How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Silas was looking forward to finding the keystone and giving it to the Teacher so they could recover what the brotherhood had long ago stolen from the faithful.
How powerful that will make the Opus Dei. (10.2)
Why do people care so much about the power their religion can wield? Do religions need power? Do people?
Quote #2
His Holiness had secured the papacy through one of the most controversial and unusual conclaves in Vatican history. Now, rather than being humbled by his unexpected rise to power, the Holy Father had wasted no time flexing all the muscle associated with the highest office in Christendom. Drawing on an unsettling tide of liberal support within the College of Cardinals, the Pope was now declaring his papal mission to be "rejuvenation of Vatican doctrine and updating Catholicism into the third millennium."
The translation, Aringarosa feared, was that the man was actually arrogant enough to think he could rewrite God's laws and win back the hearts of those who felt the demands of true Catholicism had become too inconvenient in a modern world. (34.6)
Sometimes, when someone holds power with viewpoints in opposition to your own, it can feel really invasive and personal. Because the new pope is more liberal than Bishop Aringarosa, he feels like the guy is arrogant and out of line.
Quote #3
"They certainly did," Langdon said, explaining how it had taken nine years, but the Knights had finally found what they had been searching for. They took the treasure from the temple and traveled to Europe, where their influence seemed to solidify overnight. Nobody was certain whether the Knights had blackmailed the Vatican or whether the Church simply tried to buy the Knights' silence, but Pope Innocent II immediately issued an unprecedented papal bull that afforded the Knights Templar limitless power and declared them "a law unto themselves"— an autonomous army independent of all interference from kings and prelates, both religious and political.
With their new carte blanche from the Vatican, the Knights Templar expanded at a staggering rate, both in numbers and political force, amassing vast estates in over a dozen countries. They began extending credit to bankrupt royals and charging interest in return, thereby establishing modern banking and broadening their wealth and influence still further. (37.20-22)
Making someone a "law unto themselves" basically grants them unlimited power. That's, uh…pretty intense. Add the ability to accumulate vast amounts of wealth, and the Knights were pretty much unstoppable. What's interesting is that power is typically a corrupting force, so how do we know that they remained true to their original cause?