Montsegur

Help me understand....

This is Montsegur located in southwest France. It is a ruined Cathar stronghold that sits atop a pog. In 1243-44, 500 Cathar men, women and children were held at siege by the French army. Pope Innocent III decreed Cathars to be heretics and pressured the French king to assist him in destroying all Cathars in France. After almost 10 months, the besieged finally were overcome. The French demanded that they recant their heretical faith or be burned. 250 refused to recant and were burned on a huge pyre in the meadow marked by a memorial in the photo below. I climbed to the stronghold...a very difficult hike, but well worth it. The view from the top is magnificent, but loses some of its fascination when you consider that the people who were trapped here were this far above any help.

This is only one of the places that the burning happened. Eventually all the Cathars were eliminated. In fact, nothing remains of their faith except the writings of the Catholic church which explains why they were decreed heretics. Essentially they are people who rebelled against the excesses and exclusiveness of the Church. They did not believe in the Holy Eucharist, nor did they believe in infant baptism. They believed that the Bible should be written in the language of the people and made available to any believer, not just held in the hands of priests. The only sacrament they practiced was the consolamentum or laying on of hands to declare a person as a Good Man or Good Woman.

For these reasons, they were destroyed in the name of God.

Help me understand......