My understanding.  There were two faction of knights: the Templar, which were the good guys, and the knights of Malta, which were the bad guys.  Which is why the pope wanted them destroyed. Is a very long explanation,  but in short the Templars allegedly protected the Assyrians, the first real Christian in the middle east and who knew the secrets of the apostles, that Jesus only revealed to them.  Today these people has been really prosecuted in the middle east, some of them crucified, even children as young as 12, which is so sad.  Is rumored the Templars also knew the secret of the grail. Like much the devil does, a lot of people think the Templars are bad, because the devil likes to deceives and flip everything.  The democrats are a very easy example of that: abortion is health care comes to mind. Lots of bad information on the internet, but if you are interested and really dig, you can find some of the stuff I am mentioning.