Digital Continent Digital Continent Easter 2017 | Page 29

Bishop Diego and Dominic along with the Cistercians, modeled the teachings of Jesus
Christ through their words and deeds. The goals of the missionaries being “to reform the local
church, preach the Gospel, and engage in public disputations with the heretics,” to assist the
heretics by correcting the errors of their thinking and ways of living their lives. 71 Reforms in the
Church were taking place but the heresy would not be eradicated so easily. To remove the heretic
from the heresy would prove much easier than removing the heresy from the heretic. So rooted
were the Cathar teachings that they had become intimately woven into the fabric of society.
Greater measures were going to have to be taken in order to bring the south of France back into
right orthodoxy. With Peter of Castelnau’s murder on January 14, 1208 and Count Raymond
being held responsible for his death, Pope Innocent III
instituted the ‘Peace.’ “The Peace explicitly linked fighting
to subdue peace-breakers with fighting on behalf of the
Church and offered indulgences to those who undertook the
work.” 72 The heresy was not being uprooted through
peaceful means of preaching by church missionaries and
now with the death of his legate, Pope Innocent believed there was only one recourse, to take up
arms for the sake of peace. 73 A crusade was called in the year 1209 and continued until the
signing of the Peace of Paris, April 12, 1229. 74
71
rd
Thomas Madden, The Concise History of the Crusades, 3 ed., (NY: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 121.
Michael Costen, The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade, (NY: Manchester University Press, 1997), 100.
73
Albert Shannon, OSA, The Medieval Inquisition, (MN: Liturgical Press, 1984), 61.
74
rd
Thomas Madden. The Concise History of the Crusades, 3 ed., (NY: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 129.
72