This all sounds vaguely familiar.<\/p>\n
A western country sends an army to the Middle East to overthrow Muslim overlords. \u00a0They claim to be fighting for political reasons, but the whole thing smells like a holy war. \u00a0\u201cNo-bid\u201d contracts are awarded to those with high political connections. \u00a0Huge fortunes are created for suppliers, but the war goes badly.\u00a0 The army is poorly outfitted, and they suffer enormous losses. \u00a0There are charges of mismanagement, pilfering of artifacts, and torture of prisoners.\u00a0 Back home, criticism starts to mount, and the government goes looking for scapegoats. \u00a0Hearings are held, politicians are called to account, military men are brought forward to testify.\u00a0 Someone\u2019s got to pay\u2026<\/p>\n
No, it\u2019s not Iraq 2007, it\u2019s Jerusalem 1307. \u00a0In that year, Pope Clement V was being criticized for the failure of the Crusades. \u00a0He ordered the Knights Templar, the army responsible for capturing and holding Jerusalem, to report to Rome.\u00a0 He wanted to know what was going on in the Holy Land, why the war was going badly, and where all the money had gone. \u00a0The Knights were tried for heresy and immorality; after five years they were found\u2026not guilty! \u00a0However, because the Knights owed a lot of money to King Philip VI of France, the most powerful man in Europe, the pope was forced to bury his report deep in the Vatican\u2019s vaults.\u00a0 The Knights were hounded by Philip\u2019s army, and their leader was burned at the stake. \u00a0The entire order of the Knights Templar, Europe\u2019s finest soldiers, was wiped out.\u00a0 The Crusades were over.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, the Vatican said, \u201coops, my bad.\u201d\u00a0 In a low-profile press conference, the Vatican brought forth a document that has been hidden for seven centuries. \u00a0Clement\u2019s verdict has finally been made public, absolving the Knights of heresy (and, by extension, making Rome guilty of conspiracy).\u00a0 Rome\u2019s spin-doctor, prefect Sergio Pagano, preferred to look on the bright side, declaring, \u201c”For us, the value is an artistic value — the colors, the calligraphy. This is art and it will be of great value to all lovers of culture who have a historical interest. Plus, they are visibly beautiful.”<\/p>\n
800 leather-bound copies have been made available to the public.\u00a0 At $8,300 a pop, that will add $6,640,000 to the Vatican\u2019s coffers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This all sounds vaguely familiar. A western country sends an army to the Middle East to overthrow Muslim overlords. \u00a0They claim to be fighting for political reasons, but the whole thing smells like a holy war. \u00a0\u201cNo-bid\u201d contracts are awarded to those with high political connections. \u00a0Huge fortunes are created…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[308,698,700,969,1291],"class_list":["post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","tag-crusades","tag-king-philip-vi","tag-knights-templar","tag-pope-clement-v","tag-vatican"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}