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7 October 1571: The Battle of Lepanto
CatholicCulture.org ^ | H.W. Crocker III

Posted on 10/07/2016 8:46:31 AM PDT by cld51860

The clash of civilizations is as old as history, and equally as old is the blindness of those who wish such clashes away; but they are the hinges, the turning points of history. In the latter half of the 16th century, Muslim war drums sounded and the mufti of the Ottoman sultan proclaimed jihad, but only the pope fully appreciated the threat. As Brandon Rogers notes in the Ignatius Press edition of G. K. Chesterton's poem "Lepanto": Pope Pius V "understood the tremendous importance of resisting the aggressive expansion of the Turks better than any of his contemporaries appear to have. He understood that the real battle being fought was spiritual; a clash of creeds was at hand, and the stakes were the very existence of the Christian West." But then, as now, the unity of Christendom was shattered; and in the aftermath of the Protestant revolt, Islam saw its opportunity....

(Excerpt) Read more at catholicculture.org ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: jihad; muslim; turks

1 posted on 10/07/2016 8:46:31 AM PDT by cld51860
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To: cld51860

Someone should tell the fake Pope about the history of Islam.


2 posted on 10/07/2016 8:48:41 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam , Know Peace)
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To: cld51860

Lepanto

By G. K. Chesterton

White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young,
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still—hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.

St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships.

King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed—
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/47917


3 posted on 10/07/2016 8:58:54 AM PDT by MNJohnnie ( Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered)
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To: cld51860
But then, as now, the unity of Christendom was shattered; and in the aftermath of the Protestant revolt, Islam saw its opportunity.

The protestant revolution is petering out. The Orthodox church is coming this way and takes no prisoners. They don't recognize protestant denominations as legitimate christian organizations.

A comparison is the 500 year history of the Cathars and Waldensians. It took hundreds of years to purge their influence but it lives on in the protestant revolution.

4 posted on 10/07/2016 9:03:02 AM PDT by x_plus_one (The desire to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it" -- H L Mencken)
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To: cld51860

A related link to something posted today at jihadwatch.org

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/10/turkey-builds-9000-mosques-bans-orthodox-christian-liturgy


5 posted on 10/07/2016 9:13:22 AM PDT by heterosupremacist ( "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." ~ Thomas Jefferson)
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To: cld51860

Our Lady of Victory: pray with us that God will crush the heads of evil today just as He did at Lepanto.

Abortion, Perversion, Islam. May they all break and shatter, and may their victims flee from them as from a burning building.

Amen.


6 posted on 10/07/2016 9:16:16 AM PDT by agere_contra (Hamas has dug miles of tunnels - but no bomb-shelters.)
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To: agere_contra

Trump could turn this muslim onslaught around and save the US first and later on Europe.


7 posted on 10/07/2016 9:30:22 AM PDT by 353FMG (AMERICA MATTERS)
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To: x_plus_one
The protestant revolution is petering out.

The protestant reformation was a product of the corruption of the Catholic church, especially the hierarchy. The tragedy was that the Counter Reformation was too late.

Whenever the RCC has a run of strong, faithful popes, one looks back at the schism with regret. But then, sooner or later, along comes another Francis to remind us why papal governance is also flawed.

8 posted on 10/07/2016 10:55:00 AM PDT by sphinx
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To: sphinx

The Orthodox church is the next master of the christian universe. The Roman church has served the purpose of holding the door against protestant rhetoric until it is weak in the knees. The Orthodox church is starting an evangelization movement in D.C. and has big plans. Russia plans to take back Alaska in the future. The wheel of fate will start turning faster after Hillary is elected.


9 posted on 10/07/2016 12:08:58 PM PDT by x_plus_one (The desire to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it" -- H L Mencken)
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To: sphinx

The christian remnant in Russia that survived 70 years of satanic communist hell is self-empowered by their victory of survival. The Orthodox church withstood the fires of hell. They will do whatever it takes to stop islamic hegemony including nuking the west. The US is killing Christians in Syria, killed Christians in Serbia and Kosovo and arms the middle east moslems to kill Christians everywhere they can. Hillary is on the board of directors of the movement to destroy christianity.


10 posted on 10/07/2016 12:20:33 PM PDT by x_plus_one (The desire to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it" -- H L Mencken)
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To: cld51860

Pope St. Pius V was pope for 6 years (1566-1572). In his short reign, he codified the Roman liturgy, named St. Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church, founded The Holy League, stopped the Mohammedans at Lepanto and excommunicated Elizabeth I.

He was canonized in 1512.


11 posted on 10/07/2016 1:28:08 PM PDT by NTHockey (Rules of engagement #1: Take no prisoners. And to the NSA trolls, FU)
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To: MNJohnnie

I was trying to find a version of this for my Kindle but was not successful.


12 posted on 10/07/2016 4:59:36 PM PDT by cld51860 (Volo pro veritas)
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To: cld51860

One of the battles covered in Carnage and Culture by Victor Davis Hanson. I highly recommend this book.


13 posted on 10/07/2016 5:01:57 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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