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.
The Pope was obliged to ask for pardons from the knights - the
document absolves them
Prof Barbara Frale
Vatican Secret Archives official
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 Molay, 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.
http://news.
4 comments:
You will give your opinion of the Book? :)
I will when i read it
Do you think this will change the way the Church treats the Masons?
Depends on what church I suppose. The Lutheran church? I really doubt it. They are clear that joining the masons sends your strait to hell. The Roman Catholic church has the problem of the papal bull issued against the Templars and Masons. Since the pope is infallible in matters of theology, its going to be hard to say he was wrong on that one. Of course other denominations have other ideas. depends on the church.
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