Posted on 03/19/2006 6:44:46 PM PST by prairiebreeze
THE Vatican has begun moves to rehabilitate the Crusaders by sponsoring a conference at the weekend that portrays the Crusades as wars fought with the “noble aim” of regaining the Holy Land for Christianity.
The Crusades are seen by many Muslims as acts of violence that have underpinned Western aggression towards the Arab world ever since. Followers of Osama bin Laden claim to be taking part in a latter-day “jihad against the Jews and Crusaders”.
The late Pope John Paul II sought to achieve Muslim- Christian reconciliation by asking “pardon” for the Crusades during the 2000 Millennium celebrations. But John Paul’s apologies for the past “errors of the Church” — including the Inquisition and anti-Semitism — irritated some Vatican conservatives. According to Vatican insiders, the dissenters included Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
Pope Benedict reached out to Muslims and Jews after his election and called for dialogue. However, the Pope, who is due to visit Turkey in November, has in the past suggested that Turkey’s Muslim culture is at variance with Europe’s Christian roots.
At the conference, held at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, Roberto De Mattei, an Italian historian, recalled that the Crusades were “a response to the Muslim invasion of Christian lands and the Muslim devastation of the Holy Places”.
“The debate has been reopened,” La Stampa said. Professor De Mattei noted that the desecration of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by Muslim forces in 1009 had helped to provoke the First Crusade at the end of the 11th century, called by Pope Urban II.
He said that the Crusaders were “martyrs” who had “sacrificed their lives for the faith”. He was backed by Jonathan Riley-Smith, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University, who said that those who sought forgiveness for the Crusades “do not know their history”. Professor Riley-Smith has attacked Sir Ridley Scott’s recent film Kingdom of Heaven, starring Orlando Bloom, as “utter nonsense”.
Professor Riley-Smith said that the script, like much writing on the Crusades, was “historically inaccurate. It depicts the Muslims as civilised and the Crusaders as barbarians. It has nothing to do with reality.” It fuels Islamic fundamentalism by propagating “Osama bin Laden’s version of history”.
He said that the Crusaders were sometimes undisciplined and capable of acts of great cruelty. But the same was true of Muslims and of troops in “all ideological wars”. Some of the Crusaders’ worst excesses were against Orthodox Christians or heretics — as in the sack of Constantinople in 1204.
The American writer Robert Spencer, author of A Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, told the conference that the mistaken view had taken hold in the West as well as the Arab world that the Crusades were “an unprovoked attack by Europe on the Islamic world”. In reality, however, Christians had been persecuted after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem.
CONFLICT OVER THE HOLY LAND
Historians count eight Crusades, although dates are disputed: 1095-1101, called by Pope Urban II; 1145-47, led by Louis VII; 1188-92, led by Richard I; 1204, which included the sack of Constantinople; 1217, which included the conquest of Damietta; 1228-29 led by Frederick II; 1249-52, led by King Louis IX of France; and 1270, also under Louis IX
Until the early 11th century, Christians, Jews and Muslims coexisted under Muslim rule in the Holy Land. After growing friction, the first Crusade was sparked by ambushes of Christian pilgrims going to Jerusalem. The Byzantine Emperor Alexius appealed to Pope Urban II, who in 1095 called on Christendom to take up arms to free the Holy Land from the “Muslim infidel”
I'm sorry. No I'm not. Yes I am. No I'm not.
typical.
forays into Europe...
The European political landscape today was not the same 1,000 years ago. Many Christians were slaughtered by Islamic swords and many Christian kingdoms were lost to Muslim violence. "Europe" then had already lost quite a bit of kin and investment to Muslims by the time the Crusades took a stand against aggression.
These "odd" circumstances are precisely why it's important to examine the details of past history since none of the effort is "counterproductive".
And many Orthodox Christians.
So were most of the crusaders. You guys are priceless.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it wasn't a priest who died while steadying the Ark. I think the priests (from the tribe of Levi?) were the only ones who could handle the Ark.
Celibacy had been a religious gift for those dedicating their love and life to God. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this had been practiced long before Catholic clergy resumed vows celibacy as a standard for spiritual discipline.
The Blessed Virgin was a virgin dedicated to God before she was betrothed to St Joseph, and it was part of their marriage contract that she would remain celibate. Not all marriages were meant for procreation. Jewish tradition knows well enough that acts done to satisfy the spirit are very noble and rank higher than acts done to please the flesh. If this were not so, then Jews would not have had a well establish religious tradition of fasting, praying, and giving alms.
The Jews had long before earned the enmity of Christians with their betrayal of Spain to the Muslims.
No mention of Mazinkert!
Besides the 1009 Muslim change of policy in Jerusalem, the disaster at Mazinkert, where the Roman Emperor Romanus IV was captured by the Turks, and the Turks swarmed across Anatolia, causing the Greek Romans to flee east forever, was the main catalyst for the Crusades. The original intent of the Crusade was to destroy the Turkish states on the Anatolian high plain, and then march on to Jerusalem to complete the reconquests of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine Roman Emperor Basil the Great.
If we are going to be accused of being Crusaders no matter what we do, we might as well have a Crusade. We'd then at least gain some benefits from the accusation, rather than just taking an insult on the chin.
Here's to many more Andalusia's!
>Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it wasn't a priest who >died while steadying the Ark. I think the priests (from >the tribe of Levi?) were the only ones who could handle >the Ark.
My memory fails me at the moment.
Yes it definitley was priest, but I am not certain if it was an Aaronic or Levitical priest.
See this thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1599528/posts
Seems like we have failed in Afghanistan.
Constantinople New Rome was the capitol of the Empire of Romania, inhabitated by a people who called themselves Romans, who spoke the Roman language of Greek, and who were called by their enemies the Turks and Arabs as Romans, and ruled over by a man styled the Roman Emperor who traced his ruling authority straight back to Heraclius, Justinian, Constantine, Augustus and Caesar. How were they not Romans?
When the Turks conquered this area they called it the Sultanate of Roum (Rome) - Anatolia, and the Sultanate of Roumelia (Little Rome) - Balkan Peninsula.
Time for some history education.
http://www.romanity.org/htm/frame_friesian_en.htm
http://www.romanity.org/index.htm
You are correct about the dedicated celibacy
One of the problems with Spain at that time is that its consolidation as a modern state (the first of them, may I add) was not finished, nor was its repopulation after the Muslims were driven out. Spain was out of control, full of bandits and disobedient nobles who still wanted to carve out their own territories. Ferdinand and Isabel, los Reyes Catolicos, actually instituted a national police force that was somewhat like a troop of sheriffs, responsible for protecting civilians in some of the more lawless areas.
I think, to a great extent, the Jews were caught up in the very unstable political situation of the time, since they had no other power to defend them.
The purge of the Greeks was only finished in 1924. On reason modern Athens is so overpopulated is that it is overwhelmed with the lucky descendants of 1.5 million Greeks from Anatolia and 0.5 million from Constantinople expelled in the period 1922-1924. I say lucky, because about another 1 million were not so lucky and were killed.
During WWI and the Anatolian War, the defeat of the Turks was so total up to 1922 that many Greek groups who had apostacized to Islam under the Sultans were going to the Bishops and begging readmission to the Greek ethnos.
Anatolia is all Turkish today because close to 10 million Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian Christians who used to live there were killed or expelled in the first decades of the last century.
The truth should be told and let the chips fall where they may, imo.
The Jews helped betray Spain into the hands of the Muslims during the invasion in the 8th century.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but this had been practiced long before Catholic clergy resumed vows celibacy as a standard for spiritual discipline."
Moses, Abraham, Issac and Jacob (Isreal) were all married men. So was Peter the Apostle. Celibacy has never been a standard of morality or spiritually in the Bible. Paul was celibate by choice but claimed that he had every right to marry if he choose to do so.
"The Blessed Virgin was a virgin dedicated to God before she was betrothed to St Joseph, and it was part of their marriage contract that she would remain celibate."
Please provide scriptural support for this claim.
That is an important point - the Inquisition, because it was conceived as an attempt to enquire into the state of the Faith and to find heresy (mostly Lutheranism, but other heresies as well) and correct or purge the heretics, only had power over baptized Catholics. Jews who had not converted were not subject to the Inquisition, although as you point out, this was open to abuse.
However, there was a second, more virulent phase of the Inquisition that even the Pope tried to stop, which did actually persecute Jews. The Inquisition, which btw did not accept testimony under torture, did not accept anonymous complaints, and kept careful records (and released most people with a warning), had a peculiar relationship with the civil authorities, who did the actual punishment. So much power created something that was very attractive to civil authorities, who used the Inquisition for attacking their enemies, and also created something that was so out of control that even Rome could not stop it.
And what, in your wisdom, have you deduced is the reason we were attacked on 9/11? How did we bring that on ourselves, would you say?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.