Dante and the Scandals of a Beloved Church

Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Volume 7:4 -- Fall 2004

Preface

We can see the challenge posed to the modern understanding of ecclesiology by the collapse of the cosmology of the medieval era, and it is this challenge to which Nancy Enright responds in “Dante and the Scandals of a Beloved Church.” The scandals to which the title refers are the familiar contemporary scandals in the Catholic Church in the United States, and Enright wisely and helpfully turns to the vision of Dante to explain how it is possible to criticize some members of the Church by responding openly and honestly to scandal and at the same time remain faithful to the Church. Dante was able to draw upon the fullness of medieval cosmology to articulate the concepts of the “Church visible” and the “Church invisible,” in which the sinfulness of members of the Church here on earth can be criticized in light of the truth of the Church rooted in heaven and including all members of the Church as the Body of Christ. The concept of the “Church invisible” is difficult to articulate in contemporary terms because of the narrowness (perhaps flatness) of modern worldviews that identify perceptibility (visibility) with being. And yet only through a much richer cosmological understanding can we grasp the deepest being of the Church within which acknowledgement and confession of present sin leads to salvation. Enright proposes the depth of vision offered by Dante and the example of Dante’s confrontation with scandal in the Church of his day as a much-needed model for our own confrontation with scandal and our own continuing affirmation of faithfulness to the full truth of the Church. Enright highlights significant moments in the journey of The Divine Comedy, focusing especially on Dante’s intense confrontations with evil and scandal in the Church of his day but showing that such confrontations are only an early stage of a journey that finds its culmination in the beauty and love offered by grace that draw him through the fire of confession and purgation to the vision in which he knows himself to be united with divine love. According to Enright, “The encounter between Dante and Beatrice perfectly encapsulates all that The Divine Comedy teaches about how the Church in heaven deals with the sinfulness of the Church on earth. The glory of the heavenly Church and its love and concern for the sinful earthly Church are embodied in Beatrice, shown in bliss and heightened beauty but venturing even to hell on Dante’s behalf.” Enright urges us to lift our eyes to a full vision of the Church available only when we have overcome the narrowness of a modern worldview that in its materialistic and naturalistic tendencies does not know how to recognize and respond to the spiritual dimension. When we again understand the full vision of the Church we will have the courage to confront scandal without jeopardizing faithfulness. As Enright notes, “[T]he lesson of The Divine Comedy is that the Church need not fear this fiery ordeal of painful confession, even shame. When the Church has passed through the wall of fire, as Dante does at the top of Mount Purgatory, Beatrice—symbol of God’s love—will be on the other side.”