Only a friend of David Perry would be unsurprised to receive a Pope Innocent III action figure in the mail. David and I frequently correspond on the subject of Pope Benedict XVI, and somehow David thought injecting Pope Innocent III into the conversation would be a good idea.
Innocent launched the 4th Crusade, and was responsible for the slaughter of the Albegensian Crusade: modern scholars have absolved him of uttering the phrase “Kill them all, God will find his own” – which phrase is now attributed to Abbot Arnaud-Amaury.
On the better side, Innocent built Rome’s first major hospital, and ensured that orphans were cared for, rather than being tossed into the River Tiber. His 4th Lateran Council sanctioned the term ‘transubstantiation’ (meaning that the wafer and wine are transformed during mass into the body and blood of Christ).
Innocent III elevated the papacy to one of the great secular powers by reclaiming the papal territories- his reign is thought to have been the zenith of the papacy’s secular power. Still not quite sure why David sent me this…
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