The remains of the five-month pope whose 'grand refusal' of responsibility was scorned by Dante in his Inferno were safely removed from a quake-hit church in L'Aquila Thursday.The bones of 'hermit pope' St Celestine V were taken from the damaged Basilica di Collemaggio to safe storage.
''It's another great miracle by the pope,'' said the head of Italy's Heritage Security Commission, Fabio Carapezza Guttuso.
Celestine, Italy's last pope not elected in a conclave, was proclaimed leader of the Church in L'Aquila in 1294 but relinquished the office after five months.
This ushered in the long reign of one of Dante's villains, pope Boniface VIII, leading most commentators to attribute the enigmatic 'gran rifiuto' in Inferno Book III to Celestine's refusal of the papacy.
However, supporters of the reluctant and ascetic pope, who died after ten months in a mountaintop cell picked by Boniface, have disputed this claim.
They revere Celestine for his simple virtue and point out that he was the first pope to institute a jubilee.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce
(Source: ANSA)