Who was Innocent III?
Innocent III held the Fourth Lateran Council which inaugurated the Confession rite as obligatory on all Christians, partly so he could spy on his enemies. Innocent also set in motion the process that would lead to the declaration of the rite of Transubstantiation. Innocent III was perhaps the most powerful Pope since Justinian, and perhaps the most powerful pope in medieval Christianity. If there is a Father of the Inquisition, it would be Innocent III, whose name quite belies his activities. He wrote that Christ left to Peter not only the governance of the Church but also of the whole world. Innocent was sure that Christian knowledge of heavenly mysteries justified ruthless Christian supremacy. Pope Innocent III was absolutist monarchist pope—the very sort of monarch that Guenon claimed to desire.— Indeed, Innocent embodies the conjunction of spiritual and temporal power that Guenon longed for in his book Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power. The conjunction of political power a
