundation of personal and social order as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, seeking only to plant a few seeds as we give honor and glory to the Most Holy Trinity through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Saint Gertrude the Great will teach us humility as we approach the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. She will teach us to have gratitude for the graces that we have received as seek to imitate the meekness with which the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus bears with our offenses, our ingratitude, our lukewarmness, our inconstancy. She will teach us to imitate the mercy of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as we extend to others the same forgiveness that is given to us so freely in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance by an alter Christus acting in persona Christi.

Although we see dimly here in this life because of our fallen estate and the damage that we have done to our souls by means of our sins, our goal in life to see God clearly in Heaven. Saint Gertrude the Great will help us to see Him more clearly in this life if we place our trust in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus that beats in unison with the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Saint Gertrude will teach us most especially to spend time with Our Beloved in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament. We receive infused graces from spending time with Our Eucharistic King. These infused graces will enlighten the mind and strengthen the will as our hearts are purified more and more to desire only the possession of the Most Blessed Trinity for all eternity in Heaven. Eucharistic piety is, of course, a very foretaste of the glories of Heaven itself.

Saint Gertrude adored Our Lord in His Real Presence in these words:

 

Hail, Most Glorious Body, a most precious Blood of my Lord Jesus Christ, here truly present beneath these sacramental species; I adore Thee with all that devotion and awe wherewith the nine choirs of angels worship and adore thee. I prostrate myself before Thee in the spirit of humility, believing and professing that Thou, my Lord and my God, are herein most truly contained.

Hail, most glorious Body of Jesus Christ my Saviour, true Victim immolated upon the cross. I adore Thee in union with that adoration with which Thy Humanity adored Thy Godhead, and I give Thee thanks with all the love of all thy creatures, that Thou dost deign to remain hidden in this tabernacle for our salvation.

Hail, compassionate Jesus, Word of the Father, Brightness of His glory, Ocean of pity, Salvation of the world, most august and sacred Victim. Hail, Jesus Christ, Splendour of the Father, Prince of Peace, Gate of Heaven, True Bread, Son of the Virgin, Shrine of the Godhead.

I most firmly believe that  Thou, my God, are here present, and that Thou are looking out upon me from behind the veil of the sacrament, and dost behold all the most secret recesses of my heart. I believe that under this species of bread are contained not only Thy Flesh and Thy Blood, but also Thy Divinity and Thy Humanity. And although this mystery surpasses my understanding, I nevertheless believe it so firmly that I am ready to give my life and my blood in defense of its truth.

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Whose Most Sacred Heart beats with such burning love for us in every tabernacle of a Catholic church served by a true bishop or a true priest, told us not to fear:

The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?

Therefore fear them not. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed: nor hid, that shall not be known. That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops. And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Mt. 10: 24-28.)

 

Should we not believe Him? Fear not. He is with us. His Most Sacred Heart beats us for us, pouring out upon us rivers of Mercy. The Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother pleads with Him for us. There is nothing to fear from seeing the world clearly through the eyes of the true Faith as we live in the shadow of the Cross as we keep Him company before His Real Presence while shielding ourselves with the Brown Scapular and using the weapon of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary to help all men to see the world so clearly through the eyes of the true Faith that they will never hesitate, even if their very lives are threatened, to exclaim:

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

 

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?