Ideas and tips on any subject: Origin of Roman Catholic Church

Continues from the previous post –

Other attempts to control any opposition; in 1206 a different approach is proposed by Dominic de Guzman (better known now as St Dominic), a canon accompanying a Spanish bishop to Toulouse. Christian preachers, he argues, should learn from the Cathars. They must live an equivalently simple life if ordinary people are to listen to their message. It is the beginning of the Dominican system of evangelical preaching.

Dominic's approach achieves early successes. In 1207, he establishes a convent at Prouille, in which the nuns are converts from the Cathar heresy. This convent becomes the headquarters of his mission, until an act of violence puts preaching in second place. In January 1208 the pope's legate to Toulouse is assassinated. Innocent now calls upon the feudal lords of Christian Europe to destroy the heretics, unleashing the violence of the Albigensian crusade. Combined with the continuing efforts of the Dominicans, the crusade ends the Cathar heresy in western Europe. In the Balkans the influence of the Bogomils survives longer, until submerged in the Turkish invasions. All these activities were absolutely against the basic teachings of Jesus. The so-called heretics were actually practicing Jesus' teachings more appropriately but since they had denied to yield to papal power they were destroyed by Pope Innocent. This shows that Pope has gone too far away from Jesus in its ambition to be power in Europe. Moreover, none of the Popes ever felt sorry for doing all this hypocritical acts just to keep power. In fact, Popes were no more representing true values of Jesus of what they kept on preaching. Their teeth to show and teeth to eat were not same.

The wandering popes (1257–1309)

The pope is the Bishop of Rome, but nowhere is it written that he has to stay there (in fact, only 200 years prior, cardinals would have been required to reside in Rome). Political instability in thirteenth-century Italy forced the papal court to move to several different locations. Destinations included Viterbo, Orvieto, Avignon and Perugia. The popes brought the Roman Curia with them, and the College of Cardinals met in the city where the last pope had died to hold papal elections. Host cities enjoyed a boost to their prestige and certain economic advantages, but the municipal authorities risked being subsumed into the administration of the Papal States if they allowed the pope to overstay his welcome.

According to Eamon Duffy, "aristocratic factions within the city of Rome once again made it an insecure base for a stable papal government. Innocent IV was exiled from Rome and even Italy for six years, and all but two of the papal elections of the thirteenth century had to take place outside Rome. The skyline of Rome itself was now dominated by the fortified war-towers of the aristocracy (a hundred were built in Innocent IV's pontificate alone) and the popes increasingly spent their time in the papal palaces at Viterbo and Orvieto."

Innocent and the holy mendicants: 1210-1216

The most lasting achievement of pontificate of Innocent III is his recognition of a new movement within the western church. The monasteries have shown for the first time resistance to an uncontrollable tendency to accumulate wealth of Popes and their administration. In 1210 and 1215 the pope receives in Rome two visionaries with a strikingly different concept of how to follow the example of Christ.

The first visit is from Francis of Assisi and eleven of his companions. They are laymen who have given up their worldly possessions. They want to live among the poor, particularly in the rapidly growing towns, preaching and bearing witness to a Christian life. The pope wanted to try out this experiment to create an impression in the eyes of intellectuals that Pope has not forgotten message of Jesus and for that reason Innocent encourages them.

Continues in next post –

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