Quotes About Innocent III

It was Pope Innocent III who placed in the hands of the church this terrible weapon of persecution, and who, by the awful severity of his own attitude towards liberty of conscience, of thought, and of expression, afforded to fanaticism and religious intolerance an example that was to be their merciless guide through centuries to come.

God forbid that all children, of whom daily so great a multitude die, would perish, but that also for these, the merciful God, who wishes no one to perish, has procured some remedy unto salvation.

Pope Innocent III decreed that all property belonging to a convicted heretic would be forfeited to the church; the church then shared it both with local officials and with the victim's accusers, as a reward for their candor.

Innocent III demanded of the Waldenses that they sub scribe to a profession of faith containing these words in regard to the Holy Mass: " For which celebration three things are necessary, as we believe, namely, a certain person, i. e. the priest, . . . those solemn words [of institution], . . . and the honest intention of the one who pronounces them.

THE Church admitted that it had brought upon itself the dangers which threatened it—that the alarming progress of heresy was caused and fostered by clerical negligence and corruption. In his opening address to the great Lateran Council, Innocent III. had no scruple in declaring to the assembled fathers: "The corruption of the people has its chief source in the clergy. From

The Papal throne at this time was occupied by Innocent III, one of the greatest of the medieval Popes, renowned for his statecraft and diplomacy, and intent on raising to its height the temporal power of the Church. The dispute between John and the monastery of Canterbury over the election to the Archbishopric offered Innocent the very chance he sought for asserting Papal authority in England.