What's causing the follies of Donald Trump?

In "The portrait of Dorian Trump", 18/5/17, I admitted to some disappointment in the first four months of the Trump presidency, and in The Donald himself. It/he hasn't been a disaster, but it/he hasn't been the MAGA Revolution that we were promised and hoped and prayed for.

What happened? Just by coincidence, my weekend reading included The March of Folly, by the eminent historian Barbara Tuchman (Knopf/Ballantine 1984), in which I found the following passage on the subject of the expulsion from France of the Huguenots by Louis XIV, the Sun King.

The peculiarity of the whole affair was its needlessness, and this underlines two characteristics of folly: it often does not spring from a great design, and its consequences are frequently a surprise. The folly lies in persisting thereafter..

With acute if unwitting significance, a French historian wrote of the Revocation [of the Edict of Nantes] that "Great designs are rare in politics; the King proceeded empirically and sometimes impulsively."

His point is reinforced from an unexpected source in a perceptive comment by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who cautioned, "In analyzing history do not be too profound, for often the causes are quite superficial."

This is a factor usually overlooked by political scientists who, in discussing the nature of power, always treat it, even when negatively, with immense respect. They fail to see it as sometimes a matter of ordinary men walking into water over their heads, acting unwisely or foolishly or perversely as people in ordinary circumstances frequently do.

The trappings and impact of power deceive us, endowing the possessors with a quality larger than life. Shorn of his tremendous curled peruke, high heels and ermine, the Sun King was a man subject to misjudgment, error and impulse -- like you and me....

Folly is a child of power. We all know, from unending repetitions of Lord Acton's dictum, that power corrupts. We are less aware that it breed folly; that the power to command frequently causes failure to think; that the responsibility of power often fades as its exercise augments.

The overall responsibility of power is to govern as reasonably as possible in the interest of the state and its citizens. A duty in that process is to keep well-informed, to heed information, to keep mind and judgment open and to resist the insidious spell of wooden-headedness. If the mind is open enough to perceive that a given policy is harming rather than serving self-interest, and self-confident enough to acknowledge it, and wise enough to reverse it, that is a summit in the art of government.

Judgment Day - 19 September 2016 ???

3 portents of the coming Armageddon, published here a week ago, is drawing considerable interest. And why not? End-of-the-world questions and prophecies have been on people's minds and lips since about 90 seconds after Our Lord's Resurrection.

When is Jesus going to return in glory? How much longer will God tolerate the wickedness and perversity of His people? When will be the awful day of judgment? How long do we have to get ready?

These questions were perhaps even more real, more urgent to the people of the mid-14th century than they are to us, six-and-a-half centuries later. The 14th century was a time of terrible turmoil, with people from kings to commoners suffering from the Black Death and constant wars and pillage. The Church was even more corrupt and dissolute than it is today, held captive in "Babylon" (Avignon, France), then torn in the latter part of the century by the Great Schism.

In her monumental work A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century (Ballantine, 1978), historian Barbara Tuchman tells us that the people of that time were fascinated and entertained by liturgical plays (such as the Passion Play, which survived in parts of Europe until the end of the 20th century) and "miracle plays and mysteries", whose subject matter was religious, but scripts and presentation more like secular drama.

She goes on to describe "The Day of Judgment" and "The Harrowing of Hell", which may have been performed at the historic entertainment in Paris of Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, by Charles V, King of France. Read carefully her synopsis of these plays of prophecy.

"Apocalypse...was enacted in the Day of Judgment and the Harrowing of Hell, when Christ goes down to lead Adam and the prophets out to Paradise. Anti-Christ appears at his appointed time, traditionally fixed at three and half years before the Last Judgment. Born of Satan's seduction of a woman of Babylon, and instructed in all the demonic arts, he gains such power that kinds and cardinals pay him homage until he is overthrown at Armageddon in the triumph of good over evil. The saved are separated from the damned, and angels empty the vials of wrath." [My emphasis. Walt]

Now let us suppose, just for the sake of the argument, that Pope Francis is the Antichrist, the devil wrapped in a cloak of gentleness and humility. Francis was "inaugurated" -- the Church doesn't "consecrate", "crown" or "enthrone" popes any more -- on 19 March 2013. Add the "traditional" three years and six months and you get 19 September 2016. That's the date. Don't say Walt didn't warn you!

I'll give you that it's hard to see in Pope Francis the "Peter the Roman" named in the prophecy of St. Malachy as the last pope. But hold on. Francis has been rumored for some time to be in poor health. Since being "installed", he has cancelled several audiences and appearances, and the Vatican has press office has denied he is sick, which means he probably is. Suppose he dies? Then all bets are off and we will look for some "Petrine connection" in his successor.

What about "the woman of Babylon"? Ask any evangelical Protestant preacher and he'll tell you the Church of Rome is the "whore of Babylon" spoken of in the 17th and 18th chapters of the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine (or Revelation).
"I will shew thee the condemnation of the great harlot, who sitteth upon many waters (17:1)... on her forehead a name was written: A mystery; Babylon the great, the mother of the fornications, and the abominations of the earth. (17:5)"

The mystery plays speak of "Satan's seduction of a woman of Babylon". Has the devil seduced and perverted the Church of Rome, founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ when He walked among us? Don't take Walt's word for it. Heed the words of Pope Paul VI, who, following Vatican II and towards the end of reign, said publicly that "the smoke of Satan has entered the Church". He knew it full well, having been the pope who held open the window.

So there you have it. 19 September 2016. Walt isn't about to paint a placard saying "The end of the world is nigh" and go stand in front of the cathedral. Not just yet. But neither would I recommend turning a blind eye to the signs and portents.

What I do recommend, if this talk of Judgment Day is making you a bit nervous, is that you read Crucial Truths to Save Your Soul, by Father Nicholas Gruner, reviewed here last month.