1302: Pope Boniface VIII sentenced Italian poet and politician Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy, to be burned to death for political reasons. Dante fled into exile.
1927:Elmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis’ scathing satire of Protestant fundamentalism was published. The novel, about a narcissistic, unethical young man who stumbles into a career as an evangelist and preacher, was banned in several U.S. cities and widely condemned by churches. One clergyman said Lewis should go to jail for five years, while celebrated evangelist Billy Sunday — whom Gantry’s character is said to be loosely based on — referred to Lewis as “Satan’s cohort.”
1987: The Vatican published a document stating its opposition to the test-tube fertilization and artificial insemination of unmarried women. The Vatican also opposed these procedures for widows, even if their husbands had donated the sperm.
843: Eastern churches officially reintroduced and sanctioned icons, after an 89-year controversy.
1860: H. Frances Davidson, a pioneer missionary, was born. In 1892, she became the first woman from the Brethren in Christ Church to earn a master’s degree, and in 1897 became one of her denomination’s first missionaries to travel to the African continent. The Brethren in Christ Church began about 1780 in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania when a group of Mennonites became dissatisfied with the lack of spiritual passion in the church.
2010: A federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the use of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” on U.S. currency.
1994: The Church of England ordained its first woman priest.
2000: Pope John Paul issued an historic apology for the sins of Roman Catholics through the ages. (See more details in last week’s This Week in Religion History.)
1456: According to tradition, Johann Gutenberg first published the Bible using movable type.
1462: The first dated Bible was printed in Latin in Mainz, Germany. It was also the first to contain the names of its printers. They were Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer.
1997: Sister Nirmala, a former Hindu Brahmin who converted to Roman Catholicism, was elected to succeed ailing Mother Teresa as the leader of Missionaries of Charity.
2006: Musician — and Scientologist — Isaac Hayes quit the cast of TV show South Park saying in a news release, “there is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins.” Hayes’ departure came a few months after the airing of an episode of South Park that lampooned Scientology. Hayes did not appear on that episode. In response, show creator Matt Stone said Hayes never had a problem “with our show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons or Jews.” Stone added, “He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin.”
2010: The Vatican denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandal of pedophile priests in his German homeland.
1361: Icelandic monk Eysteinn Asgrimsson died at the Helgisetre Monastery in Norway. He was the author of Lilja (The Lily), which is a survey of Christian history from Creation to the Last Judgment and is considered to be the finest example of pre-Reformation Icelandic poetry.
2007: Montreal-born philosopher Charles Taylor became the first Canadian to be awarded the Templeton Prize, for his theory that the world’s problems can only be solved by considering both their secular and spiritual roots.
1657: Mother Giffard de Saint-Ignace, the first Canadian woman to take religious vows, died.
1968: The Diocese of Rome gave its OK to rock music masses in the Roman Catholic Church.
1990: The federal government decided that Sikh members of the RCMP could wear turbans and other religious garb while on duty.
1649: Jesuit martyrs Jean de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalement were tortured and put to death by the Iroquois at the Huronia village of St-Ignace, in what is now Simcoe County in Ontario. Brebeuf had laboured for 15 years trying to make peace with the Iroquois, but they continued their war against the Hurons and destroyed their villages and Jesuit missions in 1648. Later, the Iroquois captured Brebeuf and Lalement and killed them. Brebeuf was canonized in 1930 and is now a patron saint of Canada.
1660: The British “long Parliament of the Puritans” ended after sitting for 20 years.
1959: The Dalai Lama fled Tibet as anti-Communist uprisings spread throughout the country.
2010: Quebec’s human-rights commission ruled that the health insurance board had no obligation to satisfy religious or cultural preferences, concluding that religious beliefs cannot stand in the way of gender equality.
– With files from National Post