Father Paul Pearson converted to Catholicism during his university days, entered the Toronto Oratory in 1985, was ordained to the priesthood in 1989, and began serving as Dean of Saint Philip's, the seminary run by the Oratorians, in 1992. This series of books has arisen out of classes he has given to seminarians there for many years. This volume, Ascending Mount Purgatory, and his previous and forthcoming ones on Inferno and Paradiso have been written so that a wider audience may benefit from spiritual direction from Dante.
Praise for Spiritual Direction from Dante Vol. I: Avoiding the Inferno Fusing practical advice about how to live one's Christian vocation with a piece of high art from the Middle Ages is not an easy thing to do. Father Pearson carries it off superbly, and while doing so, he gives the reader a fresh appreciation of Divina Commedia. - K.V. Turley, National Catholic Register Pearson treats the Inferno -- volumes on the Purgatorio and Paradiso are forthcoming -- as a repository of spiritual wisdom for the life of disciples. Dante's guided tour of hell is meant to help his readers avoid it. Rev. Raymond J. De Souza, Grandin Media . . . an authentic and original view of one of the great works of the Renaissance is difficult to come by. However, in the first installment of an expected trilogy on the spiritual lessons of the Divine Comedy, the Oratorian Fr Paul Pearson has provided just that. Patrick Cusworth, Catholic Herald