Posted on 10/05/2007 1:44:55 PM PDT by NYer
The Vatican is to publish a book which is expected to shed light on the demise of the Knights Templar, a Christian military order from the Middle Ages.
The book is based on a document known as the Chinon parchment, found in the Vatican Secret Archives six years ago after years of being incorrectly filed.
The document is a record of the heresy hearings of the Templars before Pope Clement V in the 14th Century.
The official who found the paper says it exonerates the knights entirely.
Prof Barbara Frale, who stumbled across the parchment by mistake, says that it lays bare the rituals and ceremonies over which the Templars were accused of heresy.
In the hearings before Clement V, the knights reportedly admitted spitting on the cross, denying Jesus and kissing the lower back of the man proposing them during initiation ceremonies.
However, many of the confessions were obtained under torture and knights later recanted or tried to claim that their initiation ceremony merely mimicked the humiliation the knights would suffer if they fell into the hands of the Muslim leader Saladin.
The leader of the order, Jacques de Moley, was one of those who confessed to heresy, but later recanted.
He was burned at the stake in Paris in 1314, the same year that the Pope dissolved the order.
However, according to Prof Frale, study of the document shows that the knights were not heretics as had been believed for 700 years.
In fact she says "the Pope was obliged to ask for pardons from the knights... the document we have found absolves them".
Details of the parchment will be published as part of Processus contra Templarios, a book that will be released by the Vatican's Secret Archive on 25 October.
Sandy Berger, after hearing of the incident, swore he was no where near the Vatican, and offered his explanation for the probable cause as, "It was just sloppy filing on the part of a distracted Bishop."
> I wonder what occultic Masonic rituals will be in store for us all?????
Ooooo, I can hardly *wait*!
> Trouble is, you’ll never know they are Masons. Most of them won’t identify themselves as such.
Not so. Any Mason, if asked, will more than likely identify themselves as such. Some will even volunteer that information, even if not asked.
For example, I am a Freemason.
Thanks for the ping. There is an alarum in the west...
Holiday Inn? Gimme a break.
When the templars were liquidated did the pope excommunicate him because of it?
This old Mason is up for the occultic ‘nubile virgins’ rituals.
More ale for the archers!
Bring on the girls!! >:-}
Pssst - you have to do that stuff in a cave, in the middle of the night...
Thanks. I thought of it long before but St. Francis appeared to me and asked me to be a Franciscan. I’m not allowed to join another fraternity. I’ll always keep them in my prayers though. ;-)
This old curmudgeon will be sound asleep at that time of night.
I guess my romp with nubile virgins is off, then. :-(
In earlier stories, these parchments were misfiled and only discovered 6 years ago.
Does somebody really suppose that there was a responsiblity for oral tradition to pass this down over the last 700 years?
Both Clement V and Philip the Fair of France died shortly after the burnings of DeMolay and his companion knights at Paris in 1314, at which it was reported that DeMolay “summoned them with his dying breath”. Perhaps justice did not take 700 years to accomplish?
Without resorting into any conspiracy theories, the Templars left some lasting legacies:
1) Their system for allowing pilgrims to safely move funds around on journeys to the Holy Land laid some of the foundations of the modern banking system.
2) The cultural exchange with the near east helped introduce new religious ideas into Europe, planting some of the seeds of the eventual Reformation.
3) Their example of an institution independent of church hierarchy promoted ideas that eventually came to fruition in the Enlightenment.
A lot of time separates us, but the Templars were generally a force for freedom and rationalism in their time. Perhaps a bit of the freedom we enjoy today is partly due to their sacrifices.
Huh? You say “These teachings of Christ” are “Karma and reincarnation, the indwelling Christ potential in all souls, and the evolving of the soul over many lifetimes”?
When have those EVER been held by Christ? Do you believe these were there in the beginning but were suppressed?
You wrote:
“When the templars were liquidated did the pope excommunicate him because of it?”
The Templars were never liquidated. Those who recanted their confessions were executed as relapsed heretics, idolators, etc. By all accounts, Pope Clement believed the charges against the Templars when they were arrested. Exactly what he believed when the relative handful were executed several years later, I don’t know, but I would find it hard to believe he would allow Philip to executed them if he truly believed they had never done anything wrong in the first place.
Also, it should be pointed out that, although Philip is routinely denounced today for what he did to the Templars, no one has ever found any hard evidence that he was plotting against them or deserved excommunication for his actions. The simple fact is we don’t know enough about the motivations of the people involved in the Templar trials. Everyone assumes Philip did what he did in order to get their wealth, but if I remember correctly, he could never hold on to it by law anyway. This new book, if what I have read about it in these two or three little articles is any indication, will NOT resolve the mystery surrounding the Templar trial, but will instead only deepen it.
You and I both know that confessions were tortured out of people then by both the state and the Catholic Church. Lets not act like the Vatican was some innocent bystander in this. The Church especially then could have went to the extreme to protect its own order.
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