Digital Continent Digital Continent Easter 2017 | Page 24

the slaves of God in every land.” 52 He would serve the Church well as “the greatest statesman
Europe had known.” 53
Pope Innocent III entered the papacy when there was a great need for a strong,
determined, intelligent leader who was willing to reform the Church and defend orthodoxy.
Wealth and power had ruled over the church for many centuries as kingdoms and emperors came
and went. The sin of simony was prevalent. Simony being the practice of rulers seeking to gain
financially from those they appointed into the episcopate, expecting privileges from those they
chose or whom they were related to, these privileges were not theirs to give, yet the expectation
existed. 54 The episcopate had grown lethargic in its abuse of excess, the priesthood largely
illiterate could only go along with their bishop who often times was himself out of orthodoxy and
illiterate in the teachings of the Church. The priesthood incapable of responsibly leading their
flock, they became “laughing stocks.” 55 This incompetency within the ministerial priesthood left
the flock to flock elsewhere, leaving the door wide open for heresy to walk into the lives of the
masses. 56 “Pope Innocent wrote to his legates, ‘The pastor has become a hireling; he no longer
feeds the flock, but himself; wolves enter the fold and he is not there to oppose himself as a wall
against the enemies of God’s house.’” 57
52
Joseph Clayton, Pope Innocent III and His Times, (WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1941),38.
Ibid., xi.
54
John Vidmar, OP, The Catholic Church Through the Ages: A History, (NJ: Paulist Press, 2005), 113.
55
Walter Wakefield. Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France, 1100-1250. (CA: University of California
Press, 1974), 65.
56
Joseph Clayton, Pope Innocent III and His Times, (WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1941), 133.
57
Jennifer Moorcroft, The Hidden Light: A Life of Saint Dominic. (IN: AuthorHouse, 2013), 17.
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