Dante and the Ecclesial Paradox: Rebuke, Reverence, and Redemption

Abstract

In the past hundred years, three pontiffs have written apostolic letters to commemorate anniversaries relating to Dante: in 1921, Benedict XV marked the sixth centenary of the death of the great poet; in 1965, Paul VI judged it opportune to write on the occasion of the seventh centenary of his birth; and in 2021, Pope Francis added his voice to the numerous others wishing to honour the memory of the supreme Florentine poet on the seventh centenary of his death. Each letter is a product of its time: one hundred years ago, the Pope—still confined within the Vatican and refusing to recognise the Kingdom of Italy due to the Roman Question—addressed his text “to the beloved sons, professors and pupils of literary institutes and centres of higher learning within the Catholic world”; Paul VI, in full accord with the spirit of the Second Vatican Council and its vision of a Church seeking collaboration with the world, addressed his writing to Dante scholars more broadly, and within the same letter, together with other academic authorities, established the Chair of Dante Studies at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan; Pope Francis today, in his outward-facing style of evangelisation, challenges everyone to (re)read Dante, whose teaching remains relevant seven hundred years after his death. Despite the differing political contexts and ecclesial agendas, Benedict XV, Paul VI, and Pope Francis are united on one point: Dante is a Christian poet—critical of the Church, certainly, but loyal to his faith and desirous of a religious institution that is more serious and less corrupt. This brief study presents the homage which the Church, today, seven centuries later, renders to this Poet—now widely recognised as a passionate witness of an arduous and active faith, in pursuit of justice and freedom.

1. Introduction

Over the past hundred years, the popes—from Benedict XV to Francis I (Par. XII, 135)—have shown particular interest in the great Florentine poet of the fourteenth century, Dante Alighieri, not only by referring to certain aspects of his work in some of their messages, but also by dedicating three apostolic letters to him, commemorating the sixth and seventh centenaries of his death and the seventh of his birth.

To the secular reader, this interest might seem puzzling. Indeed, Dante did not hold back from issuing severe censures against the popes of his century! Only one is openly praised in the Paradiso—Pietro Spano, that is, John XXI—while two others—Innocent III and Honorius III—are mentioned only in passing, because they confirmed the approval of the Franciscan Order (Par. XI, 92; 98)). Adrian V and Martin IV (in the world, respectively, Ottobono Fieschi and Simon de Brion) are placed in Purgatorio to atone for their sins of avarice and gluttony, the former in the fifth terrace (Pur. XIX, 97–102) and the latter in the sixth (Pur. XXIV, 20–24). The other pontiffs mentioned in the Divine Comedy, to put it briefly and without excessive ceremony, Dante sends to hell!

As if that were not enough, while those found in Purgatorio and Paradiso are remembered with only a few verses, the damned popes are granted many more, as though Dante took pleasure in describing their torments even more than their perversions! And it is precisely there, in Inferno, that the prophecy is uttered that the pope reigning in 1300—the year in which the supreme poet’s otherworldly journey is imagined to take place—would end up in hell, and that he would soon be followed by his successor (Inf. XIX, 52–57; 82–84).

In this brief study, I will seek to focus, on the one hand, on the grave sins of the pontiffs of Dante’s time, for which the poet expresses outrage and against which he rails with such anger, and on the other, on the positive qualities and virtues for which pontiffs of our own time praise Dante.

A pertinent preliminary question arises at the outset of this discussion: how can we reconcile the apparent contradiction between Dante Alighieri’s sharp criticism of certain thirteenth- and fourteenth-century popes and the praise he has received from twentieth- and twenty-first-century pontiffs? Why would contemporary popes laud a poet who so explicitly condemned some of their predecessors? The answer, though challenging, is compelling: Dante was, in many respects, correct. As we shall observe, his invective was not directed against the papacy as a divine institution, nor against the Church herself, but rather against specific individuals who, occupying the See of Peter, betrayed their office by succumbing to vice and thereby scandalising the Church. Dante does not hesitate to denounce these abuses in unflinching terms, portraying the Church as a corrupted bride, even a prostitute, sullied by the actions of her shepherds. The catalogue of vices he condemns is both extensive and sobering, and his denunciations stand in stark contrast to the silence that often characterised the ecclesiastical response to such scandals in his time.

2. Dante’s Anger for the Church

Al Padre, al Figlio, a lo Spirito Santo’, cominciò, ‘gloria!’, tutto ’l paradiso, sì che m’inebrïava il dolce canto. Ciò ch’io vedeva mi sembiava un riso de l’universo; per che mia ebbrezza intrava per l’udire e per lo viso. Oh gioia! oh ineffabile allegrezza! oh vita intègra d’amore e di pace! oh sanza brama sicura ricchezza! Dinanzi a li occhi miei le quattro face stavano accese, e quella che pria venne incominciò a farsi più vivace, e tal ne la sembianza sua divenne, qual diverrebbe Iove, s’elli e Marte fossero augelli e cambiassersi penne. La provedenza, che quivi comparte vice e officio, nel beato coro silenzio posto avea da ogne parte, quand’ ïo udi’: «Se io mi trascoloro, non ti maravigliar, ché, dicend’ io, vedrai trascolorar tutti costoro. Quelli ch’usurpa in terra il luogo mio, il luogo mio, il luogo mio, che vaca ne la presenza del Figliuol di Dio, fatt’ ha del cimitero mio cloaca del sangue e de la puzza; onde ’l perverso che cadde di qua sù, là giù si placa». Di quel color che per lo sole avverso nube dipigne da sera e da mane, vid’ ïo allora tutto ’l ciel cosperso.

Unto the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, glory!”—all Paradise began, so that the sweetness of the singing held me rapt. What I saw seemed to me to be a smile the universe had smiled; my rapture had entered by way of hearing and of sight. O joy! O gladness words can never speak! O life perfected by both love and peace! O richness so assured, that knows no longing! Before my eyes, there stood, aflame, the four torches, and that which had been first to come began to glow with greater radiance, and what its image then became was like what Jupiter’s would be if Mars and he were birds and had exchanged their plumages. After the Providence that there assigns to every office its appointed time had, to those holy choirs, on every side, commanded silence, I then heard: “If I change color, do not be amazed, for as I speak, you will see change in all these flames. He who on earth usurps my place, my place, my place that in the sight of God’s own Son is vacant now, has made my burial ground a sewer of blood, a sewer of stench, so that the perverse one who fell from Heaven, here above, can find contentment there below”. Then I saw all the heaven colored by the hue that paints the clouds at morning and at evening, with the sun confronting them.1

Paradiso XXVII, 1–30

In Canto XXVII of the Paradiso, in the eighth heaven of the fixed stars, Dante finds himself before the four lights that are the souls of Peter, John, James, and Adam, while the souls of the blessed glorify the most holy Trinity with voices so sweet that the poet, inflamed with divine delight, himself bursts forth in praise of the “gladness words can never speak” that reigned in that holy place, to the point that he remarks he could see the heavens smiling. But suddenly, the light of Peter—the first pope—changes colour and turns red with shame, while his voice echoes across the entire ether, silencing all the other voices (Par. XXVII, 1–30). This speech of Peter is the final invective against the Church found in the Divine Comedy; others that precede it are no less harsh, but this one, occurring in paradise, has an effect that is surely more terrible and unrelenting (Horne 2012, pp. 282–83). All in the eighth heaven blush with shame, on account of the scandalous conduct of the popes denounced by their forefather, who laments that his tomb—the Vatican Hill, chosen as a residence by Nicholas III—had by then become a sewer, filthy and foul-smelling. From Peter’s words it is easy to understand that what causes him to change colour and become enraged is the corruption of the Church, particularly due to simony, whereby the bride of Christ is “made use of in acquest of gold” and her privileges made into objects of commerce.

In a certain sense we may observe that one of the principal themes of the Comedy reaches its conclusion here—a theme that had opened in the third canto of the Inferno, where Pope Celestine V is first mentioned. The reason why Dante, in the vestibule of hell, includes a glimpse of a pope among the damned souls is to prepare the reader for the cantiche that follow, in which other popes and clerics will be denounced—explicitly and fiercely—for having acted to the detriment of the Church.

The most important canto in which Dante speaks of the simony of the popes is Canto XIX of the Inferno, where three other pontiffs are mentioned who are either already in hell or will soon be: Nicholas III, Boniface VIII—the poet’s archenemy—and Clement V. However, before discussing that canto and another closely related to it, it is necessary to address briefly other faults for which the Florentine accuses the Church, and in particular Boniface VIII. All the invectives, in fact, are directed at the figure of Boniface, with whom the presence of Celestine V in the ante-inferno is also connected; indeed, it was thanks to Celestine’s resignation that Boniface ascended to the Petrine throne. The holy life that Celestine led after his brief pontificate, in Dante’s eyes, could never redeem his grave error: that of having paved the way for a man as unscrupulous as Boniface to occupy so important an office as that of shepherd of the Church.

A little further on, in Canto VI of the Inferno, Dante encounters Ciacco, where the reason for the poet’s deep resentment toward the reigning pope at the time the journey is supposed to take place—beginning on 25 March 1300—is clearly articulated. Ciacco prophesies that within a few weeks the zuffa del Calendimaggio would occur, in which the White Guelphs would expel the Black Guelphs; however, within three years, the latter would return to Florence through the machinations of Boniface and Philip the Fair of France, with the consequence that the power of the White Guelphs would be destroyed. Although Ciacco does not name Dante explicitly, the Florentine poet himself would become one of the cultured White Guelphs who would eventually be exiled from the city. Here, then, we see the history of the Church, the affairs of Dante’s beloved city, and his personal story intersect—each of them betrayed, upended, and ruined by Boniface VIII.

Proceeding to Canto XV, Dante encounters Brunetto Latini in the third ring of the seventh circle, the place of the sodomites; Brunetto states clearly that the group among which he found himself was composed of souls of “men of letters great and of great fame”. Among the figures present in that company, Brunetto makes an indirect reference to Bishop Andrea de Mozzi (Inf. XV, 110–114), whom Boniface—here called “the servant of the servants”—had transferred from Florence to Vicenza in order to cover up his debaucheries.

Toward the end of the first cantica, in Canto XXVII, Pope Boniface once again emerges as a negative protagonist. Here, in the eighth bolgia of the eighth circle, Dante encounters Guido da Montefeltro, a former soldier known for his cunning, who had repented and become a friar in order to atone for his past sins. He finds himself in hell because the Pope—here nicknamed “the High Priest” and “the leader of the modern Pharisees”—summoned him to exploit his shrewdness in order to rid himself of political enemies, especially the cardinals Pietro and Giacomo Colonna. To persuade Guido to reactivate the abilities he had grown ashamed of, Boniface resorts to coercion: he tells him either to reveal how to dispose of his enemies or face excommunication. To reassure him, the Pope grants him absolution for the sin before it is even committed, and Guido falls into the trap. Consequently, Boniface seizes the Colonna stronghold of Palestrina in exchange for a promise of pardon for their having opposed him; yet as soon as Palestrina is no longer in the Colonnas’ hands, Boniface orders it razed to the ground.

Much later, in the aforementioned Canto XXVII of the Paradiso, Saint Peter calls Boniface a usurper.

These four condemnations directed at the reigning Pope of 1300 demonstrate that he was not merely guilty of simony, but of every form of corruption: political involvement with the “wrong” party; irresponsible decisions concerning a bishop accused of sexual abuse; the spiritual corruption of a repentant friar; abuse of the power to absolve sins; unlawful appropriation of another’s property; violence; usurpation. In the face of these dreadful crimes, simony almost seems pale by comparison. And yet it is precisely simony that Dante emphasises the most, for in it he sees the root of all the other sins of the Church.

This is seen in Canto XIX of the Inferno, which opens with a fiery invective against Simon Magus, who, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, attempted to purchase from Peter the power to cast out demons. For Dante, the act of buying and selling things that belong to God constitutes the gravest sin of the Church (Enright 2004, p. 19), and the clerics who turn sacred things into objects of commerce are guilty of profound immorality.

In the third bolgia of the eighth circle, the poet sees the legs and feet of the simoniacs protruding from numerous holes, into which they are plunged headfirst. The soles of their feet are eternally tormented by small flames. These flames recall the manifestation of the holy Spirit on Pentecost, but here everything is inverted: rather than illuminating their heads, the flames torture their feet. They who in life walked with heads held high, appropriating sacred things and selling them for money, now find themselves immobilised, head down, trapped in holes.

It is here that Dante speaks with the first pope in the entire Divine Comedy; this is Nicholas III. During his brief pontificate, which lasted only three years (1277–1280), Nicholas was known for securing the confirmation of the Church’s sovereignty over its territories and for asserting the rights of the Holy See over the Roman Senate, even going so far as to take upon himself the authority to regulate the appointment of senators. Beyond this, Nicholas is remembered for his nepotism.

From the few words spoken by this pope, it is understood that beneath him lie other simoniacal popes, and that before long he will be pushed further down by the soul of Boniface VIII, and ultimately by that of Clement V—who, Dante asserts, will be an even worse pope than Boniface. Clement would transfer the papal seat to Avignon owing to his alliance with Philip the Fair. Here, Dante articulates in the harshest of terms his message against a corrupt Church, accusing the popes of having, centuries before, accepted the Donation of Constantine—through which the Church, once the chaste bride of Christ, now prostitutes itself with a temporal power that does not rightfully belong to it.

Io non so s’i’ mi fui qui troppo folle, ch’i’ pur rispuosi lui a questo metro: «Deh, or mi dì: quanto tesoro volle Nostro Segnore in prima da san Pietro ch’ei ponesse le chiavi in sua balìa? Certo non chiese se non “Viemmi retro”. Né Pier né li altri tolsero a Matia oro od argento, quando fu sortito al loco che perdé l’anima ria. Però ti sta, ché tu se’ ben punito; e guarda ben la mal tolta moneta ch’esser ti fece contra Carlo ardito. E se non fosse ch’ancor lo mi vieta la reverenza de le somme chiavi che tu tenesti ne la vita lieta, io userei parole ancor più gravi; ché la vostra avarizia il mondo attrista, calcando i buoni e sollevando i pravi. Di voi pastor s’accorse il Vangelista, quando colei che siede sopra l’acque puttaneggiar coi regi a lui fu vista; quella che con le sette teste nacque, e da le diece corna ebbe argomento, fin che virtute al suo marito piacque. Fatto v’avete dio d’oro e d’argento; e che altro è da voi a l’idolatre, se non ch’elli uno, e voi ne orate cento? Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre, non la tua conversion, ma quella dote che da te prese il primo ricco patre!».

[…] And I do not know if I was too rash here—I answered so: “Then tell me now, how much gold did our Lord ask that Saint Peter give to him before he placed the keys within his care? Surely the only thing he said was: ‘Follow me.’ And Peter and the others never asked for gold or silver when they chose Matthias to take the place of the transgressing soul. Stay as you are, for you are rightly punished; and guard with care the money got by evil that made you so audacious against Charles. And were it not that I am still prevented by reverence for those exalted keys that you had held within the happy life, I’d utter words much heavier than these, because your avarice afflicts the world: it tramples on the good, lifts up the wicked. You, shepherds, the Evangelist had noticed when he saw her who sits upon the waters and realized she fornicates with kings, she who was born with seven heads and had the power and support of the ten horns, as long as virtue was her husband’s pleasure. You’ve made yourselves a god of gold and silver; how are you different from idolaters, save that they worship one and you a hundred? Ah, Constantine, what wickedness was born— and not from your conversion—from the dower that you bestowed upon the first rich father!”

Inferno XIX, 88–117

This allusion to the harlot of the Apocalypse returns in another scene, this time in Purgatorio, Canto XXXII. Dante and Beatrice, recently reunited, witness the triumphant procession of the chariot, which represents the Church, drawn by the griffin. As long as the griffin remains with the chariot, it faces no danger; however, once the griffin ascends to heaven, the chariot is assailed by various monstrous figures and is damaged, losing its stability and changing form, ultimately becoming a monster. The woman who had been seated upon it also changes form, becoming the Apocalyptic harlot, while beside the chariot appears a giant with whom the harlot dallies, despite being beaten and abducted by him. The entire group then vanishes into the forest.

The whole scene serves as an allegory for the historical relationship between the Church and imperial power from the early centuries through to the poet’s own era. First, the eagle of Rome descends upon the chariot—here symbolising the persecutions carried out by the Empire against Christians. Subsequently, a fox seeks refuge beneath the chariot, representing heresy; this, however, is driven away by Beatrice, who symbolises theology. The imperial eagle returns to fly over the chariot, and this time, instead of attacking, it covers the chariot with its feathers—this act symbolises the Donation of Constantine, whereby the Church received a form of power that did not correspond to its essential nature. Then, the earth opens beneath the wheels of the chariot, and from the abyss emerges a dragon that damages it by wedging its tail within it—this figure represents the schisms. The damaged chariot is once again covered with eagle feathers, signifying the deepening corruption arising from temporal power. At this point, the transformation of the chariot begins. Three heads, each bearing two horns, emerge from the front. A further four heads, each with a single horn, appear on each of the sides. The chariot thus becomes a beast with seven heads and ten horns—the beast from the Apocalypse. Near the woman lasciviously seated upon the chariot appears a giant who represents the Empire: in this image is portrayed the fate of the Church—though, at the time of the vision, it had not yet fully come to pass—wherein, having reached the height of corruption, its seat will be transferred to France by the will of Philip the Fair.

With these words and these vivid images, the supreme poet describes the pitiable state of his beloved Church, which he dares to call a harlot due to the corruption of her shepherds.

Non scese mai con sì veloce moto foco di spessa nube, quando piove da quel confine che più va remoto, com’ io vidi calar l’uccel di Giove per l’alber giù, rompendo de la scorza, non che d’i fiori e de le foglie nove; e ferì ’l carro di tutta sua forza; ond’ el piegò come nave in fortuna, vinta da l’onda, or da poggia, or da orza. Poscia vidi avventarsi ne la cuna del trïunfal veiculo una volpe che d’ogne pasto buon parea digiuna; ma, riprendendo lei di laide colpe, la donna mia la volse in tanta futa quanto sofferser l’ossa sanza polpe. Poscia per indi ond’ era pria venuta, l’aguglia vidi scender giù ne l’arca del carro e lasciar lei di sé pennuta; e qual esce di cuor che si rammarca, tal voce uscì del cielo e cotal disse: «O navicella mia, com’ mal se’ carca!». Poi parve a me che la terra s’aprisse tr’ambo le ruote, e vidi uscirne un drago che per lo carro sù la coda fisse; e come vespa che ritragge l’ago, a sé traendo la coda maligna, trasse del fondo, e gissen vago vago. Quel che rimase, come da gramigna vivace terra, da la piuma, offerta forse con intenzion sana e benigna, si ricoperse, e funne ricoperta e l’una e l’altra rota e ’l temo, in tanto che più tiene un sospir la bocca aperta. Trasformato così ’l dificio santo mise fuor teste per le parti sue, tre sovra ’l temo e una in ciascun canto. Le prime eran cornute come bue, ma le quattro un sol corno avean per fronte: simile mostro visto ancor non fue. Sicura, quasi rocca in alto monte, seder sovresso una puttana sciolta m’apparve con le ciglia intorno pronte; e come perché non li fosse tolta, vidi di costa a lei dritto un gigante; e basciavansi insieme alcuna volta. Ma perché l’occhio cupido e vagante a me rivolse, quel feroce drudo la flagellò dal capo infin le piante; poi, di sospetto pieno e d’ira crudo, disciolse il mostro, e trassel per la selva, tanto che sol di lei mi fece scudo a la puttana e a la nova belva.

Never descended with so swift a motion Fire from a heavy cloud, when it is raining From out the region which is most remote, As I beheld the bird of Jove descend Down through the tree, rending away the bark, As well as blossoms and the foliage new, And he with all his might the chariot smote, Whereat it reeled, like vessel in a tempest Tossed by the waves, now starboard and now larboard. Thereafter saw I leap into the body Of the triumphal vehicle a Fox, That seemed unfed with any wholesome food. But for his hideous sins upbraiding him, My Lady put him to as swift a flight As such a fleshless skeleton could bear. Then by the way that it before had come, Into the chariot’s chest I saw the Eagle Descend, and leave it feathered with his plumes. And such as issues from a heart that mourns, A voice from Heaven there issued, and it said: “My little bark, how badly art thou freighted!” Methought, then, that the earth did yawn between Both wheels, and I saw rise from it a Dragon, Who through the chariot upward fixed his tail, And as a wasp that draweth back its sting, Drawing unto himself his tail malign, Drew out the floor, and went his way rejoicing That which remained behind, even as with grass A fertile region, with the feathers, offered Perhaps with pure intention and benign, Reclothed itself, and with them were reclothed The pole and both the wheels so speedily, A sigh doth longer keep the lips apart. Transfigured thus the holy edifice Thrust forward heads upon the parts of it, Three on the pole and one at either corner. The first were horned like oxen; but the four Had but a single horn upon the forehead; A monster such had never yet been seen! Firm as a rock upon a mountain high, Seated upon it, there appeared to me A shameless whore, with eyes swift glancing round, And, as if not to have her taken from him, Upright beside her I beheld a giant; And ever and anon they kissed each other. But because she her wanton, roving eye Turned upon me, her angry paramour Did scourge her from her head unto her feet. Then full of jealousy, and fierce with wrath, He loosed the monster, and across the forest Dragged it so far, he made of that alone A shield unto the whore and the strange beast.

Purgatorio XXXII, 109–160

Even though, as we have said, Dante claims that simony is the root of all other sins in the Church, in reality simony has its own source, and this is avarice, which makes a very brief, but important, appearance at the beginning of the Divine Comedy. In the opening canto of the Inferno, Dante introduces three beasts that obstruct the pilgrim’s ascent toward salvation: the leopard (representing lust or fraud), the lion (representing pride or violence), and most notably, the she-wolf, which embodies avarice—an insatiable greed that corrodes both personal virtue and institutional integrity. Among these, the she-wolf is presented as the most perilous, for she “has a nature so malign and ruthless,/That never doth she glut her greedy will,/And after food is hungrier than before” (Inf. I, 97–99). Dante’s depiction of this beast is not merely an allegory for personal sin but also a veiled critique of the papacy of his time, which he believed had succumbed to the vice of avarice, subordinating spiritual authority to material wealth and temporal power. The wolf’s domination of the landscape and her role in diverting souls from the straight path mirrors Dante’s perception of the Church’s moral failure—particularly the corruption of ecclesiastical office through the buying and selling of spiritual goods. This initial symbolic indictment prefigures the full-scale denunciation of simony that will follow in later canti, as we have seen. Thus, the she-wolf not only represents a vice in abstract moral terms, but also signals to the reader that Dante’s pilgrimage will expose the systemic spiritual decay at the heart of Christendom, beginning with the papacy’s entanglement in avarice and culminating in its betrayal of the sacred trust of Peter (Havely 2004, pp. 44–87).

3. An Anger Born out of Love and Loyalty

These passages upon which we have paused might give the impression that Dante was anti-clerical. In truth, he was not. As he himself notes while inveighing against Nicholas III, he refrains from using harsher words out of “the reverence for the keys superlative” (Inf. 19, 101) In the Church, Dante saw the seat of the Christian faith and was convinced that only through her could salvation be attained (Ellul 2016, p. 3), a doctrine maintained at least since the third century. The poet also held deep respect for ecclesiastical offices; it was precisely the abuse of these offices by the clergy that elicited his lamentation (Enright 2004, p. 29).

The greatest torment for the Florentine lay in the struggle to balance his indignation toward a corrupt Church with his profound desire to serve her. In this inner conflict, he came to understand that his true “enemies” were not the Church herself or the popes in general, but the popes who had betrayed her. His reason, therefore, led him to regard these sinful pastors as souls who, like all others, must answer to God. No ecclesiastical office could absolve its holder from personal guilt; only sincere repentance could bring about the forgiveness that comes from Christ. In seeing these clerics as sinners, Dante is able to distinguish them from the Church herself, which transcends the earthly institution of which many are members.

Nine centuries earlier, St Ambrose and St Augustine, in their ecclesiological treatises, had already affirmed that although the Church is composed of sinners, she herself remains immune from sin, being the bride of Christ. In his work, Dante reiterates this insight: it is not the Church herself that is defiled, but her corrupt pastors who cause her to “whore”. To understand Dante correctly, one need not adopt his religious convictions, but one must acknowledge that he himself held them with deep conviction.

Perhaps the respect—and one might even say the love—that Dante felt for the Church is most clearly appreciated in the letter he himself wrote to the cardinals in 1314, following the death of Clement V, in which he implores them to return the papal seat to Rome, for with the Pope’s departure, the heart of Rome had been torn away. His letter opens by citing the Book of Lamentations: “Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo; facta est quasi vidua domina gentium”. As the letter continues, the poet laments the state in which the Church now found itself, bereft and derided because of its pastors, who had sold their souls for personal gain. He pleads for the body of Christ to be purified and healed. These words attest to Dante’s authentic Christian sentiment and his loyalty to the Church and her offices; he never calls for their abolition, but insists that they be entrusted to worthy individuals.

As Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini aptly stated in a commentary published in La Repubblica in September 2000, seven centuries after Dante’s fantastical journey:

“Indeed, no one perceives evil so clearly as the one who sees all things in God. The face of the Church and of the state is horrendously disfigured by that insatiable greed which St Paul considered a form of idolatry. The house of the Lord is always at risk of becoming a den of thieves, especially when the very shepherds are themselves misled and misleading. Privileges are bought and forged; divisions tear even the Church apart; offerings are withheld from the poor, who are their rightful recipients; Scripture is neglected or distorted; and preachers, out of pride or vanity, tell fables drawn from a superficial worldly wisdom meant only to titillate their audiences”.

(Martini 2000, pp. 50–51)

4. The Church and Dante Today

The honour that the popes of the past century have bestowed upon Dante perhaps suggests that they have come to understand the vision he held—and it may even be that they have learned something from what he proclaimed. Indeed, no other poet has been the recipient of so much praise and so many references to his work within magisterial documents.

On 30 April 1921, Benedict XV published the encyclical letter In Praeclara Summorum (IPS) on the occasion of the sixth centenary of Dante’s death. The historical context was not entirely straightforward, which explains Benedict’s somewhat inward-looking language. The mythical “Donation of Constantine”, which Dante had so harshly criticized, had been brought to an end with the conquest of Rome in 1870 following the unification of Italy, and the popes from Pius IX to Pius XI had confined themselves within the walls of the Vatican until 1929, when the Roman Question was resolved. Benedict, writing during this interim, addressed his letter to the professors and students of literary and higher cultural institutes within the Catholic world, and throughout the very brief document, he presents Dante as “the most eloquent singer and herald of Christian thought” (IPS 11) The pontiff does not fail to mention the attacks that the poet levels against the Church of his time but justifies them by stating, “it cannot be denied that at that time there were matters on which the clergy might be reproved” (IPS 6) The Florentine poet is portrayed by the Pope as a faithful disciple of Thomas Aquinas and the Church Fathers, a model for others in the manner in which he professed the Catholic faith, a man with a prodigious breadth and sharpness of intellect, and finally a “modern” poet even more so than some contemporary poets “who have exhumed the Paganism banished forever by Christ’s triumph on the Cross” (IPS 9)—it is understood that here the Pope was referring to secular poets who supported anti-papal politics. According to Benedict, what led Dante to compose his masterpiece was nothing less than divine inspiration. On this point, the Pope was resolute: anyone who reduces the religious substance of the Divine Comedy does a disservice to the poet because they remove “the real characteristic of the poet, the foundation of all his other merits” (IPS 9). To hold Dante in due honour, the Pope concludes, means accepting and teaching him as he is: a Christian poet.

It is useful to note that this letter on Dante is one of five composed by Benedict XV in honour of five figures of greatest importance in the history of the Church; the other four are all saints: Jerome, Ephrem, Francis of Assisi, and Dominic. To count Dante among these is far more than a political gesture to reclaim someone whom the State, whose legitimacy the Pope refused to acknowledge, had chosen as its national poet and father of the language.

Forty-four years later, at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI, now canonized as a saint, gifted all the participants a fine edition of the Divine Comedy, just one day after having signed and published the apostolic letter entitled Altissimi Cantus2 on the occasion of the seventh centenary of Dante’s birth. This gesture followed two others: the donation of a golden cross to Dante’s tomb in Ravenna, and a golden laurel wreath for the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence, where the poet had been baptized. The opening superlative words of this letter highlight Dante’s value: he is the lord of the highest song, no other poet having reached the poetic heights that the Florentine made his own. Dante is also the brightest star of Italian literature, since his harmonious lyre “resounds with marvellous touches, sovereign in the grandeur of its themes, the purity of its inspiration, and the combined vigour and exquisite elegance”. Building on Benedict XV’s insistence that Dante is a Christian poet, Paul VI, in full spirit of the just-concluded council proposing a Church willing to collaborate with the world, insists that Dante is “ours”—not only belonging to the Church but to the entire world of culture: “In his immense breadth”, says Pope Montini, “he embraces heaven and earth, eternity and time, the mysteries of God and the vicissitudes of men, sacred doctrine and secular disciplines, the knowledge derived from divine revelation and that derived from the light of reason, the data of personal experience and the memories of history, his own age and the Greco-Roman antiquities, while it may rightly be said that he is the most representative monument of the Middle Ages”.

After many considerations regarding Dante’s poetic style and psychology, on the relationship between theology and poetry, calling him “the poet of theologians and the theologian of poets”, Paul VI concludes his letter exhorting the world to honour this highest of poets: “Let all hold a cult for him, because he belongs to all, ornament of the Catholic name, universal prophet and educator of the human race; with more diligent and firm commitment let those who by religion, patriotism, the events of his life, or affinity of studies feel closer to him hold this cult. Those of keener intellect should not only study day and night the exemplar of the Divine Comedy, a sublime masterpiece, but also delve ever deeper and discover what still remains unexplored and obscure in it. Let all seek to read it entirely, not precipitously or hastily, but with a penetrating mind and loving meditation”. The primary value of the Divine Comedy, and its strongest point of contact with the Christian message, is that it promotes the transformation of man, leading him on a journey from confusion to the light of knowledge, first and foremost of himself.

Two popes closer to our time—John Paul II, now saint, and Benedict XVI—did not write encyclicals in honour of Dante, but cited him several times in their magisterium. Of Pope Wojtyła, particular mention is made of his address at the opening of an exhibition on Dante held at the Vatican in 1985, where he interprets Dante’s work as “a visualized reality, which speaks of the life, of the afterlife and the mystery of God with the force of theological thought, transfigured by the splendour of art and poetry, jointly united” (John Paul II 1985, paragraph 1).

Benedict XVI, from his years as cardinal onward, included references to Dante’s work and to Dante himself in his speeches and writings. The favoured image is the vision Dante has when looking into the dazzling light that is God—there he sees a human face, the face of Christ. According to Ratzinger, the Poet’s vision was decisive in attempting to recover the true meaning of the word love:

“This vision of Dante reveals, on the one hand, the continuity between Christian faith in God and the search developed by reason and by the world of religions; on the other, however, a novelty appears that surpasses all human research, the novelty that only God himself can reveal to us: the novelty of a love that moved God to take on a human face, even to take on flesh and blood, the entire human being” (Benedict XVI, 2006).

Finally, we come to Francis, the recently-deceased Pope. Already in 2013, in the encyclical Lumen Fidei, Bergoglio uses the light of Paradise as described by Dante to express the light of faith. In 2015, the 750th anniversary of Dante’s birth, he pointed to the figure of the Supreme Poet, proposing him as “prophet of hope, herald of the possibility of redemption, liberation, and profound transformation of every man and woman, of all humanity”. In 2021, on March 25, he published the apostolic letter Candor Lucis Æternae,3 which is the longest magisterial document dedicated to Alighieri. In this letter, the poet’s life is presented as a paradigm of human life: “deeply reflecting on his personal situation of exile, of radical uncertainty, of fragility, of continual mobility, (Dante) transforms it, sublimating it, into a paradigm of the human condition, which appears as a journey, interior before being exterior, that never stops until it reaches its goal”.

Thus, seeking answers through his art amid the tortuous vicissitudes of his life, Dante becomes, according to the Pope, the “prophet of hope”. The Pope recalls that in his last letter, addressed to Cangrande della Scala, Dante explains the purpose of his work in verse, for the art of the word is aimed at everyone and can change everyone: “It must be said briefly that the end of the whole and the part is to remove the living in this life from a state of misery and lead them to a state of happiness”. This purpose is similar to Pope Francis’s project: to set people on the path toward “liberation from every form of misery and human degradation”, and at the same time to point to the ultimate goal: “happiness, understood both as fullness of life in history and as eternal beatitude in God”.

The theme closest to Francis’ heart, for which he was much criticized by conservative Catholics, is the mercy of God; and it is no surprise that he sees in Dante precisely the poet of mercy and human freedom. For instance: the pauses that the poet makes during his journey to listen to the laments and stories of the souls fully reflect his mercy; but the Pope adds: “it is a journey not illusory or utopian but realistic and possible, in which everyone can participate, because the mercy of God always offers the possibility to change, to convert, to find oneself again and to find the way to happiness”. For Francis, “Dante becomes the champion of the dignity of every human being and of freedom as a fundamental condition both of life choices and of faith itself. The eternal destiny of man (...) depends on his choices, on his freedom”, which is the greatest gift God has given to man. The Pope, however, does not hesitate to remind his readers that freedom is not an end in itself, but an aid to ascend continually, as Dante does in his journey.

The Pope presents many other social-theological themes from Dante’s work which cannot be presented here. The conclusion of the letter exhorts everyone not only to read Dante, but to listen to him, to imitate him, to become his companions on the journey “because even today he wants to show us what the itinerary toward happiness is, the straight path to live our humanity fully, overcoming the dark woods in which we lose orientation and dignity”.

5. Conclusions

In conclusion, to return to our initial theme: why do popes today lavish praise on the poet who so harshly castigated their predecessors? Certainly, because the popes of our time have understood something of his message.

In the centuries following Dante’s lifetime, the Church, guided at times by courageous and reform-minded pastors, undertook a path of institutional repentance and renewal. This process was marked by an increasingly explicit condemnation of the very abuses that Dante so forcefully denounced in his poetic critique. Among the gravest scandals identified in the Divine Comedy—as previously noted—are simony, coercion, blackmail, usurpation, corruption, and nepotism. These moral and ecclesiastical failings were not merely matters of poetic indignation but were, over time, addressed through authoritative magisterial teaching and canonical reform. While some of these vices had already been the object of formal ecclesial condemnation prior to Dante’s era—most notably in the Third and Fourth Lateran Councils of 1179 and 1215—the centuries that followed witnessed a continued and intensified effort by the Church to confront and denounce these abuses through conciliar decrees, papal legislation, and codified doctrine. The historical arc thus reveals not only the prophetic sharpness of Dante’s critique but also the Church’s capacity for self-correction in light of the Gospel and Tradition, especially when the sins are committed by those within its ranks, particularly those that undermine ecclesial integrity and the sanctity of office.

Simony, the buying or selling of spiritual goods or offices, was anathematised by the Council of Trent in its decree on the sacraments, which declared that anyone who denies that such an exchange is simoniacal is himself excommunicated (Session VII, Canon 4, 1547). The Catechism of the Catholic Church reaffirms this, stating that “simony is a grave offense”, explicitly linking the term to the condemnation uttered by St Peter in Acts 8:20 (§2121). The coercion of conscience, particularly in matters of faith, was forcefully denounced in the wake of the Reformation and further developed in the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, which asserts that “no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs”, and affirms that religious freedom is rooted in the dignity of the human person (§2). This teaching is codified in Canon Law: “No one is ever permitted to coerce persons to embrace the Catholic faith against their conscience” (Codex Iuris Canonicis, 1983, Canon 748 §2).

Blackmail is not named explicitly in magisterial language but is encompassed by broader condemnations of false witness, coercion, and manipulation. The Catechism speaks of detraction, calumny, and unjust damage to another’s reputation as serious moral faults (§§2483–2487), and Canon 1373 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law prescribes penalties for those who incite hatred or animosity against Church authority, which may involve coercive or defamatory tactics. Similarly, Pope Francis, in Fratelli Tutti, decries “forms of manipulation, dishonesty and abuse that damage the dignity of others” (§182), highlighting the moral harm wrought by such behaviour.

The unlawful usurpation of ecclesiastical office has also been treated with canonical precision. Canon 1381 §1 of the 1983 Code prescribes penalties for anyone who unlawfully exercises or retains an ecclesiastical office. Corruption, broadly understood as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain, is unequivocally denounced in the Catechism under the seventh commandment as morally illicit (§2409), while Pope Francis has repeatedly spoken against “spiritual worldliness” and corruption “cloaked in good”, particularly in Evangelii Gaudium (§59), where he warns against ecclesiastical hypocrisy and the decay it causes within the Church. Finally, nepotism, a long-standing plague in ecclesiastical administration, was explicitly condemned in Pope Innocent XII’s bull Romanum decet Pontificem (1692), which prohibited the appointment of papal relatives to cardinalatial or curial positions. This prohibition echoed the Council of Trent’s reformist decrees (Session XXIV, ch. 1, 1563), which admonished bishops not to favour kin in clerical appointments. The Catechism summarises the moral imperative behind these reforms by asserting that “authority is exercised legitimately only when it seeks the common good”, and that any form of exploitation constitutes a perversion of office (§1903).

Although all the pontiffs who praise Dante agree that he is a Christian poet, faithful to the Church as Christ wills it, the increasing emphasis on more humanistic aspects of his work and the humble acceptance by the Church of the accusations the poet directed at corrupt pastors show that for the popes of the twentieth century, especially Pope Francis, the Church still has much to learn from Dante—not because he speaks of sacred things, but because he does so from a thoroughly human point of view. The formal denunciation of the very vices for which Dante held the Church accountable may be interpreted as an implicit acknowledgement of the legitimacy of his critique.