Digital Continent Digital Continent Easter 2017 | Page 27

current wife caused discord he would simply send that wife a way and marry another. 64 He
traveled with heretics and the New Testament so that should he find himself near death, they
would be able to lay their hands on him and perform the consolamentum. 65 Though Peter tried
valiantly to bring the depraved Count back into right orthodoxy even to the point of bringing
military action and excommunication, the Count would not turn back to the Church. 66 That is
until the Count thought to benefit from renouncing the heresy and taking up the cross of Christ
when faced with losing all that he owned including his life. 67
Twelfth Century Apologetics
Heretics are more easily won over by examples of humility
and virtue than be external display or a hail of words. 68
Pope Innocent III also sent the two clerics from Spain, Bishop Diego and the prior and
canon of Osma, Dominic de Guzman to the Lanquedoc. To the place where the most devastating
of heresies was ingrained in the everyday culture, the Lanquedoc, to Toulouse where Count
Raymond VI supported the Albigensians. 69 Bishop Diego and Dominic went to work, being well
versed in Catholic theology they were able to intelligently refute the teachings of Catharism.
64
Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, The History of the Albigensian Crusade, trans .W.A. and M.D. Silby, (NY: Boydell
Brewer, LTD., 1998), 23.
65
Ibid., 22.
66
Joseph Clayton, Pope Innocent III and His Times, (WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1941), 139.
67
Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, The History of the Albigensian Crusade, trans. W.A. and M.D. Silby, (NY: Boydell
Brewer, LTD., 1998), 48.
68
John Vidmar, OP, The Catholic Church Through the Ages: A History, (NJ: Paulist Press, 2005), 135.
69
Joseph Clayton, Pope Innocent III and His Times, (WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1941), 139.