Re: How to found a new Catholic Order
Honestly I'd have to do quite a bit of digging to come up with decent cites, but just working from memory the rough theory goes that among the treasures recovered from the temple of Solomon (Which gave them much of the wealth coveted by the French crown) were early Christian writings hidden in the temple to preserve them, and these represented a potentially very real threat to the lifestyle of the rather corrupt religious officials associated with the French Court.
It's been a very log time. I recall it was from the time when I was researching connections between the Templars who escaped the French crackdown, Robert the Bruce's Excommunication, and Scottish Rite Masons.
I'm not even saying it's all that solid a theory, more that it wouldn't surprise me given the politics of the day. The Templars got unfairly hosed