|
Leo XIII claims
that the Cathars were defeated not by human force, but by
Mary's Rosary:
8. Moreover, we may well believe that the Queen of Heaven
herself has granted an especial efficacy to this mode
of supplication, for it was by her command and counsel
that the devotion was begun and spread abroad by the holy
Patriarch Dominic [Dominic
Guzmán] as a most potent weapon against the
enemies of the faith at an epoch not, indeed, unlike our
own, of great danger to our holy religion. The heresy
of the Albigenses had in effect, one while covertly, another
while openly, overrun many countries, and this most vile
offspring of the Manicheans, whose deadly errors it reproduced,
were the cause in stirring up against the Church the most
bitter animosity and a virulent persecution. There seemed
to be no human hope of opposing this fanatical and most
pernicious sect when timely succour came from on high
through the instrument of Mary's Rosary. Thus under the
favour of the powerful Virgin, the glorious vanquisher
of all heresies, the forces of the wicked were destroyed
and dispersed, and faith issued forth unharmed and more
shining than before.
|
|
1891-09-22- SS Leo XIII - Octobri Mense: Encyclical of
Pope Leo XIII promulgated on September 22, 1891 On the Rosary
Leo does not explain why Mary's Rosary had so little effect
before Catharism was exterminated by physical force - a
long war of extermination followed by operations of the
Inquisition over generations.
Leo still seems to accept that Catharism was descended
from Manicheism, as the medieval Catholic Church held, but
the modern Catholic Church doubts.
|
|
Pius XI elaborates
on The Rosary and likens Catharism to Communism
19. The Holy Virgin who once victoriously drove the terrible
sect of the Albigenses from Christian countries, now suppliantly
invoked by us, will turn aside the new errors, especially
those of Communism, which reminds us in many ways, in
its motives and misdeeds, of the ancient ones.
20. And as in the times of the Crusades, in all Europe
there was raised one voice of the people, one supplication;
so today, in all the world, the cities, and even the smallest
villages, united with courage and strength, with filial
and constant insistence, the people seek to obtain from
the great Mother of God the defeat of the enemies of Christian
and human civilization, to the end that true peace may
shine again over tired and erring men.
|
|
Ingravescentibus Malis , Encyclical Of Pope Pius XI On
The Rosary.
Not easy to square with the fact that Catharism was more
popular than Catholicism wherever people had a free choice,
or that Cathars co-existed peacefully for generations with
their Catholic neighbours throughout the Languedoc, before
being exterminated by agents of the Roman Church.
|
