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”
Absolutions in the sense that it was ok to kill nonbeleivers savages in the name of God that these men of the cloth were forgiven before committing these acts?
About.com is yet another lame website and is no more authoritative than wikipedia in that people can post what they want. None of what is written in your link is true. Sorry. If you are really interested in what Jews believe, why not sit down with an Orthodox rabbi and talk it over, and look directly at some sources, rather than trying to piece together something that makes you feel good on the internet?
You still haven't denounced the forced conversions of the Inquisiton, and you ignored my question about Abdul Rahman. Wonder why. Actually, I don't. You have dragged in a lot of extraneous and erroneous material to make your case and when all is said and done, you seem to be defending the Inquisition, and perhaps the Crusades as well. That's unfortunate, because American Christians have no part in such history and have always demonstrated beautiful religious tolerance. Give it a try. Until you state that the Inquisition was completely and horribly wrong and that forcing Jews to choose conversion or death was a disgusting low point in the Catholic church, and until you state that the muslims would be wrong to put Rahman to death for converting to Christianity, I'm done writing to you.
The American Jewish Committee is ignorant of Judaism and its sources?
You know that you haven't read the Talmud and have no idea what you are talking about.
So the hours I spent in the University of Delaware-Newark Library reading the Steinsaltz edition of the Talmud were all in my imagination?
That should be a clue to you that there is some total misrepresentation of the Talmud going on by people who cannot read the Aramaic and haven't any idea what it actually says.
Many more Christians speak Aramaic than do Jews. It is the native language of the Assyrian Christians, and the liturgical language of the Maronites, Syrians, and Indians.
Please see also http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=8530 which refutes the AJC article.
I don't see it refuting that at all. All it does is highlight speculative disputes by modern sophists, and notes that many in the past and today agree with Bayme's interpretation.
You still haven't denounced the forced conversions of the Inquisiton
I can't denounce what never happened. That would be lying. The Inquisition did not forcibly convert anyone. It prosecuted heretics and urged their repentance.
and you ignored my question about Abdul Rahman.
Sorry, I forgot. My brother Abdul will be a glorious martyr for the faith. I hope he goes as glady and joyously to death at the hands of the infidels as did St. Stephen at the hands of the faithless of Israel. A crown awaits those who suffer death for the name of Christ. "This day thou shalt be with me in paradise." Does that answer your question?
Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you. (St. Matthew 5.11-12)
You have dragged in a lot of extraneous and erroneous material to make your case and when all is said and done, you seem to be defending the Inquisition, and perhaps the Crusades as well.
Seem to be? I thought I was doing so pretty vigorously.
That's unfortunate, because American Christians have no part in such history
and have always demonstrated beautiful religious tolerance.
A reminder of Beautiful American Religious Tolerance (TM) is shown to me every day when I pass by the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia. It has no stained glass windows on its lower level, because anti-Catholic rioters would have smashed them. Beautiful American Religious Tolerance (TM) begins and ends with individualistic Protestant interpretation of scriptures and religion. God help the man who professes the faith once delivered to the Saints in this land.
Until you state that the Inquisition was completely and horribly wrong
I rather like the Inqusition.
and that forcing Jews to choose conversion or death was a disgusting low point in the Catholic church,
You'd have to give more specific examples than these sort of generalizations for me to condemn it. I'm opposed to forcible conversion, but am aware of very few instances of "baptism or death" as the only two options, the primary one being the Saxon Slaughter of Charlemagne.
and until you state that the muslims would be wrong to put Rahman to death for converting to Christianity
Of course they are wrong, but he knew what he was getting into when he embraced the Cross in a hostile land. Any Christian who is unwilling to suffer death for the sake of Christ is unworthy of Christ and His grace. Rahman will be a powerful example of grace and a great intercessor for the salvation of the Mohammedans if he holds up to the Muslim persecution and allows himself to be martyred.
At Damascus, St. Peter Mavimenus, who was killed by some Arabs who visited him in his sickness, because he said to them: "Whoever does not embrace the Christian and Catholic faith is lost, like your false prophet Mohammed." (Roman Martyrology, February 21)
Ping to post 304.
I'm sure Jews wouldn't mind owning up to it if it wasn't such an anti-semetic piece of crap history.
Yes, the Church on some historical occasions gave absolution to soldiers, and she might do so again. It is not a change in doctrine.
Please name your sources. And then read some others. I don't know why I even bother to post to you. Like Hermann, you won't even consider sources that contradict the ones your wedded to. Whatever. Please don't post to me with your nonsense. Especially about some phony 'atrocities you can't close your eyes to' that one convert allegedly did.
And why should I care what any of these self appointed scholars says when the Bible clearly says differently. See Matt 13:55-56
"The founder of Catholicism is Jesus Christ, and to dismiss Catholicism is to call Jesus Christ into question, even if you don't know that you're doing that."
Your assertion is false from the core. Jesus did not found the Catholic Church. Augistine did some three hundred years after Jesus lived and appointed himself as Pope.
Jesus church was founded on Penticost AD30 by the men He had chosen to be His Apostles. Your devotion to the teachings of men is your privilege but don't try to impose that teachings on people who have a personal knowledge of the Bible as well as history.
"Helvidius displayed excessive ignorance in concluding that Mary must have had many sons, because Christ's 'brothers' are sometimes mentioned. . . .Under the word 'brethren' the Hebrews include all cousins and other relations, whatever may be the degree of affinity." --John Calvin, commentaries on Mt. 13:55 and Jn. 7:3."
The literal meaning of the word translated brothers in Matt 13 is "of the same womb." There is another word for cousin. Were Peter and Andrew cousinsJ Were James and John cousins? And what do you with the word "sister" in Matther 13:56? Were these girls also cousins? Where in the Bible do you find the word "sister" translated as cousin? When your "church fathers" or any others for that matter clearly contradict scripture with their tradition they are teaching error. I don't how much esteem you give them.
"The Bible is older than Protestantism"
Amen.
But the Bible is older than the Catholic church as well. New Testament Christians were just that Christians; neither Catholic, nor Protestant nor Jew. Just Christians. Deal with it.
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