On Mon, 11 Feb 2013 06:56:18 -0800, Chokh Raj <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>"The most fruitful kind of interest in the Middle Ages is not the interest
in a remote or obscure 'period,' but the interest which finds lessons for
the present time from particular traditions of art, of philosophy and
theology, or of social organization." -- TS Eliot

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-11/the-last-time-a-pope-resigned-dante-put-him-in-hell
   The Last Time a Pope Resigned, Dante Put Him in Hell
   By Peter Coy on February 11, 2013 

   It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Pope Benedict XVI’s
decision to resign
   the papacy for health reasons. The last time a pope resigned voluntarily
was 1294.
   The great poet Dante Alighieri was so angry about it that he put the
abdicating pope,
   Celestine V, into the antechamber of his Inferno. In the more than seven
centuries
   since, no pope has taken the name Celestine.


Wikipedia:
   A persistent tradition identifies Celestine V as the nameless figure
   Dante Alighieri sees among those in the antechamber of Hell, in the
   enigmatic verses:
       I saw and recognized the shade of him
       Who by his cowardice made the great refusal.
       —Inferno III, 59–60


http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/05/a-pope-in-hell-the-curious-case-of-pope-st-peter-celestine-v/
   A Pope in hell? The curious case of Pope St. Peter Celestine V
   Posted on 19 May 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf 

   Dante, in his Divine Comedy, in Inferno 3, places in hell someone whom we
think may be
   Peter Celestine V.  Dante calls him “the shade of him who in his
cowardice made the great
   refusal”.  ”The great refusal” being the rejection of the highest office
to which one
   might ascend in this world, with all the duties and responsibilities and
implications
   for the bonds of society that that office carries.  Remember that the
Divine Comedy is
   about, among other things, the interrelationship of the secular and the
sacred.  Dante
   was writing political theory in the Divine Comedy.  His Hell is
constructed to reflect
   the ways in which people harm no just themselves, but also the bonds of
society.  Dante
   would have hated Peter Celestine’s abdication also because he opened the
way for Dante’s
   great enemy Boniface VIII, whom he detested.