Inspiring Christian Lives

Dominic Guzman, 1170-1221

Southern France, 1206
A young Spanish priest stops off in a wayside inn whilst on church business up to Scandinavia. Whilst in the inn, he starts talking to the inn-keeper. It turns out that the inn keeper is one of the followers of a curious life denying religious movement that has swept through southern France. This movement, known as Catharism, held that all of creation was evil. The consequences of this were that they rejected marriage and sex, and they celebrated suicide as a means to set free the spirit from the matter that had trapped it in. Physical life was a great misfortune – to prolong it or to reproduce it was considered ‘bad’. They were vegan as well – not because they respected animals, but because they hated them – matter was evil. Only the self appointed ‘perfect’ of this movement would be saved, and they distinguished between a spiritual elite and the less spiritually advanced who were to serve them. They had organised an attack on mainstream Christianity, hoping to spread their false and destructive ideas. The young Spanish priest was called Dominic. He engaged the inn keeper in debate.

In opposition to this life denying world view, Dominic proposed the life affirming one that is authentic Christianity. Since the ‘word had become flesh’ the created world, the world of matter couldn’t be all that bad – in fact it was positively ‘good’. By sunrise that morning, Dominic had won the innkeeper over to his point of view. But he was alarmed at how deep and wide this bizarre and dangerous set of views had become. In part, he saw these views as a reaction against a greedy and pompous Church that was only concerned about its own self interest. The local monasteries and religious people exploited those around them and put nothing back into the community. To that extent, Dominic certainly thought that the ‘Cathars’, as this religious movement became known, had a point. He challenged the monasteries of orthodox Christianity: “How can you expect success with all this worldly pomp? These people cannot be touched by words without deeds. Throw away your splendour and go forth like the disciples of old, barefoot and without money, to proclaim the truth”. He took a two pronged strategy to dealing with the challenge to truth: on the one hand, he recognised the need for a well trained, intellectual order, able to defend the truth and to be fearless and courageous in proclaiming it; on the other, he recognised the need for this order to witness to its preaching through evangelical poverty.

By 1216, he had set up what is now known as the Order of Preachers, amongst the most powerful religious organisations in the world for the spread of the gospel. The trouble was, the local lords from the two sides of the religious divide, the Cathars and the Catholics, started warring over essentially non-religious matters – the Order of Preachers, (or Dominicans, as they became known), got caught up in the cross-fire. Dominic was noted for pleading for mercy during an unmerciful age. It was said of him that he “wielded the arms of the spirit, while others wrought death and destruction with the sword”. Even today, the Dominicans are particularly associated with the intellectual life and the call for justice in the world, and are to be found in and around famous universities of the world, a lasting and flourishing legacy of St Dominic. Many inspiring Christians were Dominicans, including Thomas Aquinas and Catherine of Sienna.