Knights Templar Sue the Pope 675
pdragon04 writes "According to The Register, "the Knights Templar are demanding that the Vatican give them back their good name and, possibly, billions in assets into the bargain, 700 years after the order was brutally suppressed by a joint venture between the Pope and the King of France..."." I wonder what a holy grail goes for with 700 years of compound interest.
Re:No legal standing to sue (Score:5, Interesting)
If that succeeds, maybe the Freemasons have a case to fight too.
Re:Yes the Vatican Is So Pure & Holy (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as we're quoting from the Bible, why not disband the whole church system using Matthew 6?
"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Prayer
5"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
Re:Yes the Vatican Is So Pure & Holy (Score:4, Interesting)
Umberto Eco's Novel "The Name of the Rose" has this as a major subplot (I think it's less significant in the movie).
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:statute of limitations? (Score:4, Interesting)
In France it does. It is 30 years.
Re:What about the native americans? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not too sure how things are going in the US, but that's been happening in Canada. Land claims, treaty disputes, and other wrongdoings over the years. One of the more interesting ones can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_residential_school_system [wikipedia.org] ... Among other atrocities committed at the residential schools was a program of sterilization at some of them... the residential school system has been described as a genocide program. And there's been some enormous lawsuits stemming from how shittily we've treated Canada's First Nations peoples.
Re:What about the native americans? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What about the native americans? (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, they only started using Australia when they lost Georgia. Australian settlement did not begin in earnest until @1800 if I recall correctly.
Pretty Slick (Score:4, Interesting)
Most suits for medieval atrocities would face a number of hurdles, e.g.:
These 'Templars' seem to be able to overcome 1 because, according to Catholic doctrine, the current Pope is the direct successor of an unbroken line going back to St. Peter. They seem able to overcome 2 because the Pope is not sovereign in Spain. Overcoming 3 and 4, though, seems unlikely.
Re:Yes the Vatican Is So Pure & Holy (Score:4, Interesting)
Well if you want to snip a few words here or there you can make something clear as you want, but the Bible clearly not only says there should be churches but gives some loose guidelines as to how they should function. In context Jesus is admonishing those who would go out into the streets and puff out their chest at how holy and good they were which was a common practice at the time. He was not telling people to hide their faith. If you want scriptural evidence that churches are indeed a critical component of Christianity:
In Mt 16:18:
"on this rock I will build my church"
Luke 8:16-17
"No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a container"
Protestants and Catholics differ on what 'rock' he was talking about with Catholics believing its Peter and Protestants believing its the truth that Christ is the Messiah. but its pretty clear Christ is saying he will build a church
We can also look at the letters of the apostles (and the book of acts) to see that clearly church formation was a very important component of Christianity and is a very important support mechanism for Christians who, themselves, are as flawed and sinful as anyone else.
One might disagree in such a large central and controlling a church as the catholic church but to try and scripture twist your way into Christ saying their should not be common places of worship for Christians and that those places are not to be a beacon to the world is agenda driven drivel of the highest caliber..
These people seem to have about as much right (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, their having been "disbanded" (in the words of an early poster) by the Church and Crown way back when is pretty questionable. After all, DeMolay was given the opportunity to avoid burning if only he would give away brothers of the order. He refused. The logical conclusion is that there were still people to give away.
The most likely (and historically supported) outcome is that they were driven underground. What happened to them after that? I doubt very much that they became a church in Spain.
Re:statute of limitations? (Score:2, Interesting)
That was one of the real problems. Another was the vast estates of the Templars paid no taxes. That helped to mess up the Monarchies budgets and left them running huge debts. As such it was necessary for the King to either confiscate their lands or make them taxable. It was a much better precedent from the churches viewpoint to allow the confiscation for trumped up reasons than allow church property to be taxed. Also the Pope was effectively a prisoner of France at the time and had little choice but to give in.
Re:What about the native americans? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about the native americans? (Score:4, Interesting)
The second group, however, are among the ones I referenced -- they came to the Americas to avoid being put in debtors' prison, where they would likely die from contagion. What often happened is that a colony venture would buy out the debt from the person's creditors (usually at a fraction of the amount owed), and then indenture the person to work off the debt.
Violent criminals, etc, were also sent... but more often to penal colonies (Georgia, etc) than to other colonies.
Another thing I'd note is that there was plenty of Crown manipulation to ensure that certain populations suffered economically in England. Desperation drove some of these people to the Americas, and while it would be false to say that most of them were "sent" by the Crown, many of them had few other options due directly to actions of the Crown.
It is absolutely justifiable to argue that the Crown deliberately worked to ensure that many "undesirables" were shipped to the colonies, and whether they did so directly or indirectly does not change the fact that it happened.
Re:What about the native americans? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah! And all those incredibly poor injuns you see around are just faking it.
Newsflash: The only people making money out of those are the casino owners. What did you think, they make money hand over fist and then give it all to their people? Idiot. In point of fact, they pay their fellow native employees a lot less than casino employees in Vegas make. You're on the damn internet, look it up.
Re:What about the native americans? (Score:3, Interesting)