Friday the 13th, part 699
Yesterday was not “just” a Friday the 13th, but the anniversary of “the” Friday the 13th.
699 years ago yesterday at dawn all over France, the king’s men busted the “Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon”, known more simply as the “Knights Templar“, for heresy.
Some got away — reportedly much of their treasure King Philip IV lusted after vanished into the mists with their fleet — and those Templars in Spain, Portugal and Germany basically just changed their order’s name and leadership. There was very little persecution in Britain, but in Paris, it was different. Harsh methods indeed were needed to justify the arrests of Christendom’s most famous champions (and richest bankers).
There, with the permission of Pope Clement V who was in the king’s pocket, terrible tortures evoked the desired confessions of depraved heretical practices. Finally, the Grand Master Jacques de Molay, and other leaders including Geoffrey de Charney (in whose family’s keeping the Shroud of Turin would later be found), and many others confessed and were burned alive in 1314 anyway.
All of this spawned legends, and generation upon generations of conspiracy theories — you can find a Templar, or one of their alleged successors, lurking somewhere in the bushes in the back of just about every good mystery. Some of these theories may even be true.
Supposedly the secret heirs of the Knights such as the Freemasons, Illuminati, and even the Priory of Sion swore undying revenge against the King of France and the Church of Rome.
The first was spectacularly achieved by the French Revolution, which took the king’s head along with most of the aristocrats’, but the latter?
Attempts have been made to eliminate the Church of Rome. The Reformation, while it freed large parts of Europe, left the remaining part under the Pope’s thumb more of an ideological prison than ever. Revolutions and bloodbaths came and went, and yet the Church endured.
The nun who taught my fourth-grade religion class would doubtless have chalked it up to the marvellous grace of the Holy Spirit, preserving the Barque of Peter despite the Devil’s own tempests.
But I disagree. The survival of the Roman Church has more to do with the iron tyranny of the Inquisition, the culture of secrecy, and the careful indoctrination of fear in its followers.
And in the seven centuries since it brought those weapons down with full force upon the men seen as its sacred guardians and protectors, it has demonstrated its ruthlessness time and time again. Most often on the young, and especially those who dared to complain.
For seven centuries more, the Roman Catholic Church has allowed its clergy to molest, lie and cheat, to generally do what the Templars were accused of. And there is nothing to indicate it will ever change. If the hierarchy could squash its most loyal protectors like bugs beneath the heel of the papal slipper, why should they ever pay attention to the weeping of mothers and children and the filing of lawsuits?
So, therefore, if you’re still out there, fellas, plotting against Holy Mother Church, I raise a glass with you in fellowship. Keep it up! Come on! Get serious! Jacques de Molay is not yet truly avenged.
Lots of bricks still left to go before the rotten structure collapses.