Are there any followers of Catharism today?

Are there any followers of Catharism today?

The short answer is yes and no.

But first, let me explain.

Le catharisme était mort avec le dernier Parfait, puisque la filiation apostolique s’était interrompue; le Consolament, qui se transmettait de Bonshommes en Bonshommes, ne pouvait plus faire office de sacrement en l’absence d’une personne qualifiée pour l’administrer. - [Peut-on être cathare au XXIème siècle? Rencontre de Roque fixate 2009](Peut-on être cathare au XXIème siècle? Rencontre de Roquefixade 2009)

Catharism died with the death of the last perfect, since the “apostolic” line had been interrupted ...

In other words, there were no more “qualified” persons to pass on their faith.

There is a neo-Catharism movement in France, started by Yves Maris in 2000s. For him the death of the last “parfait” is not something insurmountable, but obtainable.

Here is the French text:

Cette année 2009, en ce week-end de la Pentecôte, a eu lieu la première assemblée (Ekklesia en grec) de la diversité cathare. Et malgré l'absence cruelle, pour raison de santé, de son instigateur Yves Maris, un certain nombre de participants n'ont pas craint d'afficher leur foi et leur détermination dans cet idéal de vie que sous-tend la philosophie cathare.

L'absence de parfaits ne constitue pas un handicap insurmontable quand il s'agit de faire le premier pas vers le chemin. Assurément, on peut être cathare de nos jours, cette rencontre de Pentecôte l'a magnifiquement démontré. - Peut-on être cathare au XXIème siècle? Rencontre de Roquefixade 2009

Here is their website (once again it is in French) which was post in 2007.

You're not the only one. My interest was piqued by reading Simone Weil who was an admirer of Catharism and although they are described as dualists, wikipedia writes:

The idea of two gods or deistic principles, one good and the other evil, was central to Cathar beliefs. This was antithetical to the monotheistic Catholic Church, whose fundamental principle was that there was only one God, who created all things visible and invisible. Cathars believed that the good God was the God of the New Testament, creator of the spiritual realm. Whereas the evil God was the God of the Old Testament, creator of the physical world whom many Cathars identified as Satan.

This doesn't seem particularly controversial to me; and besides, given how few of their texts have survived (given the violent suppression by the then Catholic Church), it can't be taken as read as the whole story; in fact, Simone Weil regarded the great failing of Christianity as its embrace of Rome; in her mind, the epitome of maleficent power, if not the original Babylon, it's avatar; this is one reason, by her own admission why she admired Catharism.

This is why Thibon took the trouble to defend her against this charge:

A great deal has been said about her Catharism; a letter from her, said to have been written in 1940, was brought to light in 1947. In it she spoke of her admiration for the Catharist movement and used the word adherence as opposed to curiosity ... If this letter really was written in 1940, I should say that in 1942 she had greatly changed and had no longer any traces of this attitude about her except her love of the twelfth century, where Romanesque architecture, the troubadours and the language and civilization of Provence (the Pays d’Oc) all shared her admiration of the Cathars.

She was a Marxist when Marxism was in vogue but not doctrinally so - it stemmed from her deep sense of compassion - not something that most Marxists at that time were known for according to at least one writer on her work; in fact, she often was contemptuous about small-minded Marxists who hadn't taken even the trouble to understand what a dialectic was, or even cared; nevertheless, she outgrew this phase quite early on but remained a revolutionary thinker who also happened to disagree with Trotsky...like many complex thinkers their thought defies easy categorisations.

The French philosopher Simone Weil was a neo-Cathar.

She wrote a letter circa 1940 in which "she spoke of her admiration for the Catharist movement and used the word adherence as opposed to curiosity" (Joseph Marie Perrin, O.P., Simone Weil As We Knew Her pt. 1, ch. 6, fn. 2).

Like the Cathars, Weil

• rejected the Old Testament,
  • The Cathars rejected the Old Testament in part because they thought the material world and marriage (cf. Gen. 1:28: "be fruitful and multiply") are evil.
• was a dualist,
• was a revolutionary, anarchist, and Trotskyite,
  • Cathars were also revolutionaries, being against oaths, the bedrock of feudalism and medieval society.
• starved herself to death, a "virtuous" act Albigenses/Cathars called the endura.

Yes, there are still some followers of Catharism in Italy who keep alive the dualist faith.

http://catarismo.iobloggo.com/

http://dragovitsa.iobloggo.com/

Best wishes, Pietro

Does the group Cathars exist today?

There is a group that call themselves "The Assembly of good Christians". They make the claim that they are a remnant of the ancient heterodox Cathars. They self-identify in there their blog catharnet.blogspot.com . That being said they claim to value or practice pacifism in all things, vegetarianism, not taking oaths of any kind to name a few.

They recognize the authority of the bible the apocrypha and many of what has been called the Gnostic texts. They call themselves a small house-church movement with groups in North America, Western Europe and the Balkans. Be aware that there seems to be no movement on their blog since 2009 and many of their links are not functional.

Full followers of Catharism were known as 'Perfects'. They would commit to a specific ascetic lifestyle, and would on their death ascend to heaven. Other lesser followers of Catharism would be reincarnated to get another chance.

Unfortunately to be a Perfect, you need to be inducted by another Perfect. Since there are no more Perfects, no-one can become one. The last leader of the Cathar movement fully admitted that he was not a full Perfect, because no Perfects remained to induct him. Therefore Catharism has effectively died out.

The Perfect Heresy by Stephan O'Shea is a good book for those wanting to know more.