Fourth Lateran Council party at my house!
Today marks the anniversary of the congregation of the Fourth Lateran Council†, under Pope Innocent III. Innocent was, and remains, one of the Catholic Church's most celebrated pontiffs, partly because of this Council (he was actually pretty famous beforehand, too, but I won't delve too much into that).

The lateran Council's greatest signifigance was codifying the dogma of transubstatiation, the belief that the bread and wine of Communion are, in fact, the body and blood of Christ. Here's the English-ified text of that proclamation:

There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transsubstantiatio) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors.

Just for the hell of it, I'm going to mention the Donner Party.

So happy anniversary, transubstantiation. It's been a wild ride.

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Another note from Lateran IV, is that priests must be punished for their excesses (Canon VIII).

...when anyone [a Cleric, as stated in the opening sentence of this Canon] shall have been accused on account of his excesses, so that the reports and whisperings arising therefrom cannot any longer be ignored without scandal or tolerated without danger, then steps, inspired not by hatred but by charity, must be taken without scruple toward an inquiry and punishment of his excesses.

I'm sure this has some sort of political implication. I won't bother stating it.

†The full text of the Council's work can be found, in English, here