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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
DANTE—THE POET AND THE CATHOLIC
BY THE EDITOR
“The vanguard of the far-flung forces crusading for
a literary and cultural revival. . . The heralds of the
twentieth century Renaissance.” So the Boston Tran
script terms the pilgrimage of reverence the world is
sending to Ravenna this year to the tomb of one of the
Church’s most brilliant sons, Dante Alighieri, dead
these six hundred years.
Dante was born in Florence in 1265. As a young
man he saw military service, and entered politics
at a time when politics was an exciting calling, and
which ended for him in his exile from his native city,
to which he never returned. He married before he
reached the age of thirty-two. His life, after his ex
ile, was spent in wandering about the north of Italy,
in Verona, Bologna, Pisa, Lucca and finally Ravenna.
During the early part of the century in which Dante
was born, the literary language of Tuscany was Latin,
and Dante himself used Latin in some of his works.
One of his greatest services was the establishing of
Italian as a medium for lasting literature.
It was on the fourteenth of September, 1321, that
Dante was summoned from the world after leaving a
mark on the minds of men it has been given to few
to leave since the dawn of history. And now, six
centuries after, the peoples of all the nations of the
world, millions in lands of which Dante never heard,
and of religious beliefs born since his day, forget for
the moment their ordinary avocations and their dif
ferences, and do him honor.
It is but nautral that Italy should thus honor her
renowned son, for in Italy the name of Dante has rep
resented to the average citizen, lettered or unlettered,
a living force, a flaming reality.
It is more remarkable that sister nations of Europe
are scarcely less interested in the sixth centenary of
Dante s death. The Spanish committee appointed for
the occasion has announced a competition for the best
book written in the Castilian language on the sub
ject: “The Divine Comedy as a Constructive Force in
the Progress of Humanity.” And the chairman of the
German Committee tells this to the world:
“Germany cannot let the sixth century of the death
of the divine poet pass in silence, his work being not
national but universal.”
Dante in America
Being universal, the Dante movement has crossed
the broad expanse of the Atlantic to America, and not
the least of the sixth centenary honors to Dante will
come from the United States.
There is no country in the world, unless it be his
native land, in which Dante is held in as high regard
as in America. Nearly 2,000 books about him and
his works have been written in America and printed
on American presses. He has had for his exponents
some of the stars of the firmament of American liter
ature, Longfellow, Lowell, Charles Elliot Norton and
Richard Henry Wilde among them, men varied in
type and of different generations and interests.
In the “Divine Comedy,” the agony of his soul,
Dante summarizes in a unique way the philosophy, the
literature, the science and the religion of the middle
ages. It is an encyclopedia; it reveals not only how
much Dante knew about theology, astronomy and
other branches of learning, but the interest and as
sistance of the Church in them as well. It is a song
in praise of women, indicating the high place she held
at that early date in spite of the absence of the nine
teenth amendment and twentieth century ideas.
It is popular these days in certain educational
circles to represent the Catholic Church as the oppon
ent of learning and progress. And to further their
thesis, its defenders assert that Dante was the fore
runner of the Reformation, the first Protestant and
hence not a staunch Catholic.
If Dante were a Protestant, he was careful not to
let it be revealed through his immortal poem and his
other works. He is a defender of dogma. He teach
es through his Divine Comedy the Unity of God; the
Trinity; the Redemption; the position of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, the Queen of Heaven; the supreme glory
of the saints, the angels and the redeemed; and the
existence of heaven, hell and purgatroy. He accepts
the decisions of the Councils, holds in esteem the Doc
tors of the Church, and his respect for the Pope may
be fathomed by his statement: “You have the Old
and New Testament, and the Pastor of the Church who
guides you; let this be enough for your salvation.”
And again, in his De Monarchia, he states that he
proposes to defend his own opinion “with that obse-
qiousness that must be used by a son pious towards
his own father, pious towards the mother, pious to
wards Christ, pious towards the Church, pious to
wards the Pastor, pious towards all who profess the
Christian religion, for the protection of truth.”
Dante and the Vatican
He felt the evils of the Church at that time, as any
man, so devoted to it as Dante was, necessarily would,
and he sometimes differed with the Supreme Pontiff in
political matters; but in the matters of faith and mor
als, he was always the loyal, obedient son of the
Church.
Dante is called by American scholars the founder
of modern literature. He is credited with being the
best exponent of medieval thought. He is a poet of
such power and technical pioficiency that the great
Shelley said he filled him with despair. His fame and
influence in America, with such a noble foundation,
should grow generation by generation, the New York
Evening Post suggests.
This great reverence for Dante, the foundation of
the modern Renaissance, is very significant. The
world, outside the Church, has been wandering for
these many years in search of truth and rest. The
materialism of the age distresses the truth seekers.
Their parched souls reach the well of Dante’s wisdom
and they drink with glowing satisfaction. They think
they have found what they seek in the poetry of
Dante, not realizing that it is the gems of revealed truth
with which he seasoned it that saitsfies their souls and
sends them away refreshed.
The Dante Memorial Exercises in America will be
held in Washington October 3, under the direction of
a National Committee headed by President Harding,
honorary chairman. SenaLor Vitorio Rolandi Ricci,
the Italian Ambassador to the United States, and
Charles Evans Hughes, Secretary of State, are hon
orary vice-chairmen. Included in the membeiship of
the committee are many churchmen, Cardinals O’Con
nell, and Dougherty, Archbishop Hanna, Bishop Sha-
han, and Bishop Alfred Harding of the Episcopal
Church and Bishops William F. McDowell and John
W. Hamilton of the Methodist Church.