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to eternal blessedness.” 88 These constitutions speaking directly to and denouncing the heretical
teachings of the Cathars. The council in the second constitution corrected the errors of Abbot
Joachim who had condemned Peter Lombard for correctly teaching “a Trinity in God” as
opposed to Abbot Joachim who taught a “quaternary.” 89 This correction regarding the Trinity of
God being important since the Cathars did not believe in its existence.
The constitutions of the Fourth Lateran Council went on to address heresy definitively in
the third constitution, “We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy raising itself up
against this holy, orthodox and catholic faith…We condemn all heretics, whatever names they
may go under.” 90 The council included disciplinary laws for those who were found to be in
heresy, that both cleric and laity would be handed over to the local secular authorities for their
just punishment. Though those who perpetuated heresy against the church would receive
excommunication the church gave those condemned a year to recant, to come back into
orthodoxy, whereby the excommunication would be lifted. 91
The constitutions of the Lateran Council sought to correct the wrongs perpetuated by the
heretics in the south of France while also seeking to correct the errors of the clergy as well as
gaining support for a crusade to the holy Land. Pope Innocent believed that ill formed clerics led
to the heresy perpetrated throughout the Christian world. When clerics were not well educated
88
Ibid., 240.
Clement Rabb, OFM, The Twenty Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church, (MD: The Newman Press, 1959), 93.
90
Fourth Lateran Council, http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Councils/ecum12-2.htm, accessed, February 5, 2016,
n.3.
91
Ibid.,n.3.
89