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"...I see ...
Christ in his own Vicar captive made.
I see him yet another time derided;
I see renewed the vinegar and gall,
And between living thieves I see him slain.
I see the modern Pilate so relentless,
This does not sate him, but without decretal
He to the temple bears his sordid sails!..."
(Dante, Purgatorio, XX: 88-90)
Thank you, Fr. Hunwicke.
From Fr. Hunwicke:... We all know that those who are gunning for the Pope are hypocrites.
We know that they are in many cases dirty hypocrites
whose own lifestyle is unmarked by any evidence of sexual continence.
We know that they are bigoted hypocrites who are only marginally,
if at all, interested
if a rabbi or a humanist gets 'done' for pedophilia
or if an Anglican diocese is bankrupted
by the compensation it has paid out to abused Inuit children.
There is one organisation that they detest
with a loathing curiously like Hitler's dislike of the Jews.
There is one man for whose downfall they have an insatiable bloodlust.
Nil novi sub sole.
Dante described
(Purgatorio XX 86-88)
how Christ was again made captive and mocked
in the person of His Vicar.
How very, very, appropriate
that this malevolent evil
should be reaching its climax in Holy Week.
Satan has a real sense of liturgy. ...
From Anglican Fr. Hunwicke, SSC
"Fr John Hunwicke, SSC is the Priest-in-Charge of S. Thomas the Martyr, Oxford.
He was for many years Head of Theology at Lancing College, Sussex,
before moving on to serve as a simple country parson in the Diocese of Exeter."
[ - From the introduction to Fr. Hunwicke's Blog]
3 comments:
Fr. Hunwicke's commentary is brilliant and spot on. May his return to Holy Mother Church come speedily.
David
From Dante in the 13th century to Pope Benedict XVI in the 21st century - human nature doesn't changed! God bless our Holy Father.
It should not be forgotten, though, that in his work Dante consigns several Popes (Nicholas III, Celestine V, Boniface VIII, Clement V) to Hell. This does not at all mean that he denied the doctrine of repentance in articulo mortis; it is still possible that any man, however, sinful, might die confessed and absolved.
But on the principle that "by their fruits shall ye know them", it was and is entirely appropriate for Dante in his allegory to use Popes as well as others to illustrate various sins, and most particularly the sin of simony. In his day, it was still understood that one could be a fervent denunciator of sin, even the sins of Popes, and still a loyal and faithful son of the Church, a principle more observed in the breach than in the observance nowadays, it seems.
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