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understand and be convinced of sin and redemption through the holy Spirit which “includes the
interior judgment of the conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in
man’s inmost being, at the same time a new beginning of the bestowal of grace and love:
‘Receive the Holy Spirit’…the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the certainty of
redemption. The Spirit of truth is the Counselor” (DeV, n.31).
The term ‘believers’ was applied to those who lived a secular existence and did
not try to copy the way of life of the ‘perfected’, but hoped that by following their
faith they would attain salvation; they were separated in the way they lived, but
united in their beliefs, or rather unbelief! Those called ‘believers’ were dedicated
to usury, robbery, murder and illicit love, and to all kinds of perjury and
perversity; indeed, they felt they could sin in safety and without restraint, because
they believed they could be saved without restitution of what they had stolen and
without confession and penitence, so long as they were able to recite the Lord’s
prayer and ensure a ‘laying-on of hands’ by their masters, in the final moments of
their lives. 148
The believers of the Albigensian heresy held to relativism. They lived their day to day existence
without relationship in the Triune God. They were oriented towards worldly things rather than
being rightly oriented to the Cross of Christ. They lived their daily lives in the secular world at
least until they were ready to receive consolamentum, which generally was when one was near
death. They did not believe in the holy Spirit as the Catholic Church understands the holy Spirit,
and so they were unable to grasp this gift that comes forth from the Father and the Son. They
were not convinced of sin and could not be without the gift of discernment that comes from
knowing the holy Spirit who is “the one who ‘searches the depths of God’” (DeV n.32). They
were not interested in living a moral life whereas the Catholic Church teaches living a moral life,
is living a life in Christ through the holy Spirit, “the way of Christ ‘leads to life’; a contrary way
‘leads to destruction.’” 149
148
Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, Tr. W.A. Sibly and M.D. Sibly, The History of the Albigensian Crusade, (UK: The
Boydell Press, 1998), 13.
149
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.1696.