Writer · Medieval
Dante Alighieri
1265–1321 · Poetic Thomism
Honored by Benedict XV (In Praeclara Summorum, 1921), St. Paul VI (Altissimi Cantus, 1965) and Pope Francis (Candor Lucis Aeternae, 2021); his Monarchia was on the Index until 1881.
Florentine poet, exile and lay theologian, Dante gave the Catholic vision of sin, purgation and beatitude its definitive poetic form in the Divine Comedy, guided by Virgil (reason), Beatrice (revelation) and Bernard (contemplation). His Monarchia argued that Emperor and Pope each derive authority directly from God, the Emperor for earthly happiness and the Pope for eternal, so that the Church should hold no temporal dominion.
Why he matters: The Comedy is the Summa in verse: the moral and metaphysical order of Thomas made visible, with the love that moves the sun and the other stars as its end. Three popes have called him a teacher of Catholic truth.
Where to be careful
The Monarchia's two independent ends for man, and its denial of papal temporal authority, were condemned by Cardinal Bertrand du Pouget (1329) and remained on the Index until 1881; his placing of popes in Hell is poetry and polemic, not doctrine.
School of Thomism · Sapiential and spiritual Thomism
Pieper, Chenu, Pinckaers and Bouyer: Thomas as a spiritual master and a theologian of the Gospel, whose Summa is built on the beatitudes and the gifts of the Spirit, whose ethics is a morality of happiness and virtue, and who ended by calling all he had written straw. The recovery of Thomas's own spirituality against the manuals.
Others in this strand: Josef Pieper, Marie-Dominique Chenu, OP, Servais Pinckaers, OP, Louis Bouyer, St. Catherine of Siena
Reading
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The Divine ComedyDante Alighieri (trans. Hollander, Sayers or Esolen) · Read Purgatorio if you only read one; it is the Catholic heart of the poem.
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MonarchiaDante Alighieri · His political theology; short, and the reason he was on the Index.
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Candor Lucis AeternaePope Francis, 2021 · The apostolic letter for the seventh centenary of his death.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.