Why do presidents feel compelled to meet with popes? Secret Access: The Vatican
In 1492 Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia became Pope Alexander VI after mule-loads of family silver were used to bribe the cardinals to elect him. Once Pope, he poisoned his rival cardinals and accepted pay-offs to fill their seats. ibid.
Popes collected taxes, used armies to confiscate their enemies’ riches, and amassed fortunes by asserting their power like kings. ibid.
It was television that turned the pope into a celebrity. ibid.
In February last year Pope Benedict stunned the world by being the first pope to resign for six hundred years. This is the story of the events that helped undermine his papacy, and challenged the Roman Catholic Church to this day. Secrets of the Vatican, Channel 4 2014
Justinian ousted the old pope and installed Virgilius. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Rome: A History of the Eternal City II: Divine Gamble, BBC 2012
Popes became power-hungry players in the savage scheming of Italian politics. ibid.
The popes played a vicious game of power and pleasure. ibid.
The papacy and Rome sank to ever greater depths of moral depravity. ibid.
The most notorious family in the entire history of the papacy – the Borgias. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Rome: A History of the Eternal City III: The Rebirth of God’s City
Cesare Borgia was the Pope’s flamboyant enforcer and henchman. ibid.
The papacy had turned sin into a business … the selling of Indulgences would prove one step too far. ibid.
The Inquisition was set up to enforce the doctrines of the Church. ibid.
The papacy and the kingdom would be in a standoff for sixty years. ibid.
Between 1095 and 1291 A.D. the Pope launched seven blood-baths called the Christian Crusades – torturing, burning, beheading, and mass-murdering hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Jews in the name of God. The Pope’s brutal soldiers were called Knights Templar, or Knights of the Temple of Solomon. And evolved into today’s secretive brotherhood called the Freemasons. Ring of Power, 2008
The Muslim garrison was thrown into a state of utter confusion, and soon Antioch’s remaining gates were thrown open and the Crusaders poured in. In the half light of dawn a chaotic slaughter began. ibid.
The besiegers had become the besieged. ibid.
They overran the Holy City ... They unleashed a rampaging torrent of barbaric and indiscriminate slaughter. ibid.
The Crusaders were wading through their enemies’ blood. ibid.
A Christian knight on a mission from God in the Holy Land waging war on Islam. Mankind: The Story of All of Us IV, History 2012
The Pope calls on Christians to take up arms. ibid.
The Crusades will continue for two centuries and will cost more than a million lives. ibid.
For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called the Arm of St George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for a while with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ’s heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.
All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. Pope Urban II, speech at Council of Clermont, version Fulcher of Chartres
From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth and very frequently has been brought to our ears, namely, that a race from the kingdom of the Persians, an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God, a generation forsooth which has not directed its heart and has not entrusted its spirit to God, has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; it has led away a part of the captives into its own country, and a part it has destroyed by cruel tortures; it has either entirely destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of its own religion. They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanness. They circumcise the Christians, and the blood of the circumcision they either spread upon the altars or pour into the vases of the baptismal font. When they wish to torture people by a base death, they perforate their navels, and dragging forth the extremity of the intestines, bind it to a stake; then with flogging they lead the victim around until the viscera having gushed forth the victim falls prostrate upon the ground. Others they bind to a post and pierce with arrows. Others they compel to extend their necks and then, attacking them with naked swords, attempt to cut through the neck with a single blow. What shall I say of the abominable rape of the women? To speak of it is worse than to be silent. The kingdom of the Greeks is now dismembered by them and deprived of territory so vast in extent that it can not be traversed in a march of two months. On whom therefore is the labour of avenging these wrongs and of recovering this territory incumbent, if not upon you? ibid. version Robert the Monk
We have heard, most beloved brethren, and you have heard what we cannot recount without deep sorrow how, with great hurt and dire sufferings our Christian brothers, members in Christ, are scourged, oppressed, and injured in Jerusalem, in Antioch, and the other cities of the East. Your own blood brothers, your companions, your associates (for you are sons of the same Christ and the same Church) are either subjected in their inherited homes to other masters, or are driven from them, or they come as beggars among us; or, which is far worse, they are flogged and exiled as slaves for sale in their own land. Christian blood, redeemed by the blood of Christ, has been shed, and Christian flesh, akin to the flesh of Christ, has been subjected to unspeakable degradation and servitude. Everywhere in those cities there is sorrow, everywhere misery, everywhere groaning (I say it with a sigh). ibid. version Balderic of Dol
Their unspeakable cruelty was carried on even to the point of giving them scammony to drink until they vomited, or even burst their bowels, because they thought the wretches had swallowed gold or silver; or, horrible to say, they cut their bowels open with a sword and, spreading out the folds of the intestines, with frightful mutilation disclosed whatever nature held there in secret. Remember, I pray, the thousands who have perished vile deaths, and strive for the holy places from which the beginnings of your faith have come. Before you engage in His battles, believe without question that Christ will be your standard-bearer and inseparable forerunner. ibid. version Guibert de Nogent
In 1095 Pope Urban II instigated the first Crusade by declaring Deus Vult, Latin for God wills it. Over the next two hundred years a total of nine brutal crusades devastated the Holy Land and its Muslim inhabitants. The Dark Ages
In 1128 the Order was sanctioned by the Council of Troyes and by the Pope. Nesta H Webster, Secret Societies & Subversive Movements
The Order had been quietly formed in Jerusalem in 1119, twenty years after the Christians took the City. A French knight founded the Order to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. So how did they end up with fortresses and churches all over Europe with a massive power-base to rival the European monarchs? Trial of the Knights Templar
There were originally only nine Templars. ibid.
The Chinon Parchment adds up to a litany of heresies: the Templars had admitted to homosexuality, denouncing Christ and defiling the Cross. The Templar’s first confession after arrest had been tortured out of them by Philip IV, but had the Pope’s men done the same? Were the Chinon confessions reliable? The Chinon Parchment contains one further revelation: despite people believing for centuries that the Pope had condemned the Templars, in fact he had saved them. He absolved [Jacques] de Molay and the leaders unconditionally. ibid.
But the old warrior had left behind one last Parisian mystery. As the Templars were swept away, their biggest bank, the Paris Temple, was raided by the King’s men. It was empty. Templar assets in Normandy alone amounted to more than the wealth of England yet nothing was found. Philip IV’s destruction of the Knights Templar had all been for nothing. ibid.
The Knights Templar were the most powerful military religious order of the Middle Ages. Formed to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land, they participated in the Crusades and rapidly gained wealth, lands and influence and were answerable to none save the Pope himself. In addition to having a fearful military reputation, they were also Christendom’s first bankers, and invented the modern banking system that is still in use today. ibid.
In 1312 after five years of trials and bloody executions the Pope disbanded the Knights Templar by decree. Decoding the Past s3e8: Mysteries of the Freemasons – The Beginning, History 2006
Pope Innocent III created structures to deal with heresy – Inquisition ... It’s difficult for modern westerners to understand the mind of an Inquisitor but we need to bear in mind they were clergy who saw what they were doing as an aspect of the pastoral role of a priest – to make society better. But there’s a fine line in any system between idealism and sadism. Inquisitions were no worse than most medieval courts. Torture might be used to extract confession. Those on trial had no right to defence counsel. Penalty raised from wearing a cross of penance to pilgrimage to imprisonment to death by burning at the stake. Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, BBC 2009
The Pope today reignited the controversy over the Catholic church’s stance on condom use as he made his first trip to Africa.
The pontiff said condoms were not the answer to the continent’s fight against HIV and Aids and could make the problem worse.