)
At the foot of the mountain the poets meet a troop of spirits who,
though excommunicated, died contrite. For their delay in submitting to
the Church for absolution they must wait thirty times as long as the
period of their excommunication. One of them, King Manfred, Chief of the
Ghibellines, son of Emperor Frederick II, tells of his last moment
conversion and also how the Bishop of Cosenza at the word of Pope
Clement IV, enforcing the penalty of excommunication against the corpse
of the king, had it removed from the Papal realm and thrown into the
river Verde.
In narrating how a Christian may be saved even if he died under the ban
of the Church, Dante is only expressing what every Catholic knows as to
the effect of excommunication. This ecclesiastical censure incurred by a
contumacious member of the Church, a censure entailing forfeiture of all
rights and privileges common to a Christian, such as the right to the
sacraments,--a right restored through the confessor, however, whenever
there is danger of death--the right to public service and prayers, the
right to jurisdiction, and to benefices, the right to the canonical
forum, to social intercourse and to Christian burial, this censure of
excommunication does not in the mind of the Church carry with it
exclusion from Purgatory or Heaven.
Pages:
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172