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‘Heretic’ means ‘he who has chosen’. Far from the dogmas and the outer authorities, he consciously walks onto the spiritual path that his heart has recognised.
Just like the Essenes, the first Gnostic Christians, the Manicheans and the Bogomils, the Cathars chose the pure path of original Christianity, rejecting the religion of Rome, which ‘possesses and flays’.
The exceptional example of their immovable faith, of their abnegation, of their love for everyone, of the purity of their soul was such that even their tormentors were troubled.
They who were saints and witnesses for Christ, living according to His wise rules, were martyred by a church that ignored the depth of the message of love. If their texts were practically all destroyed or mutilated, their followers persecuted, their memory slandered, their bright example has however left in men’s souls an alchemical ferment that centuries cannot erase.
The dazzling testimony they gave about the pure values of inner Christianity: Goodness, Truth and Justice were answered by the violence of outer religion.
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First they tried to get the ‘rebels’ to listen, to reason by sermons, campaigns of conversion in order to bring them back into the bosom of the church; without any success!
Then came more radical threats, excommunications, curses to isolate 'the guilty souls', to cut them from the life of the community. Without great results! Heresy was deeply expanding and it was often acknowledged and 'greeted' from outside.
Then it was decided to take up arms! After the curses and blasphemies followed savage, irrational, satanic violence against the body of that Church of Love. And the last link of that chain of horror was the Inquisition, cold and reasoned, which tried to attack the soul itself.
But the Cathar soul, having already celebrated its victory over death, its ‘spiritual rebirth’, was free of the earthly body!
But by what spirit were those possessed who, calling themselves the defenders of Christianity, its first prelates, could accomplish those infamies thus bringing themselves into disrepute? One recognises the tree by its fruits!
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