Templar Globe

Out-there researchers discuss the impending … something

The broadcast-quality lilt of Coast to Coast AM radio host George Noory wafted over a packed conference room at Beverly Garland’s Holiday Inn last Saturday night as he a moderated a panel of out-there researchers engaged in a radical examination of Hollywood’s covert use of occult symbolism and alien agendas — the same week that the Vatican’s chief astronomer told an interviewer that belief in alien life does not contradict belief in God. As Noory told the audience, “There’s definitely a sense of an impending … something.”

Noory is the successor to radio’s legendary Art Bell, who stoked a particular millennial Zeitgeist with his fireside chats on UFOs, the paranormal and all manner of conspiracy theories with his syndicated radio program, before passing the mike to Noory in 2002. Coast to Coast AM remains a cultural touchstone, and Noory — personable and mustachioed — continues to bring so-called fringe ideas front and center.

We’re at “an extraordinary crossroads, with the way life is unfolding,” commented panelist Whitley Strieber, whose most recent novel is based on the doomsday/consciousness-shifting 2012 mythos, and who believes he was “implanted” with a device by his “visitors.” He recalled a bit of the aliens’ verbiage: “We will come from within you.”

According to panelist/abduction therapist Yvonne Smith, 17 functional-growth characteristics in humans born between 1947 and 1987 have been accelerated by 60 to 80 percent. “It’s not environment, it’s not evolution,” she asserted.

A “mutation of society” is under way, and “the skeptic community is getting quieter and quieter,” remarked Dr. Roger Leir, a Valley-based podiatrist, who removes alleged alien implants.

Jordan Maxwell, an expert in occult symbolism and secret societies, likened Americans to Alec Guinness’ blindly megalomaniacal lieutenant colonel in The Bridge on the River Kwai once he realizes he’s been working for the enemy: “What have I done? There is no way out.”

“Jordan’s been looking down the barrel of the New World Order for nearly 50 years,” Noory said.

Maxwell, expounding upon the secret fraternal orders to which our government and religious leaders are bound, remarked, “The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure are teasers. The powers behind Hollywood are Knights Templars, showing you what they can do.”

“What does Hollywood know that we don’t?” asked panelist Jay Weidner, producer of the documentary 2012: The Odyssey. Was Eyes Wide Shut a representation of a sex cult for rich perverts, or a portrait of the Illuminati? Subversive director Stanley Kubrick died two hours after bringing a rough cut of the film to Warner Bros. “Like the Zapruder film, you can see what he was trying to say by what’s missing,” said Weidner, who believes Kubrick fled for England in the ’60s after experiencing events depicted in the film. (Scientologists Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, he said, were simply cast as part of “an inside joke.”)

In Rosemary’s Baby, John Cassavetes’ character eagerly permits the devil to impregnate his wife to ensure his Broadway stardom. “He’s the spitting image of Jack Parsons [black magician and co-founder of Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory],” claimed Mike Bara, co-author with Richard C. Hoagland of the recent best-seller Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA. “It’s the magical ritual known as the Babylon Working. Rosemary becomes the mother of the antichrist.”

A question came from the audience: “There’s so much to dissect from entertainment now — Iron Man, Battlestar Galactica, The Mist, Marvel’s Sons of the Serpent. There’s even a conspiracy theorist in Justice League of America.” The bearded young man echoed the sentiments of many assembled: “Why now?”

“They release little bits of truth, so that in the future they can say, ‘We said that years ago,’” Maxwell answered. “You’ve got to read between the lines.” Entertainment is used to indoctrinate or spread disinformation. Case in point: Universal’s recent optioning of the “period” action script The Knights Templar. “Each time you get a bigger sense of how the game is being played, you are less manipulated by it.” Maxwell asked the audience to verify his contentions — Rome is still in control, a powerful occult system has dominated consensus reality for thousands of years — by forcing us to pay attention to “their” symbols: words, flags, coats of arms. “Once you see [it] organized, it’s frightening.”

“The Gnostic belief is that we must have an apocalypse to bring about the golden age,” Weidner commented. “But is that apocalypse the death of all of us, or the death of consciousness as we know it?”

The Mayan calendar, which runs out at midnight on December 12, 2012, is expected to take us out, whether by mass extinction, interplanetary invasion or a total paradigm shift — a metaphysical bang or a cosmic whimper. With four years and counting, Maxwell advised, “always trust those who are looking for the truth.”

But what the bleep is it?

BY SKYLAIRE ALFVEGREN

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Note: the OSMTHU does not endorse said “conspiracy theories”, but our editors tought that the article was interesting and provocative enough to be brought to the attention of our readers.

A luxurious ancient pagan tomb located in a necropolis under St Peter’s Basilica has been reopened to the public after a year of restoration.

Catholic News Service reports the Vatican has completed the restoration of the largest and most luxurious mausoleum in the vast necropolis under St. Peter’s Basilica.
The Mausoleum of the Valerii displays some of the most ornate decoration among the 22 family mausoleums in the ancient underground cemetery.

“We had wanted to restore it for a long time, but we didn’t have the money. Now we’re extremely happy” the funding came through and the year long restoration has been completed, said Maria Cristina Stella, an official at the Fabbrica di San Pietro, the office responsible for the basilica’s upkeep.

The $300,000 project was funded by the Rome based Foundation for Music and Sacred Art, the Italian branch of Mercedes-Benz, and other sponsors.

The Vatican necropolis includes the burial grounds where St Peter’s tomb has been venerated since early Christian times.

The Valerii mausoleum was built sometime after 160 by Gaius Valerius Herma - a wealthy, highly educated Roman slave who had bought his freedom. He built the site for his family and his freed slaves and their descendents.

Like many other pagan tombs in the necropolis, the sarcophagi were later “recycled” by Christians who buried their loved ones and added inscriptions referring to Christ.

The cemetery had been used until the fourth century when the emperor Constantine had workmen fill in the open-air necropolis with dirt in order to lay the foundation for building a basilica above St. Peter’s tomb. The airless, lightless atmosphere actually had helped preserve much of the artwork and statuary.

Restorers for the Valerii mausoleum used hand held lasers, tiny drills, scalpels, sponges and plain water to remove mineral salts, other encrustations and dirt, and they injected special glues to reinforce crumbling plaster walls.

They pieced together broken plaster or marble fragments back onto statuary tucked into niches lining the mausoleum walls.

The second century subterranean burial ground is two levels below the basilica floor, and St. Peter’s tomb is directly under the basilica’s main altar.

The cemetery was excavated for the first time in the 1930’s and 40’s, revealing a double row of mausoleums and niches decorated with paintings, stucco and mosaics, along with a section of simpler graves.

The Vatican has spent the past decade repairing and restoring the tombs, labyrinthine lanes and funerary artwork using state-of-the-art techniques, as well as setting up a complete conservation system that controls the climate of the necropolis.

The Holy See Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has published a new instruction on authority and obedience for religious men and women.

The new instruction entitled, ‘The Service of Authority and Obedience’ examines the theme of religious obedience, “the root of which is seen in that search for God and for His will which is particular to believer,” according to a media release from the Congregation, Spero News reports.

“Christian and religious obedience does not, then, appear simply as the implementation of ecclesiastical or religious laws and rulings, but as the momentum of a journey in search of God which involves listening to His Word and becoming aware of His design of love - the fundamental experience of Christ Who, out of love, was obedient unto His death on the cross.”

“Authority in religious life,” the communiqué added, “must be understood in this light, in other words, as a way to help the community (or institute) to seek and achieve the will of God. Obedience, then, is not justified on the basis of religious authority, because everyone in a religious community (first and foremost the authorities themselves) are called to obedience. Authority places itself at the service on the community so that God’s will may be sought and achieved together.”

The instruction also considers “the delicate matter of ‘difficult obedience’, that in which what is requested of the religious is particularly hard to carry out, or in which the subject feels he sees ‘things which are better and more useful for his soul than those which the superior orders him to do’.”

The instruction seeks to recall that obedience in religious life can give rise to situations of suffering in which it is necessary to refer back to the Obedient One par excellence, Christ.

“It must, moreover, be borne in mind that authority too can be ‘difficult’, experiencing moments of discouragement and fatigue which can lead to resignation or inattention in exercising an appropriate guidance of the community.”

The document also offers a vast and coherent set of guidelines for the exercise of authority, such as inviting people to listen, favouring dialogue, sharing, co-responsibility, and the merciful treatment of the people entrusted to authority, the communiqué said.

in CathNews

Sydney University has bought Australia’s only copy of reproduction manuscripts of the 14th century trials of the Knights Templar that rehabilitated the order.

The University of Sydney has purchased a $10,000 reproduction of a document that rehabilitates the medieval Christian military order, the university press service reports.

The Knights, recognisable by the white robes with a red cross they wore over their chain mail, guarded pilgrims visiting the Holy Lands. In the early 14th-century. King Philip IV of France accused the knights of heresy and sodomy, and many of the order’s leaders were burnt at the stake.

“The crux of these trial documents is that Pope Clement V didn’t think the Templars were guilty of heresy,” says Neil Boness, Rare Book librarian at the University’s Fisher Library.

It is “very unusual” for the Vatican to release a reproduction of material from the Secret Archives such as this, known as the Processus Contra Templarios - Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars, he added.

According to John Pryor, Associate Professor for Medieval Studies at Sydney, there was “significant pressure” exerted on the Pope by the King’s agents to find the order guilty.

“Several thousand of the order survived in Spain and elsewhere, but mainly they disappeared into society,” says Pryor. He hopes the documents will assist potential PhD students: “There is a huge scholarly interest in the trials.”

The order was popularised by Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code, and has been the subject of all sorts of myths and legends over the years. The Knights have been linked to the modern-day Freemasons, and portrayed as guardians of the Holy Grail.

The key document in the reproduction is known as the Chinon Parchment and it shows that the Pope absolved the Knights of heresy charges. It was “misplaced” in the Vatican archives until it was discovered by a researcher in 2001.

The elaborate reproduction is bound in an ornate leather case, and includes scholarly notes and reproductions of the original parchments - mould stains and all - as well as the wax seals used by their inquisitors.

Only 799 copies were made: Pope Benedict was given the first copy, and the University owns copy number 300.

in CathNews

Pope Benedict XVI opened Holy Week at the Vatican with the traditional Palm Sunday procession and Mass in St. Peter’s Square on March 16.

About 50,000 people attended the Eucharistic celebration. Most were young people who were observing World Youth Day in the Rome diocese, preparing for the worldwide celebration that will be held in Sydney, Australia in July.

In his homily during the Mass, Pope Benedict recalled that after his entry into Jerusalem, Jesus found the Temple cluttered with traders busy with various money-making schemes. That bit of Gospel history should cause Christians today to pause and ask themselves whether our faith is “open and pure enough,” the Pope remarked. Non-believers coming into Christian churches should be able to “see the light of the one God,” rather than be distracted, he said.

The Pope prodded the faithful to examine their consciences particularly with respect to financial affairs, recognizing that “greed is idolatry.” Like the Jewish worshippers at the time of Christ, he said, we should notice how “in various ways we actually let idols enter the worth of our faith.”

Holy Week gives the Church a fresh opportunity for purification, the Pope said. After driving away the money-changers, he said, in their place “Christ put his own healing goodness. This is the true purification of the Temple.” Referring back to Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the Pope took note that Jesus was always especially anxious to embrace children. Like those children, eager for Christ’s touch, “we must abandon the pride that blineds us, that pushes us away from God as if He were our competitor,” the Pope said.

Benedict XVI and the president of Timor-Leste discussed the role of the Church in education and the fight against poverty on that island nation.

José Ramos-Horta visited the Pope today in the Vatican. He then met with the Holy Father’s secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and the secretary for relations with states, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti.

The Vatican press office reported: “During the discussions, mention was made of the cordial relations between the Holy See and the Democratic Republic of East Timor, and of the cooperation between the Catholic Church and the state in the fields of education, health care, and the struggle against poverty.

“The political and social situation of the country was also examined, with particular emphasis given to the process of national reconciliation and to the support of the international community for the consolidation of democratic institutions”

Timor-Leste has a population of just over 1 million, some 98% of whom are Catholic.

Ramos-Horta won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize.

Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday criticized “materialistic” ways of celebrating Christmas, pressing the Vatican’s campaign against unbridled consumerism.

His brief comments, delivered from the window of his private studio to pilgrims below in St. Peter’s Square, built on his dismay that ever younger boys and girls are caught up in consumer pursuits.

“The way of living out, and perceiving, Christmas unfortunately quite often suffers from a materialistic mentality,” Benedict said.

Addressing English-speaking pilgrims, the pope said he was praying that the approaching Christmas celebration “will fill your hearts with redeeming hope.”

On Saturday, the pope lamented that children and adolescents were being deceived by “false models” of happiness pushed by adults who lead them down “the dead-end streets of consumerism.”

Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II, also cautioned faithful against the consequences of unchecked materialism on morality.

Benedict made the annual Dec. 8 papal visit to a 150-year-old statue of the Virgin Mary just steps from the holiday shopping frenzy on Rome’s chic Via Condotti.

En route to pray at the statue, Benedict chatted with the head of a Via Condotti merchants association.

by Associated Press

A lost drawing by Michelangelo, probably his last work, has been found in the Vatican archives, the Pope’s newspaper reported today.

Drawn in blood-red chalk in the spring of 1563, less than a year before Michelangelo’s death at the age of 89, the sketch depicts a section the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.

“The sureness in his stroke, the expert hand used to making decisions in front of unfinished stone, leave little doubt: the sketch was drawn by Michelangelo,” the Vatican daily “L’Osservatore Romano” wrote.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) worked as the architect of the basilica for 17 years, from 1547 until shortly before his death in 1564.

According to the Vatican newspaper, the Renaissance master probably drew the sketch on the construction site, to show stone-cutters the shape of the Travertine rock he wanted them to pick up from quarries located in Fiano Romano, north of Rome.

Indeed, the sketch also contains some measurements — the numbers 6, 9 and 3/4.

“It talks the language of the stone cutters. Blood-red chalk was widely used among stone cutters and sculptors, as it was easier to recognize the red color on the Travertine rock,” according to the newspaper account.

Very few sketches of the basilica exist. At the end of his life, Michelangelo destroyed many of his designs, as they were drawn only for a practical use, basically to show the workers the kind of stone he needed.

At the time of the basilica’s construction, expert stone cutters were used to travel to the quarries north of Rome to assure that the stones were cut exactly according to the architect’s requirements.

For this reason, they brought with them precious sketches by Michelangelo. To prevent a market for these sketches (at that time Michelangelo’s drawings were already in great demand), the master destroyed the sketches as the stone cutters returned from their business trips.

The newly discovered sketch survived because a supervisor used the back of the paper to write down the names of some people who had created problems with the stone’s transport to Rome.

The sketch then ended up in files concerning the costs of the basilica’s construction and was discovered only after recent research carried by Rome’s Bibliotheca Hertziana and the University of Bonn.

“The discovery is important not only because the sketch is especially rare, but because it shows that a nearing 90-year-old Michelangelo was still in charge of the basilica’s work and was taking important decisions,” the Vatican newspaper reported.

Michelangelo completed the dome and four columns for its base before his death in February 1564. The structure was completed by architect Giacomo della Porta around 1590.

The Vatican will present the sketch at a news conference on Monday.

in Discovery News

Venham ao Vaticano dialogar com Bento XVI. Este foi o apelo lançado pelo Papa, por interposta pessoa, o cardeal Tarcisio Bertone, secretário de Estado, a altos dignitários muçulmanos que pugnam pelo entendimento entre islâmicos e cristãos. Um “grupo restrito”, este, composto por 138 sunitas e xiitas.

O Sumo Pontífice fê-lo depois de receber uma carta, juntamente com os representantes de outras confissões cristãs, a propor o diálogo entre as duas religiões. Uma proposta que teve bom acolhimento da Santa Sé, como se vê. A missiva do poliglota Papa foi redigida por Bertone em inglês, tendo como destinatário o príncipe da Jordânia Ghazi bin Muham- mad bin Talal, presidente do Instituto Real Aal al-Bayt para o Pensamento Islâmico.

O documento tem raízes. Foi escrito a 19 de Novembro (mas só divulgada ontem), um dia depois de o jornal americano New York Times ter publicado, em anúncio de página inteira, um texto de 300 teólogos cristãos e líderes de igrejas intitulado “A Christian Response to A Common Word Between you and me” , que, em Outubro, tinha sido divulgada pelos 138 clérigos muçulmanos.

Nesta “Resposta Cristã”, os signatários fazem uma espécie de catarse: deitam-se no sofá da História e pedem perdão aos muçulmanos. Um me culpa colectivo. Recordam vários episódios concretos, como as Cruzadas e eventuais excessos cometidos na luta contra o terrorismo (”war on terror”). Admitem que muitos cristãos foram culpados de pecados contra os vizinhos muçulmanos e, por isso, escrevem: “Pedimos perdão ao Todo-Poderoso (Alá) e às comunidades muçulmanas em todo o mundo.”

Tanta humildade não é pacífica. Uma das críticas mais bem feitas sobre este assunto foi escrita por Bruce S. Thornton, professor na Universidade Estadual da Califórnia, em artigo publicado na revista City. Chama-se “Epístola aos Muçulmanos”. “Não esqueçamos a longa ocupação islâmica, durante sete séculos, de Espanha, os séculos de raides no sul de Itália e de França, o quase saque de Roma em 846, a ocupação da Sicília e da Grécia, os quatro séculos de ocupação dos Balcãs, a destruição de Constantinopla, os dois cercos a Viena, o rapto de jovens cristãos para servirem como janíçaros dos séculos XIV a XIX, as contínuas incursões no litoral mediterrânico, de 1500 a 1800, à procura de escravos, além dos actuais ataques terroristas dos jihadistas contra o Ocidente.”

in DN.pt

The Templar Globe doesn’t usually associate with petitions, but we just received this appeal from our friend Brian Kannard and decided to let him speak to you directly.

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I have posted the following on Grail Seekers. Ever since I returned from Paris, I felt that I had to do something to help right the wrongs of the past. I have no idea if this little petition will do anything in that regard, however I had to do something. I ask that you take the time to read the following position statement and sign the petition that is linked. I really do believe the time is right to do this sort of thing.

Thanks for all your support,

Brian Kannard

There is no doubt that the media spotlight has shown brightly on the Knights Templars over the last couple of months. With the release of the Trail of the Templars by the Vatican press, and the 700th anniversary of the Order’s arrests the plight of the Templars has never been more publicly recognized. The media has even focused on Templar activists, such as the Acheson Twins who have called on the Vatican to officially apologize for their misdeeds.I personally think it is high time that the voice of the people be heard on this matter. Given the position taken by Pope Clement V in the Chinon Parchment, I believe the Knights Templar should be exonerated from any charges that were leveled against them 700 years ago.

There are many of you that feel the same way that I do on this matter. That is why I have set up an online petition for the Exoneration of the Knights Templar on the petition web site. It is my intention to let the Vatican know that there those out there that do believe the actions of the Church were motivated by political and malicious reasons. It is my intention to send the signatories of this petition to the Vatican on 18 March 08, the day that Jacque DeMolay was burned at the stake.

I have no idea if this will sway the opinion of the Holy See in this matter, or if it will even be accepted by the public. However, the time has come and the mistakes of the past should be corrected.

I ask that you take the time to sign the Exonerate the Knights Templar petition and let your voice be heard.

 I have recently accessed the article entitled Vatican Supports Maltese Author [our own reference here: Vatican proves Maltese author correct], which I found sufficiently intriguing to Google the book mentioned, namely Of Craft And Honour And A Templar’s Chronicles, by George Gregory Buttigieg. The book’s website (www.ofcraftandhonour.com/) turned up among other information.

Accessing this site, I reconfirmed that the author had written the book (though not published it) well before The Da Vinci Code’s appearance as well as before Barbara Frale’s public revelations of the Chinon Parchment.

I ordered the book from amazon.com and I admit to being badly hooked enough to finish it in three days. I enjoyed it thoroughly and I was quite impressed that Dr Buttigieg’s Templars truly conform to the picture we now have emerging from the Chinon document.

I can now appreciate Malcolm Barber’s comments about the difference between Dr Buttigieg’s Templars and Dan Brown’s Templars. I found this description so eerily accurate, that I started wondering if the author could have had “private” knowledge of the Chinon Parchment before it was revealed to public scrutiny.

And then small bits of the puzzle started floating in my mind. We are told that Dr Buttigieg is a Hospitaller Knight of rank, decorated with the Commander’s Cross, as well as also being a diplomat for his country to the Order’s Rome headquarters and the Vatican.

Could it be that the author’s uncannily correct description of his Templars is based on information he was privy to as a knight or as a diplomat? Could he have been told about the Chinon document by Dr Frale or someone else whom he encountered in the “corridors of power”? More fascinatingly still, could he have had some access to other, still private documents, which, like the Chinon Parchment, have not been made public yet?

Another possible line of thinking took me down another alleyway. Could Of Craft And Honour And A Templar’s Chronicles and the release of the Chinon document be part of the establishment’s timely reaction to the modern heresies threatening the Catholic Church in the wake of books like The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code?

Dr Buttigieg has strongly denied any secret agenda but he does come down strongly against the “new” heresies about Jesus’s bloodline continuing through the Magdalene. In fact, his creation - Henry Tonna Black - a third degree freemason, states that such nonsense demeans the “templarism” within the folds of the “Craft”. Incidentally and interesting enough, Dr Buttigieg coins a new related term “speculative neo-templarism” but that is another matter.

Although never a great believer of conspiracy theories, I admit to toying seriously with the above. The alternative - accepting Dr Buttigieg’s predictions - may be rather scary. Besides, correctly portraying the Templars’ individual human weaknesses versus collective heresy, he also predicts the assassination of the President of Pakistan and the Russian Bear’s new aggressive awakening. Hopefully, time will not fulfil these predictions!

By Lydia Grech, Balzan
www.timesofmalta.com

La nouvelle de la publication d’un nouveau document relatif au procès des Templiers met tous les médias en émoi. Le scoop serait le suivant : en août 1308, le pape Clément V avait absous de leurs crimes cinq dignitaires de cet ordre. Parmi eux, le grand maître Jacques de Molay, qui finit sur le bûcher six ans plus tard (1314). L’Ordre du Temple, fondé au début du XIIe siècle à Jérusalem, avait pour vocation de protéger les pèlerins et de défendre les Etats latins de Terre sainte. Deux siècles plus tard, il avait la réputation de s’être excessivement enrichi (d’où le mythe de leur «trésor»), alors que sa mission se justifiait moins depuis la fin de la reconquête de la Terre sainte par les musulmans en 1291. Controverses et légendes nouées depuis sept siècles autour de l’Ordre du Temple ne sont sans doute pas étrangères au battage médiatique annoncé autour de cette «révélation».

L’un des derniers avatars des Templiers se trouve dans le Da Vinci Code de Dan Brown. Selon ce roman, Clément V aurait lui-même ordonné l’arrestation de ces chevaliers du Christ, en 1307, et le roi de France, Philippe le Bel, n’aurait été qu’un complice dans cette affaire. La réalité est tout autre. Le 25 octobre, l’Archivio Segreto Vaticano (1) et la maison d’édition Scrinium (2) présenteront «en avant-première mondiale», selon le communiqué de presse, la publication en fac-similé de l’ensemble des documents relatifs au procès des Templiers sous le titre Processus contra Templarios, (Le Procès contre les Templiers), 799 exemplaires (300 pages) seront mis en vente au prix de 5800 euros, le 800e étant destiné au pape Benoît XVI. Au cœur de cette publication, le parchemin de Chinon, un document (3) dont on connaissait l’existence par des copies ou des extraits.

Repentance. Il a été retrouvé en 2001, dans les archives vaticanes, par Barbara Frale, docteur de l’université de Venise et attachée à la prestigieuse Ecole vaticane de paléographie, diplomatique et archivistique. Il s’agit de l’original du procès-verbal des interrogatoires conduits en août 1308 par trois cardinaux, délégués par le pape à Chinon, au diocèse de Tours, dans la première phase du procès des Templiers. Les cinq chefs de l’ordre confirment leurs aveux, recueillis à l’automne 1307 sous la torture, par les agents du roi Philippe IV le Bel : ils ont renié le Christ «en parole» mais pas «de cœur» et ils ont craché sur le crucifix mais «à côté» ; ils nient avoir pratiqué la sodomie. Ayant fait acte de repentance, les cardinaux les absolvent, les réconcilient avec l’Eglise au nom du pape Clément, comme il était parfaitement normal alors. Barbara Frale a publié un livre en 2003 (Il Papato e il processo dei Templari. L’inedita assoluzione di Chinon alla luce della diplomatica pontificia, Rome, Viella, 2003) et un article en 2004 (Journal of Medieval Studies, vol. 30, juin 2004, pp. 109-134), de sorte que la communauté scientifique est bien au courant de sa découverte, depuis plusieurs années.

Absolution. «Ce document est important car les historiens ont toujours le souci de retrouver les originaux», souligne Alain Demurger, le spécialiste français des Templiers. Ce texte confirme la stratégie de défense adoptée par les Templiers : reconnaître leurs erreurs et ainsi sauver leur peau, grâce à une absolution ! Mais, selon lui, il ne modifie pas en profondeur l’analyse d’ensemble de l’affaire, qui se résume à quatre phases. En 1307, le roi de France prend l’initiative de faire arrêter et interroger les Templiers en raison de leur «mauvaise réputation». Il s’agit alors de faire pression sur le pape pour une tout autre affaire : ouvrir un procès posthume, destiné à prouver l’hérésie de son prédécesseur le pape Boniface VIII, coupable aux yeux du roi d’avoir voulu affirmer ses prérogatives à l’intérieur du royaume de France. Face à cette attaque, le pape reprend la main en 1308, en ouvrant une double procédure d’enquête : sur les Templiers et sur leur ordre. Le concile de Vienne, en 1311, ne conclut pas à l’hérésie des Templiers mais l’état de déliquescence de l’Ordre du Temple aboutit à sa suppression, sans jugement ni condamnation.

Dans ces circonstances, les Templiers qui ont reconnu leurs erreurs et fait repentance, dont Jacques de Molay, auraient dû être libérés et auraient pu terminer leurs jours paisiblement. Mais ils espéraient encore pouvoir s’expliquer devant le pape. Trois cardinaux sont envoyés à Paris en mars 1314 qui, après audition, les condamnent à la prison à vie. Face à cette sentence, deux d’entre eux, Jacques de Molay et Geoffroy de Charney, reviennent alors sur leurs aveux et nient tout en bloc : ils sont considérés comme relapses et le roi les envoie au bûcher.

La transcription du parchemin de Chinon est disponible depuis six ans déjà, ce n’est donc pas vraiment un scoop pour le landernau des médiévistes. Reste la capacité d’une institution vénérable, l’Eglise catholique, – en l’occurrence très cathodique – à répondre aux attaques les plus fantaisistes, et en l’espèce les plus injustifiées, en utilisant les médias, à la manière de ses détracteurs. L’opération de communication autour de la publication de ce précieux ouvrage en est un parfait exemple.

(1) http://asv.vatican.va

(2) www.scinium.org)

(3) Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivium Arcis, Armarium D. 217, parchemin mm 685 x 575.

Isabelle Heullant-Donat université de Reims – Champagne Ardenne

The recent discovery by Barbara Frale that in 1308 Pope Clement V secretly absolved the last Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay, and the rest of the leadership of the Knights Templar, from charges brought against them by the Medieval Inquisition was barely reported in Malta but it proved the theory expounded in 2006 by Maltese writer George Gregory Buttigieg as correct.

In his Of Craft And Honour And A Templar’s Chronicles, Dr Buttigieg then seemed to be going against the grain of popular opinion. His theory maintained clearly and loudly the Templar’s innocence with regard to the accusation of heresy and rejection of Christ. His book appeared close after the “Da Vinci” wave. Dan Brown had taken the opposite view, namely that the Templars were keepers of dangerous knowledge on the divinity and humanity of Christ who was supposed to have fathered children by Mary Magdalene. According to Mr Brown this was the real reason why the Templars were arrested and destroyed in 1307.

“Wrong!” seemed to shout Dr Buttigieg who in his Of Craft And Honour, published by Miller Publications, maintains that the Templars were destroyed by the King of France who arm-twisted Pope Clement V into suppressing the Order on a trumped up charge of heresy.

Before these two books were published, a centuries-old historical controversy had raged about whether the Templars were truly heretic or not. Dr Buttigieg too was inspired by this story and painstakingly researched the 1307 - 1312 period of the Templars’ destruction.

Prof. Frale’s discovery once again puts the spotlight on the Chinon Parchment, a historical document first published by Étienne Baluze during the 1600s, in Vitae Paparum Avenionensis (Lives Of The Popes Of Avignon). The parchment is dated Chinon, 1308, August 17 - 20 and the Vatican keeps an authentic copy with reference number Archivum Arcis Armarium D218, the original having the number D217.

Detailing the trials of the Templars - Processus Contra Templarios, the Chinon document contains the record of the papal hearing of the Templars’ leaders, namely Grand Master Jacques de Molay, Geoffroy de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, Hugo de Perraud, Preceptor of France, Geoffroy de Gonneville, Preceptor of Aquitania and Potou, and Raymbaud de Caron, Preceptor of Outremer. This publication of the minutes of the hearing, which took place in August 1308, had been suppressed by the French king, as the records clearly reveal that Clement V absolved the Grand Master and the other four of high charges of heresy. Prior to this discovery, this historically-unique parchment had only been suspected of existing, being referred to in a letter, itself preserved in the French Chancery.

The Chinon parchment vindicates Dr Buttigieg’s expressed views on the Templars for the document does reveal papal absolution from heresy for the Grand Master of the Order and the chief administrators, whose trials have now been made available to and one all with the publication of the Chinon parchment.

Dr Buttigieg admits that his Of Craft And Honour, although published after Mr Brown’s Code, was written before he even heard of Mr Brown. While Mr Brown wrote an excellent fiction book, one must learn facts from academia in order to form opinions based on the truth, not from bestsellers.

Available academic sources had already made it substantially clear that the Pope was neither a prime mover in the Templar arrests nor was he particularly happy that the members of a monastic military order, under his direct responsibility, had been arrested by the French king. Clement’s repeated attempts to stop the legal process of interrogation and transfer it to ecclesiastical hands, where it belonged, are a clear indication.

There were also historical reasons why the French king would benefit from the Templars’ destruction, including the great amount of money he owed them, the properties he tried to inherit after their dissolution, his dream of being a great leader - Rex Bellator - of the unified and massed orders of military monkhood and to lead them into Crusade - a dream fired by the Catalan mystic Ramon Lull.

Professional historian and world-acclaimed Templar expert Malcolm Barber, of Reading University, made distinctive reference to this point of head-on collision between the two books and what they implied when he evaluated Of Craft And Honour. Prof. Barber refers to Dr Buttigieg’s Templars as a different breed altogether from the Templars in The Da Vinci Code. He points out that Dr Buttigieg speaks of Templars with human and individual faults and weaknesses in contrast to Mr Brown’s keepers of a secret doctrine threatening the Catholic Church.

The difference is irreproachable and has deep philosophical, religious and metaphysical implications. For Dr Buttigieg, Pope Clement V was constrained by the French king in helping him dissolve the Order of the Temple whereas for Mr Brown destruction came from the Vatican to silence dangerous knowledge and the French king played along.

Dr Buttigieg reminds us that the French king had even manoeuvred the very election of Bertrand de Got to the papal throne as Pope Clement V, using his many transmontane cardinals. In 1307-1312, it was time to repay that debt. Dr Buttigieg felt so strong about this point that he commissioned Maltese graphic designer James Sciberras to paint the chessboard picture adorning the front cover of Of Craft And Honour And A Templar’s Chronicles, clearly showing the papal tiara on the same side as the French king but behind, also flanked by the devil Asmodeus and all three facing the Templars with the good shepherd on their side. Incidentally, the black and white floor refers to chessboard mediaeval politics as well as the standard floor of the masonic lodge.

Dr Buttigieg is a Knight Hospitaller of rank and has been decorated with the Order’s prestigious Commander’s Cross. He is also the Republic of Malta’s Ambassador to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) and a Councillor to the Holy See. He is well known and respected at the Order’s Rome seat of government. Could his attitude be attributed to that of an apologist for the Catholic Church?

Dr Buttigieg denies any hidden agendas in his books, and mentions the fact that he portrays Pope Clement V as a figure not particularly worthy of the seat of Peter, as an example. The arguments which follow his stance, which does oppose modern and fanciful concepts about Christ, are derived through logical reasoning if one accepts that there was no wholesale rejection of the Faith by the Templars and based on history, refusing to accept anything beyond that. In all fairness, he does not take sides but in the chapter entitled A Knight Hospitaller’s Comments About The Knight Templars he does let rip about these airy fairy theories and their implications. His concepts and views are laid open there. It is evident that there is no hidden agenda.

by Carmel Bonello

Ciento treinta y ocho líderes musulmanes han escrito una carta dirigida al Papa y a los responsables de las principales comunidades cristianas en el mundo bajo el título “Una palabra común entre nosotros y vosotros”, a propósito del discurso de Benedicto XVI el pasado año en Ratisbona. Se abre así una posibilidad de diálogo entre la razón y el islam. Dos profesores de Teología, ambos ingleses, han escrito una interesantísima reflexión sobre el asunto. Primera afirmación: el progresismo no es el camino; segunda: los musulmanes deben renovar el sufismo. Grandes cuestiones de fondo.

La estrategia que se propone “ganarse los corazones y las mentes de la comunidad musulmana” apelando a la corriente moderada dentro del islam está condenada al fracaso debido a dos premisas totalmente equivocadas. La primera es que toda cultura y religión quiere llegar a ser como el Occidente secular. Segunda, que la resistencia de Occidente a la secularización se alimenta de motivaciones falsas, y que por tanto se pueden ignorar legítimamente.

El progresismo no es el camino

En la práctica, este tipo de aproximación margina al islam tradicional en favor de una versión “progresista” que le roba las características y posiciones que le son propias. La prueba de su integración está en si los musulmanes quieren ser como “nosotros”. No es sorprendente que muchos jóvenes musulmanes vivan cada vez más alienados por una cultura secular que impone la trasgresión moral de normas y tabúes.

Básicamente, las políticas actuales no funcionan porque fallan al identificar la causa real de la radicalización y el fanatismo. Actualmente la violencia islámica tiene una naturaleza religiosa. Su origen está en las escrituras islámicas y en la destrucción de las escuelas medievales tradicionales que dictaban su interpretación. El Corán contiene claros mandamientos penales contra apóstatas, idólatras y aquellos que desafían la supremacía territorial musulmana. Pero, aunque los textos sagrados santifican la violencia, la codifican, limitan su ámbito y su aplicación. Por consiguiente, no hay legitimación en el islam clásico para bombas suicidas o masacres gratuitas de inocentes. Y puesto que existen cuatro escuelas tradicionales de interpretación religiosa, que varían en función del tiempo y lugar, lo que constituye una práctica correcta del islam cambia según normas y costumbres locales. Como tal, el islam tradicional prohíbe el Estado totalitario que Al Qaeda quiere imponer.

Por ejemplo, si el islam recuperase la práctica tradicional de la ijtihad, un proceso de reinterpretación textual que sustituye la literalidad escrita por una lectura alegórica del Corán, más medieval, los fieles musulmanes estarían en condiciones de distinguir entre las leyes inmutables de Dios y las mutables interpretaciones humanas.

Vale la pena decir todo esto porque lo único que puede hacer frente al terrorismo islámico es el propio islam y no el progresismo liberal. Los que han abandonado el terrorismo lo han hecho porque se han dado cuenta de que la variante del islam por la que estaban matando era la occidental: moderna y secular. La demostración de la naturaleza esencialmente blasfema del fundamentalismo contemporáneo es fundamental para desprogramar a los adeptos.

Retorno al sufismo

Sin embargo, el mero renacimiento del islam clásico no es suficiente. Desde que la fe está separada de la razón y de la naturaleza, se ha convertido en un fenómeno autosuficiente que invalida todas las demás posibilidades. Lo que se necesita realmente es la vuelta al sufismo, una práctica previa común a todas las formas de fe y que hace hincapié en la naturaleza mística e ignota de Dios, y su trascendencia a todas las formas de conocimiento humano. Este reconocimiento priva al fundamentalismo islámico de su principal arma: que conoce la voluntad de Dios, lo que justifica su empeño de imponerla en la tierra.

Una renovación del sufismo podría ayudar al islam a ampliar su comprensión de la autoridad más allá de sus gobernantes y ulemas, para pasar a incluir a la sociedad civil. Esto también permitiría a la sociedad musulmana hacer frente a las aseveraciones fundamentalistas de los predicadores heréticos apoyándose en un credo razonable.

por Phillip Blond y Adrian Pabst in El Manifesto
Phillip Blond es profesor de filosofía y religión en la Universidad de Cumbria, Adrian Pabst es profesor de teología en la Universidad de Nottingham

The story has it all: Vatican intrigue, corruption, medieval castles, secret knights, papal enquiries, and royal conspiracies.

But it is not fiction.

More than 5 meters of recovered parchments reveal the actual account of one of the most important trials of the Middle Ages: The Processus Contra Templarios (Latin for “Trial Against the Templars”).

The Knights Templar was a powerful and secretive medieval order originally formed to protect Christian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. The order was dissolved following charges of heresy in 1314.

This book reveals the order’s innocence.

The parchment is the transcript of the hearings that took place at Chinon, France in August 1308. It chronicles the accusations of heresy, the Templars’ defense and the Pope’s absolution of the order.

Since the Knights Templar was accused some seven centuries ago, the order has entered the realm of legend. Most recently the best-selling book, The DaVinci Code, speculated on the order’s actual, secret purpose.

Now, in an effort to restore the Templars’ reputation, the Vatican is selling 799 copies of the Processus Contra Templarios at 5,900 euros ($8,377) apiece.

The reproduction comes in a soft leather case, complete with a faithful replica of the original papal wax seals. Printed on a special synthetic parchment, it also contains translations into English and Italian, and scholarly commentary.

Barbara Frale, the 37-year-old Vatican archives official who rediscovered the Chinon parchment after more than 10 years of research in the Vatican Secret Archives, spoke with Discovery News about her find and about the medieval, crusading order.

Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News: What’s it like working at the Vatican’s secret archives?

Barbara Frale: It’s such an incredible adventure. The archives are an endless labyrinth of historical treasures. The lives of so many Popes fill some 80 kilometers of shelves underground, beneath the Vatican. There are millions of original documents, you almost feel dizzy there.

It’s really detective work, and it begins right from the huge Index Room, which contains some 3,800 books.

Finding the right document is not easy at all. Also, you need years of study, a specialization in paleography, and several years of work experience to decode the ancient writings.

RL: What is your main area of study?

BF: I’ve been studying the history of the Knights Templar since 1995. At the Vatican Archives, I came across some big paper registers written when the papal court was in Avignon, France (1309-1378). I noticed that a bulk of documents which belonged to Pope Benedict XII actually contained some papers dating back to the reign of a former Pope, Clement V.

The document featured a piece of the trial of the Templars, namely the only enquiry which had been held by the pontiff, himself, at Poitiers, in the summer of 1308. There also was a “Rubrice,” a summary of notes written on some cheap paper.

These annotations turned to be a historical treasure far more than the refined and expensive parchments. There I could find the real thoughts of the Pope. My fascination with the Templars could only increase at this point. I had to dig deeper.

RL: So, how did you discover the Chinon parchment?

BF: In 2001 I found a list of provincial enquires that Clement V ordered to be held by diocesan bishops. An enquiry appeared to be a hearing held by Bérenger Frédol, one of the best canonist of his time and the Pope’s nephew. It appeared very strange to me that such a man would be sent to the country, to hold one of the ordinary diocesan hearings.

I was right: the enquiry was indeed the Chinon hearing. When I saw that original parchment with the seals of the three cardinals appointed by Clement V to judge the Templar General Staff in his name, I could not believe my eyes. It was the document so many historians had been searching for.

RL: What these documents from the Vatican Archives reveal that wasn’t known before?

BF: Since the trial of the Templars ended with the destruction of the order, with the Grand Master Jacques De Molay burning at the stake in 1314, it was believed that Pope Clement V agreed on the heresy charges moved by the King of France, Philip IV “The Fair.”

On the contrary, the Chinon parchment and the Rubrice show that Clement V wanted the Templar order to be saved. He wanted to reform and restore it to its original strength. Indeed, the Knights received the papal absolution from all charges of heresy.

RL: How did it happen that the Templars were imprisoned?

BF: It was a very dramatic event: on Friday 13, October 1307 the French soldiers broke into all templar preceptories and imprisoned the monks. It was a heavy abuse of power as the Templars were a religious order completely independent from royal authority.

The truth is that the King of France, who badly needed money, wanted to seize the Templars’ wealth. The order amassed fortunes through property and banking but declined after the Muslim reconquest of the Holy Land.

RL. What were some of the charges against them?

BF: The accusation of heresy focused on them denying Christ, spitting on the cross, and giving ‘three obscene kisses’ on the low spine, the navel and the mouth.

RL Were these charges true?

BF No. In reality, this was an initiation ceremony. It was performed to show the new knights the humiliation they could suffer if they fell into the hands of the Saracens. The hearings made Pope Clement conclude that the ritual was not blasphemous, although he did find the Templars guilty of lesser infractions of church law because of this ceremony.

RL: The Pope’s absolution did not prevent the King of France from burning many Templar leaders at the stake and basically dissolving the order. Could you explain why Clement V did nothing to save the Templars?

BF: The risk for the Pope was a schism in the Church. So he decided to sacrifice the Templars. The order was already enjoying a bad reputation because of charges of heresy and sexual misconduct

RL: The Catholic Church has been asked by several supposed descendants of the Templars to offer apology for what happened 700 years ago. What do you think?

BF: A serious historian knows that medieval issues must remain confined to the Middle Ages. You cannot transfer such issues, even if they are dramatic, to present time.

There has been a lot of talking about the Templars. So many books have taken inspirations only from legends, obscure traditions, supposed secret rituals and lost treasures. This has nothing to do with the historical documents.

RL: Your discovery is going to rewrite the history of the Templar order. Have you received a free copy of the Vatican book?

BF: No, but I am not missing it. After all, it is such a large book I would not know where to put it. The only place I can think of is a box under my bed, but I think it would not be the best company to sleep with.

in Discovery News

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It should be said that the first Templar group to be officially taken on a tour of the Secret Archives of the Vatican and to be presented with copies of the Chinon Parchment was the OSMTHU, back in 2002 under the Mastership of Fr+ Fernando de Toro-Garland.

After the visit was made public, many other groups claimed to be present and tried to legitimate their “close ties with the Vatican” (which were non-existent) by saying it had actually happened to them! Well, it hadn’t.

The fact that we were the first to be invited to take a look at the document was never used to legitimate or not our position. As Barbara Frale says, the parchment should not be taken out of its context, which is the middle ages. It does nothing to legitimate our Order or any other Order for that matter (look at this piece of news). And we never claimed that it would.

But it’s nice to remember that in the serious academic world, where history is history, we were considered back in 2002 worthy enough to be invited to look at it closely. And we have the photos.

Photo taken during the visit. From left to right the late F+ Horacio Amadeo Della Torre, by then Preceptor of the Order, Prior of Argentina and member of the Magisterial Coucil; F+ Rosario Tomarchio (hidden behind F+ Horacio), Bailiff of Catania; Father Sergio Pagano, Prefect of the Vatican Secret Archive; F+ Fernando de Toro-Garland, by then Master of the Order; Barbara Frale; Fr+ Antonio Paris, by then Priori of Italy and Seneschal of the Order, member of the Magisterial Council (today Master of the Order) and F+ Jose Antonio Cabrera Diaz, by then Prior of Spain (now Treasurer of the Order and member of the Magisterial Council). Other Templars were present, including Fr+ William McCallum, Australian member of the Magisterial Council, but not pictured here.

 As you can see it wasn’t a group of tourists that visited a library, it was the true elite of the OSMTHU that has been governing the Order for many years. I still can’t forgive myself for not having been there!