Paradiso: The Fifth Sphere -- Cacciaguida's Dialogue

Just as Cacciaguida is the root of Dante's family tree, he argues that the dilution of the bloodlines of Florence through the arrival of new families was sufficient to begin the city's fall into degeneracy. Fr. Earl had a good point in his last comment -- Dante continues in heaven the same condemnation of Florence as he began in hell and pursued through purgatory. Rather than detracting from the glories of heaven, the pursuit of this theme reinforces the structure of the Comedy, for it is only natural that what is happening on earth be a concern of heaven if prayers from earth to heaven are to be at all efficacious. If heaven helps those who cry for God's mercy and justice, then it's also natural that God would hear these cries and respond to them. Even Christ responded to his feeling of natural indignation at discovering the money lenders in the Temple. No less, then, can those souls who sit in heaven's light also feel just cause against the inhumanities of mankind.



In our orientation to God, all of us feel pleasure at the good and pain at the bad, and those not oriented to God may be disoriented in their understanding of pain and pleasure, both of which are derived from not only virtue but also community interaction. Aristotle writes, "the whole concern both of virtue and of political science is with pleasures and pains; for the man who uses these well will be good, he who uses them badly bad;" indeed, it is a philosophy of action still heralded by the Church (especially here in St. Louis) that argues all Catholics have a political responsibility to work for the good. We can take two models for this -- one being our saint of the day, St. Stanislaus, who as bishop of Krakow, was highly outspoken against corruption in high offices and denounced "the unjust wars and immoral acts" of King Boleslaus II so fervently that the king killed him with his own hands -- the other being his successor, to the episcopacy of Krakow, Karol Wojtila.

S.