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”
What then were the Muslim conquest of Christian Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Lybia, Africa, Spain, Provencal, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, the Baleric Islands, Crete, Cyprus, Anatolia, etc. prior to the Crusades?
Who were Charles Martel and El Cid fighting against?
Goodness gracious Torie! You surely know more history than you are displaying here!
And so, what would you say, was the reason for 9/11? And how can we determine, when an American is beheaded, how it is actually the American's fault? Just wondering, since you seem to believe that people who are murdered bring it on themselves.
I admitted the error of my ways above. Cheers.
Awareness of ignorance is the first step to knowledge.
This Sephardi Jewish website speaks openly and proudly of the historical Jewish collaboration with the Islamic Moors.
The Catholic Spaniards didn't forget this, and were determined it would not happen again after the Reconquista.
http://www.sephardicstudies.org/islam.html
If you read the scriptures you will see the list of His brothers. Duplicate names happen. Look at how many "Marys" there are.
My source? Numerous articles and books over the course of a lifetime's reading. But one useful book on the background of the Reconquista is Warren H. Carroll, "Isabel of Spain." And on the rather large subject of the sometimes unfair vilification of Catholic Spain by British and Dutch propagandists, see Madden's book, "The Black Legend." We still think of the Spanish Inquisition as one of the very worst things in the history of the world. Just say the words "Spanish Inquisition" and even people who have never opened a history book will give a jerk of displeasure. Much the same as with the word "Apartheid." Just the word itself will do it, you don't need to get into details. Well, the Spanish Inquisition (which was administratively separate from the Roman Inquisition) was certainly abusive, but so were numerous other historical events that have been largely forgotten because the propagandists didn't succeed in painting such a brilliant but distorted picture of them.
As I said, I am by no means trying to say that the Spanish were all virtuous or all the Jews deserving of being expelled. During the Reconquista there were many Spanish traitors, too, and numerous nearly fatal setbacks. There were heroes like El Cid, virtuous kings like Alfonso el Sabio, and plenty of villains to go around.
As an aside, my great, great grandfather was expelled from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1848 and fled to London, where that branch of my family lived before one of his grandsons came to America and married my grandmother. He was an associate of Lajos Kossuth in the failed Revolution of 1848. I don't repudiate him for that, but neither do I blame the Emperor for expelling him.
Collaboration? The Golden Age was a time when Jews were tolerated to a greater extent under Islam than under Christianity. What exactly did the "Catholic Spaniards" not forget? That for a period of time the Muslims didn't force the Jews to convert or die the way the Catholics did? Your conclusions make zero sense.
That always happens, doesn't it? In wars and revolutions, the innocent usually suffer with the guilty, and the victors are not usually completely pure either.
Maybe it feels unfair to Catholics that the Inquisition is known as an ugly and violent time, but trying to pretend that the Jews brought it on themselves isn't honest or productive. Under what circumstances can the church claim that forced conversion was a good idea? Is that not the mentality we see in Islam today, which we scorn as a clear shortcoming of their religious doctrine?
Well, I don't want to argue about it. The main point of the article was misrepresentation of the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition was mentioned only in passing. Moreover, the Inquisition was NOT admirable, it was merely not quite as bad as it has been painted.
The Spanish have historically had a bad rap among English-speaking Protestants. I remember someone saying at dinner some time ago that the Spanish had vilely mistreated the Indians of South America, enslaving and killing most of them. Yes, they did mistreat the Indians. But as I pointed out, there must be some significance in the fact that most of the South American Indians are still alive, and greatly outnumber the Hispanics in most countries. Also that there was largescale intermarriage. Also that the Pope condemned slavery. In contrast, most of the North American Indians are dead, and there was relatively little intermarriage in comparison with what happened to the south. So, why all this blame thrown at the Spanish? Because we all simply know without actually studying the history that the Conquistadores were awful villains. And if we do study the history, most of the older standard texts were written by Spaniard-haters.
In any case, my intention was not to demonize one side over the other, but just to point out that the ancient hatreds, which have been newly incorporated into politically correct history, don't always tell the full story.
the moose is gone.
Apparently...dang!
I don't know what he said, but his "Catholic-phobic" comment was a lot milder then some I've seen on FR. Oh, well...hasta la vista...
Mary married Joseph. The Bible says so. No where does it state that Jesus was ever married and if He had been, one would certainly expect Him to have consummated the marriage. Otherwise, what would be the point of getting married in the first place? Since He wasn't married He certainly should have remained celibate.
You don't want chapter and verse about Mary and Joseph "coming together," do you?
ANYWAY, at least we can agree that the Crusades were most likely necessary and not undertaken purely on a holy whim.
Always.
The Inquisition only applied to Catholics, so I think you do not know what you are talking abotu when you speak of it being used to persecute Jews. The only "forced conversions" made by the Inquisition were to require heretics and apostates to return to the faith they had already pledged themselves to by oath. So I can only think that you are calling the enforcement of the faith among the Marranos a persecution of Jews, despite the Marranos having pledged Christianity in their Baptism. This sort of "forced conversion" has precedence in the Fathers of the Church and the Gospels.
St. Luke 14.23 "And the Lord said to the servant: Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled."
But you have neglected to remark, that at that time the Church was only beginning to burst into life from the recently planted seed, and that there was not yet fulfilled in her the prophecy: "All kings shall fall down before Him; yea, all nations shall serve Him;" and it is in proportion to the more enlarged accomplishment of this prophecy that the Church wields greater power, so that she may not only invite, but even compel men to embrace what is good. This our Lord intended then to illustrate, for although He had great power, He chose rather to manifest His humility. This also He taught, with sufficient plainness, in the parable of the Feast, in which the master of the house, after He had sent a message to the invited guests, and they had refused to come, said to his servants: "Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.", Mark, now, how it was said in regard to those who came first, "bring them in;" it was not said, "compel them to come in," -- by which was signified the incipient condition of the Church, when it was only growing towards the position in which it would have strength to compel men to come in. Accordingly, because it was right that when the Church had been strengthened, both in power and in extent, men should be compelled to come in to the feast of everlasting salvation, it was afterwards added in the parable, "The servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the Lord said unto the servants, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in." Wherefore, if you were walking peaceably, absent from this feast of everlasting salvation and of the holy unity of the Church, we should find you, as it were, in the "highways;" but since, by multiplied injuries and cruelties, which you perpetrate on our people, you are, as it were, full of thorns and roughness, we find you as it were in the "hedges," and we compel you to come in. The sheep which is compelled is driven whither it would not wish to go, but after it has entered, it feeds of its own accord in the pastures to which it was brought. Wherefore restrain your perverse and rebellious spirit, that in the true Church of Christ you may find the feast of salvation.
- St. Augustine, Letters, 173.10, To Donatus, a priest of the Donatist Party
Is that not the mentality we see in Islam today, which we scorn as a clear shortcoming of their religious doctrine?
Islam is a false man-made psuedo religion, with a false man-made pseudo prophet. Islam attempts to convert non-believers who were never part of the Islamic world by force, and failing that to kill them. I fail to see the comparison to the Inqusition, which was a matter internal to the Church regarding her own dissidents. The Catholic Church has never had a policy of forced Baptisms (although that is not to say some souls misguided by zeal have forcibly baptised various persons), nor does the Catholic Church practice the caricature of "Baptism or Death", which is why the Jews and even Pagans remained for centuries among the Christian lands of Europe and Rome. Again St. Augustine:
Did not Sarah, when she had the power, choose rather to afflict the insolent bondwoman? And truly she did not cruelly hate her whom she had formerly by an act of her own kindness made a mother; but she put a wholesome restraint upon her pride.' Moreover, as you well know, these two women, Sarah and Hagar, and their two sons Isaac and Ishmael, are figures representing spiritual and carnal persons. And although we read that the bondwoman and her son suffered great hardships from Sarah, nevertheless the Apostle Paul says that Isaac suffered persecution from Ishmael: "But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now; " whence those who have understanding may perceive that it is rather the Catholic Church which suffers persecution through the pride and impiety of those carnal men whom it endeavours to correct by afflictions and terrors of a temporal kind. Whatever therefore the true and rightful Mother does, even when something severe and bitter is felt by her children at her hands, she is not rendering evil for evil, but is applying the benefit of discipline to counteract the evil of sin, not with the hatred which seeks to harm, but with the love which seeks to heal. When good and bad do the same actions and suffer the same afflictions, they are to be distinguished not by what they do or suffer, but by the causes of each: e.g. Pharaoh oppressed the people of God by hard bondage; Moses afflicted the same people by severe correction when they were guilty of impiety: their actions were alike; but they were not alike in the motive of regard to the people's welfare -- the one being inflated by the lust of power, the other inflamed by love. Jezebel slew prophets, Elijah slew false prophets; I suppose that the desert of the actors and of the sufferers respectively in the two cases was wholly diverse.
- St. Augustine, Letters, 93.6, To Vincentius
How is throwing open the gates of the holy city of Toledo to the Moors during the invasion part of "tolerantly living under Islam" and not "collaboration with the invaders"?
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