Canto 14.5 - The Sacriligious

XIV.V

While in the circle of the violent, just after the blasphemers, the traveler and his guide encounter another class of the Violent against God, the sacrilegious (those who profaned the holy things of God). Their punishment is to pass all of eternity lying face-up on altars of brimstone, being constantly set aflame as holocausts by the fire falling from above. Each time their bodies are completely burnt through, the process begins again, and they are continually re-sacrificed in perpetuity. This is to signify the profanation, specifically, of religious sacrifices, and especially the sacrifice of Christ (the Eucharist).

The traveler speaks first with Senator John Kerry, who is accompanied on his altar by his pastor, Fr. John Ardin. Kerry is placed here because he took a stance on abortion contrary to that of the Church, and yet continued to receive the Sacraments (unworthily). Ardin is here, obviously, because he knowingly administered the Sacraments to a heretic. The traveler next comes upon Pinchas and Mordechai, who identify themselves as having been among the money-changers and merchants thrown by Christ from the Temple of Jerusalem. After this, the traveler comes to Bernard Cardinal Law, who created national uproar when it was discovered that he allowed priests whom he knew to have sexually molested young members of their parishes not only to continue working in the Archdiocese of Boston as ordinary priests, but moved them to new locations where the same crimes were committed again. Virgil censures the traveler for saying that the Cardinal's punishment is not enough, and the two move on to the Violent against Nature.