alt Hacker NewsAnd they hoarded and kept such knowledge for themselves and those who swore fealty for as long as they could, concentrating and maintaining power for centuries.
Still, I agree with the pope this once.
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Wrong - I am very far from a catholic, but this just doesn’t reflect history.
They did a lot to make the middle ages more tolerable. After that, maybe they overstayed their welcome.
Agreed. Crusades have also close ties with gnosticism since the Templars themselves were gnostics.
That is rather incorrect. Most people in the centuries you talk about could only read a local language (where "local" could be anything from 5km² to 500km²), if they could read at all. Of course, for a long time, becoming a priest was the only way for the average person to learn to read Latin, but universities, both ones that were sponsored by the Church and ones that weren't are older than you think (14th century off the top of my head), with the Church frequently cooperating and patronising the non-affiliated universities as well.
I mostly agree with you, but I’ve come to appreciate that there was a period of time in the Middle Ages where the Catholic Church held the fabric of society together in their corner of the world. I think much more knowledge from antiquity would’ve been lost without them.