Allegorical Painting of Dante, late 16th century by Unknown Florentine Master
Available at Archive.org
Length of book: 206 pages
Considering the greatness of this legendary poet, who in the span of seven centuries has maintained his status as the poet of Christendom and of Italy, to investigate the literature that seeks to explain his work and his life is an absolutely worthwhile venture. But in this quest, one must be careful in the selection of books to be read, as evidently there have been many who have attempted to pervert or at least omit important elements of his Divine Comedy. This book helps one to see not only the Divine Comedy, but the entirety of Dante’s body of work and the story of his life in its proper context with profound clarity.
Father Walsh’s study of Dante’s literary corpus shows throughout the text, and will be sure to spark interest in further reading for those who admire the poet. And it is through the means of Father Walsh’s expansive scope that allows him to pull from the various writings of Dante to articulate the ideology and philosophy of the poet, which has much to say for our time as it did for his.
Dante believed in a world state, but his concept was entirely different from the carnal humanistic internationalism of our age. In fact, in many ways it seems that the internationalists, knowingly or unknowingly, have tried to pervert the Dantean concept of Empire, which Father Walsh articulates so wonderfully:
…Dante felt [sic] the world was one, one in its deepest roots and highest aspirations. What moved him when he visited Rome was the sense that Rome was meant to be the capital of the world, the center of a single society held together by a common purpose and by principles and values of universal validity. The relics, the ruins, and the writings of Rome were to Dante symbols of a universal religion, a universal civilization, and a universal culture; of a faith, a law, and wisdom, of a Sacerdotum, Imperium, and Studium, that were meant to be the organs of the whole world’s peace and of all men’s happiness.
(77)
The world state of Dante is a Catholic one; one that is an organic outgrowth of Christendom and seeks to preserve and to expand its civilization to the ends of the earth, so that as Christ prayed, “that they all may be one” (John 17:21). By seeking the spiritual peace of mankind, this civilization would be able to secure its material peace as well. This ideal state, of course, could not be achieved without the Social Reign of Christ the King, who ought to reign in the hearts of all men. Only through a true love for God and His Laws from the members of all levels of society could such aspirations be fully realized, for:
Institutions, whether of grace or of law – or of love or learning – are of little avail unless popes in the Church, emperors in the State, parents in the home, and teachers in the school are obedient to their consciences, to the innate faculty that gives them counsel, to the power that stands on the threshold of assent, winnowing good and evil loves.
(84)
In our time the “Universal Republic” (as Adrien Arcand termed it) has replaced the idea of the Universal Empire. The United Nations, that shameful artifice of the enemies of God, has been far more successful in doing the work of its first iteration, the League of Nations, which was designed to create a Christendom without Christ. It is a Holy Roman Empire of its own, but one evidently neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. In allegedly seeking to amend the ills among nations, especially the ones of Europe, it has purposely neglected the only One who can grant peace, temporal and eternal, to all mankind. Thus this institution, constructed in truth not for peace but rather an endless assault on God, Nation, and Family, has promoted seemingly every ill under the sun, from so-called “religious liberty” to the sodomite and transvestite death cult.1
The “world citizen” of the United Nations is a rootless person, one of no true allegiance to anything beyond the technocracy and their own slavish existence. This person is one devoid therefore of love and true relations, to God, Nation, and Family, and functions as an interchangeable cog in the machine of a society that destroys the image of God in man, precisely because it has divorced itself from God and His Church. Thus, all institutions are riddled with hypocrisy and devoid of justice. Whereas, the “world citizen” of the Dantean Empire is one rooted firstly in the Catholic Faith, but this allegiance does not nullify but rather compliments the allegiance to one’s nation and family. This person is therefore one who loves, and who loves truly. And therefore, their relationships are true, and all society tends towards the true end, or purpose, of man: the vision of God.
Father Walsh’s work was incredibly timely, having been published in 1946, a year after the UN was officially founded. In his own time, Father Walsh managed to provide the Catholic rebuttal to this Masonic form of internationalism, by articulating what Dante had proposed centuries before. Now, decades afterwards, the UN’s apparent failure to provide true peace to mankind has vindicated the superiority of Dante’s great ideal.
Certain fascinating biographical details about the poet come to light throughout this work, and unfortunate misconceptions about the man vanish as a puff of smoke under the thorough examination of the author. One such case is the myth about Dante and Beatrice, namely that he loved this woman in a romantic context. Father Walsh not only dismantles this common tripe, but also shows us its unsound origin:
The biography of Dante has suffered from a cock-and-bull story about Dante’s wife. It was made up by Boccaccio out of his head. When he is through telling the incredible tale he has the honesty to admit; “I don’t say these things really happened, because I don’t know.” He didn’t know. There is not a shadow of evidence for the fable that Dante was hurried into a marriage by his relations because of his despair after the death of Beatrice, that the marriage turned out unhappily, and that, at the time of his exile, in 1302, Dante was delighted to get rid of his nagging Xanthippe.
(51)
Moreover, he also dedicates time to expound upon the true meaning of Dante’s elevated love for Beatrice, something that is sure to unlock many truths to the readers of the Vita Nuova and the Divine Comedy:
…[W]hen Dante came to write his romantic comedy, love seems to have meant more than his first sonnet indicates. You get a hint of this on the very first page of the Vita Nuova. Where you would expect Beatrice to be called “the lady of my heart,” she is called, in fact, “the glorious mistress of my mind,” la gloriosa donna della mia mente. That word gloriosa suggests more than our vague word “glorious”. There is a hint in it of that heavenly glory which is higher than supernatural grace on earth and, therefore, much higher than any kind of merely natural grace or feminine beauty. And the word mente, “mind,” is a reminder that Dante was in love not merely with beauty but with truth.
(13)
Beatrice was an occasion for an increase of supernatural grace in Dante’s soul. Her visible beauty, therefore, seemed a “sacrament,” a symbol, of God’s beauty, goodness, truth.
(106)
Such a spiritual love is an incredibly foreign concept in our materialistic and sensual age, because it despises the angelic virtue of purity, the flower of true beauty. And what is the origin of the word “beauty”? If we look back into the Latin language, we will find the answer: happiness, which is rendered beatus in Latin. Hence the term the “beatific vision” to describe the vision of God in Heaven. Happiness and beauty are intimately tied together, and this is one of the major points of the Comedy which is sadly lost on many today. The innocence and holiness that comprises beauty is an excellent point of reflection for Catholics in our times, and thus if we view the Comedy in its proper Catholic lens, we will have a wonderful illustration of this virtue.
On this point, another excellent lesson is given when, as Father Walsh analyzes some specific parts of the Comedy at length, he comments on the famous encounter with the adulteress Francesca da Rimini in Canto IV:
They [Francesca and Paolo] cannot escape each other’s company – ever; because they are alike and forever damned to a life of hate and blasphemy in a place where, as Dante has already been told by Virgil, one can hear the “wailings of despair and see the ancient spirits in their pain, crying for a second death” of sheer annihilation.
(134)
Thus the “union” of the “two lovers” in Hell is an inverse of the relationship one reads about when Beatrice leads Dante to Paradise; Father Walsh notes this himself.
Could a greater contrast be had? The basis of the love between Beatrice and Dante is spiritual, and leads to the glimmering heights of Heaven and shall be enjoyed in eternity, whereas the basis of the love between Francesca and Paolo was carnal, and dragged them both to the dark abyss of Hell where there is no love. Instead of their love “surviving” in Hell, as some unlearned people have claimed, it died the minute the two were killed. They are chained to each other’s flesh, a “worm that dieth not” all its own. Whereas, if Dante’s Pilgrim heeds the lesson of his voyage upon returning to the world, he will be joined with Beatrice in Paradise, and each shall be the cause of bliss in the other before God.
There are many other excellent subjects discussed in this book, such as the nature of art and language. The passages on these matters cut swiftly to the truth as opposed to the ignorant babble of modernist “philosophers”, and thus are certainly worth studying. Many other praiseworthy things are to be found in this book, and thus in addition to the main points covered in this review, it is one critical for students of Dante, as well as students of Catholic philosophy.
- “LGBTQI+.” United Nations, www.un.org/en/fight-racism/vulnerable-groups/lgbtqi-plus.