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A Master of Ceremonies under Pope Paul III, Monsignor Biagio de Cesena, protested to the pope about the "shameless nudes " and "pornography" painted by Michelangelo in The Last Judgment on the Reredos of The Sistine Chapel. Livid over the envy, pettiness and the ignorance of Biagio, Michelangelo painted a portrait of him, with the ears of a jackass in Hell, ensnarled in the coils of Satan in the form of a snake, devouring Biagio' s Genitalia. When Biagio complained to the pope about his placement in the Hellish situation and place, Paul III maintained that had Michelangelo placed Biagio in purgatory, he could intervene and redeem him, but since Michelangelo had placed him in Hell, from which there is no redemption, the pope had no jurisdiction. Therefore, there he has stood for nearly 500 years, in constant embarrassment, shame and Hellishly, pigmented, pain.I had a dream several months ago, before the election, in which I was told that, "If you, Peter, paint into Michelangelo's Last Judgment, some of those now, who much more deserve the same treatment as Biagio, just men would be elected to replace some of the Evil-doers corrupting America's national heritage." So, I did as Michelangelo had done; and here are the prophetic results.
See, if you can pick out the Neo-Con villains, corruptors, Religious Right, hypocrites, and the War Criminals, which are attempting to destroy our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and encroach upon the edict against the establishment of a Theocratic State, from which form of Government all of our ancestors escaped Europe, Asia and the Middle East to come to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Here, in this sanctuary, enlightened men and women are free to worship as their conscience, dictates, in their own way, or not, as God asks of them, as free individuals, not under the influence of fools, whose view of God is narrow, driven by their hatred, bigotry and darkened and limited, intellect's.
Biagio' s crime was that he was unenlightened and perhaps envious of Michelangelo's giftedness and failed to recognize, perhaps in hypocritical prudishness, or perhaps in ignorance of the edict of God to respect those upon which he chooses to bestow extraordinary gifts. Those crimes were bad enough, perhaps not quite enough to merit the punishment Michelangelo dealt-out to him, but they pale in light of the horrors of nearly 1,000,000 casualties, close to 675,000 dead, tens of millions economically destroyed here and abroad, the blasphemous, sacraligious and disrespectful manner in which the Name of the Lord is taken in vain, the slanders, lies, and treasonous actions, all with hubris and contempt for God's poor in spirit and in material possessions and necessities. Indeed, if Biagio' s crimes against an enlightened one merited the serpent in Hell, these deserve no less, according to my dream.
Professor Emeritus Pete Bagnolo
