Theres even an encyclical on Dante, issued on the 700 anniversary of his death, I just found out.
The catholic church surely is thankful to the person who invented the concept of the undying soul. Why he still remains a 'mere poet' in their eyes is a little strange though..
(Can a man possessed by visions of hell and the devil not be a saint? Can you issue an enzyclica about a man so clearly possessed by the devil? In honor of his 700th anniversary?)
https://forums.catholic.com/t/can-a-baby-named-dante-be-baptized/290929/12
I mean he helped them sell so many indulgencies...
(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence )
----
How do those two things go together?
In the Epistle to Can Grande he thus explains the theme of the _Commedia_: "The subject of the whole work, taken literally, is the state of souls after death, regarded as fact; for the action deals with this, and is about this. But if the work be taken allegorically, its subject is man, in so far as by merit or demerit in the exercise of free will he is exposed to the rewards or punishments of justice." Attending to the letter, we find in the _Commedia_ a vision of that life beyond the tomb, in relation to which alone our life on earth has value. It presents a picture of the everlasting destiny of souls, so firmly apprehended and vividly imagined by the medieval fancy. But since this picture has to set forth mysteries seen and heard by none, the revelation itself, like S. John's Apocalypse, is conveyed in symbols fashioned to adumbrate the truths perceived by faith. The same symbols portray another reality, not apprehended merely by faith, but brought home to the heart by experience. Attending to the allegory, we find in the _Commedia_ a history of the soul in this life--an ethical analysis of sin, purgation and salvation through grace. The poem is a narrative of Dante's journey through the region into which all pass after death; but at the same time it describes the hell and heaven and the transition through repentance from sin to grace, which are the actual conditions of the soul in this life.
It may be observed that Purgatory belongs to the order of things which by their nature pass away; while Hell and Heaven are both eternal. Therefore the _Commedia_, considered as an apocalypse of the undying soul, reveals absolute damnation and absolute salvation, both states being destined to endure so long as God's justice and love exist; but it also reveals a state of purifying pain, which ceases when the men who need it have been numbered. Considered as an allegory of the spiritual life on earth, it describes the process of escape from eternal condemnation through grace into eternal happiness.
The eternal is an allegory of mans life? Both heaven and hell exist as states of bliss and suffering, as long as 'God's justice and love exist'? Life only has meaning in context of eternal damnation, or eternal bliss - after death? Dante could experience Hell "a mystery seen by none", before dying? Just like S. Johns Apocalypse (who was an apostle, and who is a saint), Dantes image of Hell is 'conveyed in symbols fashioned to adumbrate the "truths perceived by faith"'?
The Lombard, or rather the Franco-Italian period is marked by the adoption of a foreign language and foreign fashions. Literature at this stage was exotic and artificial; but the legacy transmitted to the future was of vast importance. On the one side, the courtly rhymers who versified in the Provençal dialect, bequeathed to Sicily and Tuscany the chivalrous lyric of love, which was destined to take its final and fairest form from Dante and Petrarch. On the other hand, the populace who listened to the Song of Roland on the market-place, prepared the necessary conditions for a specific and eminently characteristic product of Italian genius. Without a national epic, the Italians were forced to borrow from the French. But what they borrowed, they transmuted--not merely adding new material, like the tale of Gano's treason and the fiction of Orlando's birth at Sutri, but importing their own spirit, positive, ironical and incredulous, into the substance of the legend.
Dante clearly expected contemporary readers not only to interpret, but to appreciate the shades of greater and lesser nicety in the examples he culled from Roman, Apulian, Florentine and other vernacular literatures. This expectation proves that he felt himself to be dealing with a group of dialects which, taken collectively, formed a common idiom. In these circumstances it was the problem of writers, at the close of the thirteenth century, to construct the ideal vulgar tongue, to discover its capacities for noble utterance, to refine it for artistic usage by the omission of cruder elements existing in each dialect, and to select from those store-houses of living speech the phrases which appeared well suited to graceful utterance. The desideratum, to use Dante's words, was "that illustrious, cardinal, courtly, curial mother-tongue, proper to each Italian State, special to none, whereby the local idioms of every city are to be measured, weighed, and compared."
For an apostle or saint, Dante had quite an understanding about use of popular language and need to construct 'national epic' it seems.
src:
http://doctrinepublishing.com/showbook.php?file=52894-0000.txt
edit: Also, if you ever need an example of religious arguing - ending up in "I want to be suffering under a cruel but loving master, until this becomes entirely bliss" and "people having "felt the religious truth through their heart"" - stray no further and read those paragraphs.
People living by this doctrine are told that doubting those religious truths is a sign of weakness, and a sin ('Yes, domina!'), and if they ever have doubts, they should consult their 'spiritual guidance officer' who then fills them with grammatical paradoxes ("the love felt only through the heart leads to understanding religious truth" - "Yes, master, now I see!") and everything is fine again.
Its really a foolproof concept.
Also isnt 'imagining what god is like' or god forbid 'depicting the being' a sin? Because it leads to questions - what he is like? But imagining hell, purgatory, and paradise - in the utmost detail, "regarded as fact; for the action deals with this, and is about this." (in Dantes Commedia) is not? That gets you your own catholic encyclical 700 years after your death? Not as an apostle, but as a 'poet'? Huh... better get into that business.