The New Cathars

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"How can they be good people, if they are called heretics?" A young woman in Montaillou asked that in the 1290s, and in this episode Rob follows the question through the surviving Occitan ritual, Catholic chronicles, Bernard Gui's manual, and depositions from Bishop Jacques Fournier's inquisition: a deathbed request, a kneeling greeting, a whispered blessing. We weigh where these very different sources agree, where testimony was bent under pressure, and what we still don't know about Good Women. Then Jesus' words in Mark 10 challenge any movement that turns "good" into a title.

Sources: Occitan Cathar Ritual (Lyon PA 36, RIALTO ed.); Fournier register depositions of Guillemette Clergue, Brune Pourcel, Alamande Guilabert, Guillaume Fort and Bernard Benet (SJSU trans.); Bernard Gui; early 13th-c. chronicle in Raynaldus (Fordham Sourcebook); A. Sennis (2016).

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There's no dramatic conversion story here, no rock bottom and no lightning bolt. In this personal bonus episode, Rob reflects on a lifetime of quiet moments that felt like a second presence in the room, a presence that, as a Christian, he names the Holy Spirit. It's a gentle reflection on solitude, on facing the end of this life with curiosity and hope instead of dread, and on the possibility that we've never really been alone.

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The name most people use for the medieval Good Christians of Languedoc first appears in a hostile sermon written in the Rhineland around 1163. In this opening episode, Rob traces where the word "Cathar" came from, sets it beside the names used in a surviving Occitan ritual and in inquisition testimony (good men, good Christians, the Church of God), and lays out the live scholarly debate over whether "Catharism" was an organized church or a label imposed from outside. We end with Jesus' question in Mark 8 and an honest note on why a modern project calls itself New Cathars.

Sources: Eckbert of Schönau, Sermones contra Catharos (c. 1163); Occitan Cathar Ritual (Lyon PA 36, RIALTO ed.); Bernard Gui, Inquisitor's Manual; Jacques Fournier register (SJSU trans.); Book of the Two Principles; A. Sennis (ed.), Cathars in Question (2016). Full source ledger available on request.

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Welcome to New Cathars, a historical, educational, and forward-looking Christian podcast that is Christ first and Gospel focused. Host Rob sets out to recover the medieval Good Christians of southern France through surviving Cathar texts, inquisitorial records, Catholic sources, and modern scholarship, offering history when history can answer, evidence when evidence survives, and "we do not know" when it does not. Year One moves through four quarters, Recover, Investigate, Witness, and Move Forward, with new five-to-eight-minute episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Start with Episode 001, "Who Were the Cathars?"