Crusade Against the Grail - Rennes-le-Chateau Research and ...

158 PART FOUR
We are not going to describe which miracles helped him recruit friars for the
convent at Prouille or obtain pontifical authorization for the Dominican Order and
test how the prayer of the rosary of the Mother of God was absolutely essential for
the eradication of the heresy. We are happy to say that almost daily, Saint Dominic
brought the Evangelism of Salvation to the jailed heretics; people venerated him as
a living saint, taking pieces of his habit as relics, and as the Dominican historian
Tomas de Malvenda (1565-1628) noted, the founder of the Dominican Order also
has the honor to be remembered as the founding father of the Inquisition.
The Inquisition was officially set up on April 20, 1233, a date that saw the
publication of two bulls by Pope Gregory IX, which assigned the persecution of
the heretics to the Dominican friars. Analysis of both Papal documents shows that
the Pontifical Sovereign did not foresee the consequences of such an innovation.
In the first bull, the Pope insisted on the necessity of destroying the heresy
regardless of the means, and of supporting the establishment of the Dominican
Order. Then he turned to the bishops:
"We see you immersed in a vast accumulation of worries without being able
to breathe under the pressure of these exhausting preoccupations. For it, we will
help you carry your burden, and have decided to send preacher-friars against the
heretics in France, and the neighboring provinces. For which we ask you,
admonish you, exhort you and order you to give them a good welcome, and treat
them well, and that you should favor, counsel and help them so that they can fulfill
their mission."
Gregory's second bull was directed to the priors and friars of the preaching
Order. It alluded to those lost children who continued to support the heretics, and
said: "Consequently, I empower you with the faculty, where you preach, to
defrock those clerics who, ignoring your warnings, refuse to renounce the defense
of the heresy; I empower you with the faculty to proceed immediately against
them, even if essential to recur [have recourse] to the secular arm [a euphemism
for death by burning at the stake]."
When the Dominican Order received from the Holy See the mission to combat
the heretics in the south of France, it found itself saddled with a task that was
almost impossible to accomplish. Without any obstacles, from generation to
generation, the heresy had established itself so firmly