Autor: Danijel Turina
Datum: 2005-03-04 16:19:34
Grupe: hr.soc.religija
Tema: Re: Istina o Albigenskom "krizarskom" pohodu
Linija: 169
Message-ID: 4d0zgo49ajy7$.12xo8kasgk3v3$.dlg@40tude.net

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 15:53:36 +0100, david wrote:

> Ali i na ovo je svaki komentar suvisan.
> Normalno.. Crkva za sve ima svoju verziju price, Jer povjest ne pisu zrtve
> nego oni koi su
> vjesali i palili junake.

Svasta.
http://www.sspx.org/against_the_sound_bites/defense_of_the_inquisition.htm


The Cathar Peril

Catharism spread throughout all of Europe between the 11th and the 13th
centuries. It thrived particularly in Languedoc [southern France], whence
the name Albigensian (from the city of Albi) by which the heresy is also
designated. The word "cathar" comes from the Greek "katharos" which means
"pure." Actually Catharism is not properly called a Christian heresy; it is
rather more another religion.13 Its origin remains obscure, but its
doctrine strangely approaches that of the Gnostic and Manichaean
philosophies which circulated in the Middle East during the third and
fourth centuries. Note also that Freemasonry claims to be the inheritor of
the initiation mysteries of Catharism, through the intermediary of the
Templars.

According to the Cathari, two eternal principles divided the universe. The
good had created the world of the spirits, and the bad the material world.
Man was at the junction of the two principles. He was a fallen angel
imprisoned in a body. His soul originated in the good principle, but his
body was from the bad. Man˙s object was then to liberate himself from the
material by a spiritual purification, which often necessitated a series of
reincarnations.

Like all heretics, the Cathari claimed that their doctrine was the true
Christianity. They kept the Christian terminology while distorting the
essence of the dogmas. They said that the Christ was the most perfect of
the angels and that the Holy Spirit was a creature inferior to the Son.
They set in opposition the Old Testament, work of the bad principle, and
the New Testament, work of the good principle. They denied the Incarnation,
the Passion and the Resurrection of Jesus. They claimed that Redemption
flowed from the evangelical teachings more than from the death on the
cross.

The Cathari said that the Church was corrupt from the time of Constantine˙s
donation, and they rejected all the sacraments. Definitively, Catharism was
a form of paganism, with a glazing of Christianity, which resembled
Buddhism in certain points.

The material world being intrinsically bad, Cathar ethics condemned all
contact with matter. Marriage and procreation were forbidden because one
must not collaborate in the work of Satan, who sought to imprison souls in
their bodies. Since death constituted a liberation, suicide was encouraged.
They applied the "endura," that is the withdrawal of nourishment, from the
sick and even sometimes from infants, to accelerate the return of the soul
to heaven. The Cathari refused to take oaths under the pretext that God
should not be mixed into temporal affairs, and they condemned all forms of
wealth.

Ultimately, the Cathar wished to attain a state of "disincarnation" similar
to that of the fakirs [Hindu ascetics]. Moreover, the Cathari denied the
State˙s right to wage war and to punish criminals.

Obviously, such a program would not attract many disciples, hence Catharism
established two classes of faithful: the "perfects" and the simple
believers. The first, few in number, were the initiated, who lived in
monasteries and who entirely conformed to the Cathar moral philosophy. The
second, the vast majority, were freed of all moral obligations, in sexual
matters to be sure, but also in commercial matters.

The Cathari were not subject to the Christian rules which prohibited usury
and which imposed the principle of the just price. Besides this, the simple
believer had the assurance of going to heaven if, before dying, he received
the "consolamentum," a sort of extreme unction.

Debauchery, contraception, abortion, euthanasia, suicide, brutal
capitalism, an intense materialism and salvation for all; it is astounding
to realize to just what degree Cathar morality resembles that of present
day liberalism.

The Cathari then taught a morality of two degrees; asceticism for the
minority and libertinism for the majority, with, in addition, the guarantee
of eternal salvation at little cost. Now one understands what made their
doctrine so successful.

However, the vast majority of the people remained faithful to Catholicism.
The Cathari were recruited essentially among the tradesmen of the cities.
They were not very numerous, perhaps 5% to 10% of the population of
Languedoc, but they were wealthy and powerful. Some of them practiced
usury. The count of Toulouse [France], the most important lord of
Languedoc, adhered to their cause.

Hence the Cathari were not poor sheep without defense, victims of a
fanatical Inquisition. On the contrary, they formed a powerful and arrogant
sect which propagated an immoral doctrine, oppressed the Catholic peasants
and persecuted the priests. They even succeeded in assassinating the Grand
Inquisitor, St. Peter Martyr [also known as St. Peter of Verona].

The Church displayed great patience before taking measures against the
Cathar peril. The Albigensian heresies were condemned by the regional
Council of Toulouse in 1119, but, until 1179, Rome was satisfied with
sending preachers into Languedoc, men such as St. Bernard and St. Dominic.
These missions were to have little success.

In 1179, the Third Lateran Council asked the civil authorities to
intervene. The king of France, the king of England and the German emperor
had already begun, on their own initiative, the suppression of Catharism,
which was threatening the social order by its perverse doctrines on the
family and the taking of oaths.

Let us remember that the feudal system rested upon the oath of one man to
another. The negation of the value of the oath was as grave for medieval
society as would be the negation of the authority of the law for modern
society.

In addition, the Cathar preachers were encouraging anarchy and directing
armed bands, which were called by different names in different countries
("cotereaux," "routiers," "patarins" etc.). These bands were sacking the
churches, massacring the priests and profaning the Eucharist. The Cathari
were as violent and sacrilegious as the Protestants of the 16th century or
the revolutionaries of 1793. In 1177, the king of France, Philip Augustus,
had to exterminate a band of 7000 of these madmen, and the bishop of
Limoges had to march against 2000 anarchists. Identical scenes occurred in
Germany and in Italy. In 1145, Arnold of Brescia and his "patarins"
succeeded in seizing Rome and driving out the pope. They proclaimed a
republic and remained in power for ten years before being conquered and
condemned to the flames by the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa.
Catharism provoked social disorder throughout all of Europe and reigned in
Languedoc.

In 1208, the men of Raymond VI, count of Toulouse, assassinated the pope˙s
legate, Blessed Peter de Castelnau. Finally, Innocent III decided to preach
the Albigensian Crusade. It was led by Frenchmen from the north under the
command of Simon de Monfort. The Cathari resisted for four years
(1209-1213) and took up arms again in 1221, which shows how strong they
were. Their last fortified stronghold, Montségur, did not fall until 1244.
But, for all that, Catharism did not disappear. It transformed itself into
a secret society, a bit in the manner of Freemasonry.

As in all wars, the Albigensian Crusade was the occasion of excesses. The
taking of Béziers (1209) was a veritable massacre. It was impossible to
distinguish the Cathari from the Catholics among the population of the
city. The papal legate, Arnold de Citeaux, was to have said, "Kill them
all. God will recognize his own." The words are probably apocryphal and can
be filed under the panoply of anticlerical commonplaces. But they reflect
all the same an undoubted fact: the Cathari, who had, for a long time, been
drawing down the hatred of the people upon themselves because of their
immorality and their practicing of usury, ran the risk of a general
lynching.

But the Inquisition prevented this massacre by distinguishing between the
heretics and the orthodox, and between the leaders and the followers, and
by applying proportionate punishments to the diverse degrees of heresy.

Finally, the Inquisition was a humanitarian work. In severely punishing the
leaders, she spared the mass of the Cathari, who were more victim of than
responsible for the heresy. In ferreting out the heretics who had gone
underground, she prevented the renaissance of Catharism and of all the
social and moral disorders that this doctrine provoked.

One historian, although hostile to the Inquisition, has not hesitated to
conclude that, in the Albigensian Crusade:

    "...[T]he cause of orthodoxy [Catholic] was not other than that of
civilization and of progress....If this belief [Catharism] had recruited a
majority of the faithful, it would have resulted in bringing Europe back to
the savagery of primitive times." 14

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