Shroud prof: Pope OK’d knightly spit & kiss

Vatican archives researcher Barbara Frale, who recently discovered what she says is proof that the shroud of Turin is genuine, earlier found proof that Pope Clement absolved the Knights of Templar because he decided that when the Knights spit on the cross and kissed each other on various body parts, they did it for good, not blasphemous, reason.

That may seem confusing to you, but Frale’s 2004 study “The Chinon chart Papal absolution to the last Templar, Master Jacques de Molay” explains:

As a ritual of passage, it was a kind of ‘secret appendix’ after the formal ceremony of profession which is described in the constitutions: a compulsory test to which all the men of the Temple had to submit (puncta), a peculiar tradition (modus ordinis nostri) which had to show to the new brother the violence that Templars suffered when they were captured by Saracens, that is to say, they would be compelled to deny Christ and to spit on the Cross. The main aim of the test was to strengthen the soul of recruits, and it took the form of a very realistic performance. To this first part was added another test intended to teach the novice the absolute obedience and respect he must keep to his seniors, kissing the preceptor who had received him on the lower spine, on the navel and finally on the mouth. This seems to be the original and true form of the ritual, as we can deduce from collation of all available reports.