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”
It WAS more than that when you consider how many Jews they murdered along the way. Why did they have to do that?
The Crusades where prior to the Muslim forays into Europe.
Most folks along the way, were slaughtered or dispersed. It was about taking booty. And the Crusadering armies by necessity lived on the land. The lines of resupply were non-existent.
More crap. See the Byzantine Empire.
The leaders are well educated. That is always the case. The leaders are entreprenuers.
It was a nasty and brutish time. I just want some evenhandedness, so that the main point, "Islam attacks, Christianity counterattacks" is not transmogrified into "Christians' Murderous Crusades against the loving Muslims."
Or an Islam apology for anything, for that matter. Apology is apparently not a virture of the Islimeites.
You first have to have dialog based on facts and truth. Not propaganda. Propaganda provokes derision, as well it should.
In general I am in sympathy with the Jews and with Israel, but what happened in 1492 was far from one sided.
Ferdinand and Isabella presided over the final days of a struggle that lasted for many centuries: the Reconquista, to reconquer their country and drive the Moors out of Spain, after the Muslim invaders had conquered the entire country except for a few surviving free Spaniards in the mountains.
In 1492, Spain was still threatened by the Muslims of North Africa and by the Turkish fleets. Constantinople had fallen in 1453. Turkish pirates controlled much of the Mediterranean. The coasts of Spain and Italy were raided, and Christian slaves were taken.
Some of the Jews in Spain traded with the Turks. Some of them may have assisted the Turks in their raids and given them information. In the circumstances, a life and death struggle that had gone on for generations against terrible odds, it is understandable that the Spanish were worried about the dangers posed by a Jewish Fifth column. That was basically the reason why they expelled the Jews.
No doubt many or most of the Spanish Jews were innocent of the charge of betraying Spain. But the fears of the Spanish were understandable, I believe. I'm not altogether excusing what happened, but this side of the story is not usually told. The basic motivator was not religious bigotry or racial purity, but a well-founded hatred and fear of the Muslim enemy at the gates and an unwillingness to trust anyone who could not be absolutely relied on.
If you're trying to infer that Joseph was a pedophile, you missed the boat.
I'm not Catholic (or a Christian for that matter) but according to the church's teachings the immaculate conception refers to the conception of Mary...not to the conception of her son.
Since the church teaches that life begins at conception, Mary's life began at the time of the immaculate conception.
Fair enough. That's more history than I knew.
I'm not a believer in intergenerational guilt. I like the Spanish just fine. Our community has a bad recollection of those events which will probabaly not be overcome by historic accuracy, since even in your account, the baby was thrown out with the bathwater.
Also, the Jews had money, which was confiscated by the Spanish state. That was a motivator too. The Spanish King was desperate for money.
You'll only offend your Catholic Christian friends. According to us Protestants, Joseph and Mary did indeed consummate the marriage. Jesus had at least three brothers, James, Jude and Joses, mentioned in the New Testament and the phrase 'do not his sisters live among us?' Catholics say they were cousins/relatives.
Of course, we don't think Mary was "immaculately conceived," but we do believe in the Virgin birth.
Thus the Readers' Digest version of differences between Catholics & Protestants.
Don't forget that the Orthodox agree with the Catholics.
Maybe you haven't seen that version of the story too much because it's a bunch of nonsense. Trying to say the Jews somehow brought their slaughter upon themselves is the same trash talk that's been going on for centuries. The Jews were kicked out of country after country, exploited, forced to leave without property, forbidden to own land or be in guilds in parts of Europe, and in the case of the Crusades, forced to convert or die, then becoming the focus of rage when their conversions were deemed phony (and you'd think the sword would convince them that Christianity was the best religion.) It was all so twisted and shameful. Best to face the truth of history and move on to the present day.
The history revisionists will be deeply saddened.
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.