In the "You Could Not Make This Up" department

by Diane Duane

…And it’s fascinating.

Purported descendants of the Knights Templars are suing Pope Benedict for recognition of the seizure of a hundred billion Euros’ worth of their ancestors’ assets and property in the mid-1200s. (The seizure was secondary to accusations that the Order was heretical, and involved — among other things — in devil worship: but these accusations now usually thought to have been a smokescreen intended to allow the appropriation of the Templars’ great wealth.) 

[Those suing the Pope] claim that, when the order was dissolved , more than 9,000 properties as well as other commercial enterprises belonging to the knights were appropriated by the church.

Their legal claim, they say, is just to “restore their good name.” In a press release, the self-proclaimed “sons of the knights” declared, “We are not trying to cause the economic collapse of the Roman Catholic Church, but to illustrate to the court the magnitude of the plot against our Order.”

 

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1 comment

P J Evans August 7, 2008 - 8:15 pm

SOmeone at Charlie Stross’s blog said that the Vatican apologized for this a couple of centuries back.
These guys are running way behind the times. (And I heard from a Usually Unreliable Source that there wasn’t that much treasure, as most of their funds were in the shipping and travel fields. Overnight reflagging, when the word got out: ‘Those cogs? They’re Genoese. We haven’t seen Templars around here for months.’)

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