Note 68 — THE HOME-RULE CANDIDATE. A STORY OF “NEW IRELAND.” CHAPTER IV. THE ELECTION. (continued 3)

It is well to note in connection with this passage that Dante was, up to the time of his banishment by a political faction, a Guelph, the Guelphs being then the patriotic party in Italy, and supporters of the pope in his resolute opposition to the foreign invasion under Frederic Barbarossa. During his exile Dante changed his politics and joined the Ghibellines. Had he lived in our own days it is certain that he, whose faith was so high and clear, would have shared the openly expressed convictions of all responsible men and competent judges in this matter, that the temporal authority of the Holy See is necessary, as things now are, to the full liberty and full exercise of its spiritual authority. Dante’s opinion, as above expressed, is that of a political partisan in bygone times. Were he living to-day, instructed by the lessons of the centuries which have passed since he wrote, there can be no doubt that he would adhere to his earlier, truer, and more patriotic political convictions and see no impossibility of the union of “The twofold splendors of a double sun in Rome” in the person of Rome’s lawful and historic pontiff and king.—Ed. C. W.