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Reflections on the French Literary Titan, and Gay Catholic Fanatic, Jean Paul Genet on His Birthday

 This Blogger considers Jean Genet one of the great dramatists of the 20th Century, on par with Pirandello, Pinter, and Brecht. This Blogger considers THE BALCONY and THE MAIDS flat out masterpieces, but masterpieces of the Théâtre de la Cruauté( the Theater of Cruelty.

He never won a Nobel Prize for Literature.

Perhaps because of his checkered background; he was a thief, a criminal, a convict, a male prostitute and a pimp.

To top it off, Genet had an ungodly obsession with the Roman Catholic Church; when Jean Paul Sartre wrote his famous essay on Genet, he called it SAINT GENET.

VATICAN II, the great Catholic Council was televised in Europe; during VATICAN II, Genet set up shop at a Parisian café, at an outdoor table. He placed a television on his table, and invited bystanders to watch the proceedings with him,as he offered commentary.

The highlight of his day was pointing out which of the bishops on screen were gay.

Genet was a master of the dynamics of role playing.

He was once asked:”How would you change the makeup of the Catholic priesthood?

His answer was: Eliminate the theater in the Mass, eliminate all the fancy robes, and the red shoes, and the stunning Episcopal attire of the Cardinals.  Genet thought the clothes and the theater were the factors which lured the corrupt into the Church’s priesthood. In his opinion, the corrupt have a need to role play more than the non corrupt, so eliminate the trappings of role playing.

He was duly mocked by the intellectual class.

This Blogger held Genet’s solution in disdain, until he came across a tidbit about the post World War II German Army. In 1955,  General Eisenhower was President of the United States; he had been Commander of the Allied forces which had landed on the beaches of Normandy, against the German Army,on D-DAY.

The West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer came to him, and asked him to approve a new German Army, the Bundeswehrto take the place of the defeated Nazi Army.

General Eisenhower agreed, with one caveat. He told Adenauer he would not allow custom tailored uniforms in the new German Army; Eisenhower did not want men to join the army just because of the appeal of the uniform.

Eisenhower thought the Nazi era Army  uniforms had an attraction to men with the gene of inhumane killing.

This Blogger believes that Genet understood that the fancy dress in excess,  of the Roman Catholic Church held an ungodly attraction for pedophiles.

Eisenhower and Genet knew about the irrational atavism, beyond the scope of sociology, which lurks in the primordial souls of men.

Some of this Blogger’s Roman Catholic friends are eschatological. They believe that Pope Francis, in  allowing priests to bless same-sex marriages, is part of a larger prophecy; a foretelling of the collapse of the Papacy. That  Pope Francis is THE LAST POPE.

St Malachy, in the 12th Century AD, predicted that Pope Francis would be the last Pope.

On January 11, 2011, this Blogger published a Blog on St. Malachy’s Papal Prophecy.

The following is an excerpt from that Blog:

"Saint Malachy was a 12th century Irish monk, who, while on a visit to Rome had a vision of all the popes who would ever reign." 

"The Prophecy of the Popes, attributed to Saint Malachy, is a list of 112 short phrases in Latin. They purport to describe each of the Roman Catholic popes  beginning with Pope Celestine II (elected in 1143) and concluding with the successor of pope Benedict XVI,."(Pope Francis).

St. Malachy's last words were not too cheery: “…."when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed,and the terrible judge will judge his people. The End."


"In 1909, while granting an audience, pope Pius X leaned back and closed his eyes. Suddenly he "awoke" and cried out: "What I see is terrifying. What is certain is that the pope will quit Rome, and in leaving the Vatican, he will have to walk over the dead bodies of his priests."….Gerry Maxey in the Blog, THE DAILY GRAND AND SUNDRY.”







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