Pope Innocent III (8 janv. 1198 – 16 juill. 1216)

Description:

Even this harsher Inquisition was not sufficient for Pope Innocent III. In 1209 he launched a military crusade against heretics in southern France.

g86 4/22 20

In 1199, Pope Innocent III wrote concerning “heretics” who had translated the Bible into French and dared to discuss it among themselves. To them, Innocent applied Jesus’ words: “Do not give what is holy to dogs, neither throw your pearls before swine.” (Matthew 7:6) What was his reasoning in this matter? “That no simple and unlearned man presumes to concern himself with the sublimity of sacred Scripture, or to preach it to others.” Those who resisted the pope’s order were often delivered to inquisitors who had them tortured into making confessions. Those who refused to recant were burned alive.

During the long battle fought over possession of the Bible and the reading of it, Pope Innocent’s letter was often appealed to for support in forbidding use of the Bible and its translation into other languages. Soon after his decree, the burning of Bibles in the vernacular began, as did the burning of some of their owners. In the centuries that followed, the bishops and rulers of Catholic Europe used all possible means to ensure that the ban imposed by Pope Innocent III was observed.

They Tried to Keep God’s Word From the Masses
1199

Pope Innocent III views as heretics any who dare to translate and discuss the Bible. Those who defy the pope’s order are often tortured and killed

g 12/11 6-7

Itinerant Preachers

Even Pope Innocent III recognized that the rampant corruption within the church was to blame for the increasing number of dissident, itinerant preachers in Europe, particularly in southern France and northern Italy. The majority of these were either Cathari or Waldenses. He berated the priests for not teaching the people, saying: “The children are in want of the bread that you do not care to break for them.” Yet, rather than promote Bible education for the people, Innocent claimed that “such is the depth of divine Scripture, that not only the simple and illiterate, but even the prudent and learned, are not fully sufficient to try to understand it.” Bible reading was banned to all except the clergy and then permitted only in Latin.

w95 9/1 27

“The Lord left to Peter the governance not of the Church only but of the whole world.”​—Pope Innocent III.

WHEN Innocent III wrote those words in the early 13th century, the medieval Catholic Church had reached the pinnacle of its power.

g90 3/8 4

“SLAY them all; God will recognize His own.” On that summer day of 1209, the population of Béziers, in southern France, was massacred. The monk Arnold Amalric, appointed as papal legate at the head of the Catholic crusaders, showed no mercy. When his men asked how they were to distinguish between Catholics and heretics, he reportedly gave the infamous reply quoted above. Catholic historians water it down to: “Do not worry. I believe very few will be converted.” Whatever his exact answer, the result was the slaughter of at least 20,000 men, women, and children at the hands of some 300,000 crusaders, led by prelates of the Catholic Church.

What brought about this massacre? It was just the beginning of the Albigensian Crusade that Pope Innocent III had launched against so-called heretics in the province of Languedoc, south-central France. Before it ended some 20 years later, possibly one million people​—Cathari, Waldenses, and even many Catholics—​had lost their lives.

w95 9/1 27-28, 30

In a later Crusade called by Pope Innocent III, the peaceful Albigenses and Waldenses, who objected to the doctrines of Rome and the excesses of the clergy, were massacred. Regarding the fanaticism expressed against them, Wells wrote: “This was enough for the Lateran, and so we have the spectacle of Innocent III preaching a crusade against these unfortunate sectaries, and permitting the enlistment of every wandering scoundrel . . . and every conceivable outrage among the most peaceful subjects of the King of France. The accounts of the cruelties and abominations of this crusade are far more terrible to read than any account of Christian martyrdoms by the pagans.”

w87 7/15 28-29

Regarding Pope Innocent III of the early 13th century, De Rosa states: “It has been reckoned that in the last and most savage persecution under [Roman] Emperor Diocletian [third century] about two thousand Christians perished, worldwide. In the first vicious incident of Pope Innocent’s Crusade [against “heretics” in France] ten times that number of people were slaughtered. . . . It comes as a shock to discover that, at a stroke, a pope killed far more Christians than Diocletian. . . . [Innocent] had no qualms about using Christ’s name to do everything Christ objected to.”

w90 2/1 18

The break between the two churches became complete during the Fourth Crusade when, according to former Anglican Canon of Canterbury Herbert Waddams, Pope Innocent III played “a double game.” On the one hand, the pope was indignant about the sacking of Constantinople. (See box on page 24.) He wrote: “How can the Church of the Greeks be expected to return to devotion to the Apostolic See when it has seen the Latins setting an example of evil and doing the devil’s work so that already, and with good reason, the Greeks hate them worse than dogs.” On the other hand, he readily took advantage of the situation by establishing a Latin kingdom there under a western patriarch.

g89 8/8 23

Pope Innocent III writes in favor of infant baptism.

w86 3/15 7

Ajouté au bande de temps:

Date: