A vintage year for rehabilitation

themall (writes Alan McElwain). Po PE PAUL is to join in anniversary of Dante's death. the great wave of nation. He defined Dante as "the most al homage Italy is now paying elegant singer of Christian to the poet Dante Alighieri, thought:. and said the Church in his day one of the most had a right to call him its own. violent anti-pope Italians of* The Pope referred to the invectives fired off by Dante "with outrageous acrimony' against the popes of his time,
The Pope will publish later hut added that it was imps this month an encyclical, sible to deny that there was honouring the 700th anniversary much for which the clergy of Dante's birth, in 1265. The could be criticised in those encyclical, now being transdays, particularly by a man like lated into Latin, will be the Dante, who was so devoted to Roman Catholic Church's the Church.
themall (writes Alan McElwain).
supreme "act of reparation" to the illustrious Christian poet vvhom it had persecuted and who had, in turn. condemned three popes to his celebrated "inferno" for their sins.
Dante's privations began in the 13th century in Florence, then split into papal and antipapal factions. with Dante a leading supporter of the antipapal group, which was finally defeated. He was accused of corrupt practices and hostility to the Pope. His property was confiscated, several times he was sentenced to death and, wandering from one Italian city to another. spent the last 20 years of his life in exile.
In the end, he settled in Ravenna, where he died in 1321. It was here that he wrote his notable work, De Mortarchia. a Latin treatise advocating a universal monarchy in which all temporal power was to be vested and which was to exercise its authority independent of, but side by side with, the Pope, then both spiritual and temporal ruler. This work established Dante as one of the few poets belonging to all times and all nations. In those days, however, it was placed on the Vatican Index of forbidden books. where it remained for three centuries.
Pope Paul's encyclical will not be the first papal tribute to Dante. In 1921, Pope Benedict XV, directed an encyclical to professors and students in all Catholic institutes of literature and culture to mark the 600th This is a vintage year for the rehabilitation of great men once condemned by the Church. Visiting Pisa, where Galileo. the 16th century scien,tist condemned by the Holy Office of the Roman Inquisition for formal heresy, was born, Pope Paul recently called him one of Italy's "great spirits".
As an astronomer. Galileo supported the theory of Nicolas Copernicus, "father of modern astronomy", that the centre of the solar system was in the sun, not the earth. as was generally accepted under the Ptolemaic theory. For this he was condemned to imprisonment for heresy and his theories were silenced. He died in Florence in 1642.
In Pisa, Pope Paul called upon Italians to "love the Christian faith of this privileged and blessed land. the faith of your saints. the faith of the great spirits whose immortal memory is celebrated yesterday and today — Galileo, Michelangelo (1475-1564) and Dante".
Galileo has also had his stalwart defenders in the Ecumenical Council. German Bishop Otto Spulbeck, of Meissen, in the debate on the Church in the Modern World document in the third Council session last year, said the "Church must not repeat history and condetnn moderns Galileos who dared to introduce embarrassing new ideas".
ties of certain theologians for associating themselves with the sciences. These included the celebrated late Jesuit, Father Teilhard de Chardin.
Jesuit scholars are now doing a great deal of work on Galileo. The noted Jesuit review, Civilla Catiolica, published in Rome, is running a series of articles on him. Finally. no less an authority than Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, head of the Holy Office, has spoken on Galileo's behalf.
"The Holy Office makes mistakes", he said. "and 1 think Galileo's condemnation was a very regrettable mistake. However, you will realise. I trust, that there were mitigating factors. Think of the state of the world at that time. or of the men living then."
Would he condemn Galileo today?
"Certainly not!" said Cardinal Ottaviani. He added that in
a Holy Office conference "one of us said. We must be careful. We don't want to make the Galileo, mistake again' ".
Added the Cardinal: "You can see we are thinking about the problem ..." He dealt with the condemnation by ecclesiastical authori