In praeclara summorum
With the encyclical In praeclara summorum of April 30, 1921, Pope Benedict XV. the 600th anniversary of the death of the Italian poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri († September 14, 1321 ). It applies without exception to the professors , the students of literature and to all the students of the Catholic world.
Dante and the Catholic Religion
Pope Benedict XV describes Dante as a divine poet who explained the Catholic religion during his life . Dante lived in an age in which philosophical and theological thinking was taken over into training, which also underlines that Dante, as a student, took over the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas . From him Dante received all his philosophical and theological knowledge, but at the same time he also studied the teachings of the other great teachers of the church . According to this, the Pope describes some of the poet's outstanding works and presents them "as the truth in the doctrine of the faith" , further he calls them "in fact an excellent and wise basic rule for then and now" . Finally, the Pope turned to the teachers and students in the Catholic world and asked them to learn the poems and chants of Dante, because this would give them a high profit for their studies and give themselves more to the Catholic faith .
