Friday, August 14, 2009

From Fumare: Masters of Deception

Indeed, There is Nothing New Under the Sun

A religious order accused of heinous crimes and investigated by a temporal authority and is found to have conducted its affairs with duplicity, "hav[ing] had two doctrines, one concealed and reserved for the Masters . . . the other public . . . Thus they deceived the adversaries whom they sought to supplant."
The Pope reluctant to do anything, actually sticks up for the order. Eventually describes the cause of reluctance:
"Because it did not seem likely nor credible that men of such religion who were believed often to shed their blood and frequently expose their persons to the peril of death for Christ's name, and who showed such great and many signs of devotion both in divine offices as well as in fasts, as in other devotional observances, should be so forgetful of their salvation as to do these things, we were unwilling . . . to give ear to this kind of insinuation ... (hujusmodi insinuacioni ac delacioni ipsorum ... aurem noluimus inclinare)." (Edith Starr Miller, Occult Theocracy. Hawthorne, CA; The Christian Book Club of America, 1933, p.51, citing Michelet, Proces des Templiers).
On papal questioning, they admitted under oath that the charges were true. The Pope, however, still refused to take action against the whole Order merely because the Master {founder, prelate, superior} and Brethren {the higher ups} around him had gravely sinned" (Webster, Secret Societies, 54). Instead, he decided to hold a papal commission.

The Knights Templars, as it turned out, had been masters of deception, experts in duplicity, appearing to serve Christ on the surface while actually having nothing to do with religious practice in substance.

Sounds an awful lot like things happening today. Do the people who have difficulty seeing the problems with the Legion of Christ suffer perhaps from the same reluctance of Pope Clement V? Or, is it that they think Holy Church hasn't had her share of frauds throughout her years? Do they think putting a crucifix on the logo makes it automatically safe from error and duplicity?

No comments: