POPE SUPPRESSES ORDER OF THE TEMPLE

VIENNE, 1312-04-03. — VIENNE, April 3.—The Order of the Knights Templar is suppressed. Before the assembled council, and in the presence of Philip, King of France, Pope Clement V has caused the decree extinguishing the brotherhood to be published at this day's solemn session. The order's name, habit and rule are forbidden henceforth, and no man may enter it or profess himself a Templar. Thus an institution established for the defence of pilgrims and the Holy Land loses its corporate existence by command of the supreme authority of the Church. The disposition of its brethren and its possessions is reserved to the Apostolic See.

The instrument, known from its opening words as Vox in excelso, bears the date March 22. Its publication today gives solemn expression to the decision reached before this session. Clement declares that he acts “with a sad heart” and, in a distinction of great consequence, “not by definitive sentence, but by apostolic provision or ordinance.” The suppression is therefore not announced as a final judicial conviction of the order upon the charges brought against it. Rather, the pope invokes his authority to abolish a religious institution whose reputation and continued usefulness he judges to have been gravely impaired by the proceedings.

This distinction does not lessen the completeness of the decree. The brotherhood is not merely deprived of a master, commanded to amend its observances, or placed under temporary visitation. Its common life as an order is ended, and the prohibition against assuming its habit is enforced by the threat of excommunication. Yet the judgment upon the institution must be distinguished from the cases of individual brethren. Their circumstances differ: some have confessed, some have denied the accusations, and some have withdrawn admissions which they say were compelled. Today's act does not provide one judicial finding applicable alike to every man who has worn the red cross.

The calamity began in France on October 13, 1307, when royal officers seized Templars throughout the kingdom and took their houses and goods into custody. The king's instructions described the alleged offences in language of extraordinary horror, calling the matter “terrible to hear.” The accusations included denial of Christ, insults to the cross, unlawful ceremonies at reception into the order and other grave offences against faith and morals. Arrest came upon the brethren before they could concert a defence. Jacques de Molay, their grand master, was among those taken, and the examination of prisoners soon furnished admissions upon which the royal case was pressed.

The inquiry thereafter extended beyond the French king's immediate dominions. In November 1307 Clement directed Christian rulers to arrest the Templars and secure their property in the Church's name. What had begun with a royal seizure consequently became a proceeding reaching across the several realms in which the order possessed houses. This breadth has made the affair more than a controversy between Philip and a body established within France. The Temple acknowledges the pope as its superior, and its lands, obligations and brethren are scattered under many princes. No single crown can settle all these interests merely by disposing of the prisoners and estates within its own borders.

The defence has not been wholly silent. Brethren appearing before the papal inquiry in Paris sought an opportunity to uphold the order's innocence, while disputing the means by which confessions had been obtained. But the burning of fifty-four Templars near Paris in May 1310, condemned as relapsed heretics after retracting earlier admissions, cast a dreadful shadow over such efforts. A prisoner who denied what he had formerly confessed might thereby expose himself to a punishment more terrible than continued confinement. Accordingly, neither the multitude of admissions nor the subsequent difficulty of maintaining an organised defence can be considered apart from the conditions under which the examinations have proceeded.

The council opened here on October 16 last year, with the business of the Temple among its principal concerns, alongside the recovery of the Holy Land and the reform of the Church. The proceedings have disclosed substantial reluctance to condemn the order unheard. Clement's chosen course answers that difficulty by separating suppression from a definitive judicial sentence. The pope's decree argues that the scandal, suspicion and loss of good name surrounding the brotherhood have made its preservation intolerable. This reasoning permits the institution to be extinguished without declaring that the charges have been established against it by the ordinary conclusion of a trial.

Philip's presence lends today's assembly unmistakable political weight. His officers initiated the arrests, his government has pressed the accusations, and he has sought the order's destruction with a persistence that no observer of the council can overlook. Nevertheless, the act proclaimed here is an apostolic decree, issued with the council's approval, rather than a royal ordinance. That form matters both to the Church's jurisdiction and to the other sovereigns concerned. The French crown has obtained the suppression it demanded; the Holy See has asserted that the authority to extinguish the order, and to determine what follows, belongs to itself.

The possessions of the Temple now present a question scarcely less extensive than the proceedings against its members. Its commanderies, farms, rents and other resources supported a religious and military establishment operating across frontiers. Custody of those possessions does not by itself settle their ultimate ownership. Princes, ecclesiastical authorities and those having lawful claims upon particular estates must await further disposition. Today's decree reserves the property to the Holy See; it does not announce a general division among the rulers who hold it. Nor does the abolition of the order, by its own terms, supply a complete settlement for every debt, charge or obligation connected with its houses.

There is also the question of the purpose for which so much of this wealth was given. The Temple arose to protect pilgrims in the East and became one of the chief military orders of Latin Christendom. Since the loss of Acre in 1291, the recovery of the Holy Land has remained an urgent subject of counsel, while the proper employment of the military orders has been debated. The council must now pursue that business without the continued existence of the Temple. For the present, one matter is certain and many remain unsettled: the brotherhood is abolished, but the fate of its surviving members, the destination of its possessions and the service those possessions may yet render await further commands.