Albigensian Crusade

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Hey everyone. My friend, Peter, who is a former Roman Catholic has an objection to the Catholic Church. He says that the Catholics in the crusade against the Albigensians destroyed a whole town and killed everyone there all because a small group of heretics was hiding there. He seems to think that this makes the Catholic Church wrong. I told him that the actions of a few do not condemn an entire Church. His main objection is that he thinks the crusades were organized by the Church as a whole. How do I counter this? 🤷
 
The heaviest violence was in the Languedoc town of Beziers with all inhabitants killed. The struggle while religious at first became extremely political because nobles saw the crusades as an opportunity to expand their lands as promised by the Pope and gain greater wealth. The kings of France that were involved saw it as a way to increase royal authority over rival nobles such as Raymond VI of Toulouse and to take care of a religious problem that threatened stability in France. There was also a belief in this time of the need to preserve Christendom. The Albigensians posed a serious threat to Christendom if it were allowed to spread beyond southern France.
 
mjs1987 said:
The heaviest violence was in the Languedoc town of Beziers with all inhabitants killed. The struggle while religious at first became extremely political because nobles saw the crusades as an opportunity to expand their lands as promised by the Pope and gain greater wealth. The kings of France that were involved saw it as a way to increase royal authority over rival nobles such as Raymond VI of Toulouse and to take care of a religious problem that threatened stability in France. There was also a belief in this time of the need to preserve Christendom. The Albigensians posed a serious threat to Christendom if it were allowed to spread beyond southern France.
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Thank you for this information but it really does not help me to answer him.
 
Holly3278 said:
Hey everyone. My friend, Peter, who is a former Roman Catholic has an objection to the Catholic Church. He says that the Catholics in the crusade against the Albigensians destroyed a whole town and killed everyone there all because a small group of heretics was hiding there. He seems to think that this makes the Catholic Church wrong. I told him that the actions of a few do not condemn an entire Church. His main objection is that he thinks the crusades were organized by the Church as a whole. How do I counter this? 🤷
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That’s not really that surprising. We always try to judge history by standards we have today, but you can’t do that.

Given that it was the 13th Century, that was pretty much the SOP. You should read what the English and French did to each other in the Hundred Years’ War (hint: it heavily involved pillaging). When people talk about war not being pretty these days, it pales in comparison to how brutal and terrible it was in the early 2nd Millennia. Now, that’s not to say that it’s justifiable or that we shouldn’t say what they did was wrong, but you have to look at it in context. That’s how war was fought back then and that’s all they knew. Society likes to look back and think it was so romantic and chivalristic, but all that’s been greatly overblown (for an example, look at the account of the Battle of Agincourt as given in Shakespeare’s Henry V versus the account given in Bernard Cornwell’s Azincourt. I would bet that Cornwell’s darker and peasant dominated version is closer to the truth than Shakespeare’s tale of nobility).
 
Dr. Warren H. Carroll covered the Albigensian Crusade in one of his History of Christendom volumes; I can’t recall if it was volume two or three, but I’ll post again when I can check my copies.

I highly recommend his research on this because it exposes the Cathars for what they were - not just an extra-Christian religion but a dangerous source of anti-life perversity. Since bringing new life into the world was deemed wicked (as the flesh was believed to be inherently evil), heterosexual intercourse was forbidden, and homosexuality, bestiality, and suicide were considered preferable. The Cathars, though perhaps meaning well, promoted a seriously deranged and socially dangerous cult that threatened the social order that the Church worked for centuries to build and maintain. If that order were toppled, civilization itself would follow it.

Your friend will have to learn to view history not with modernist, humanistic eyes but with eyes of truth, as cold and seemingly unfair as the truth oftentimes is. The facts are that not every religion is peaceful and nice and the Church is just a bunch of mean old men looking to make everyone serve them. He has to be willing to think outside the box, question modernist authority, and dare to be different if he wants to understand history, most especially that of the Church.
 
Holly3278 said:
Hey everyone. My friend, Peter, who is a former Roman Catholic has an objection to the Catholic Church. He says that the Catholics in the crusade against the Albigensians destroyed a whole town and killed everyone there all because a small group of heretics was hiding there. He seems to think that this makes the Catholic Church wrong. I told him that the actions of a few do not condemn an entire Church. His main objection is that he thinks the crusades were organized by the Church as a whole. How do I counter this? 🤷
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Well, I would begin by reminding him that the Crusades were not a matter of doctrine, but discipline. And the Church is not a museum of Saints but a hospital for sinners. Even the Apostles, whom Jesus hand-picked, sinned. Judas betrayed Him for 30 pieces of silver; Peter denied Him three times; the rest, except for St. John, deserted Him in His passion and death like cowards.

The Church has never been guaranteed to be correct in matters of discipline. It has only been guaranteed to be correct in matters of doctrine/faith.

His objection, and subsequent schism from the Church, is based on the wrong footing. Based on his criteria, no one should be Christian of any kind, ever. And that’s entirely wrong.
 
If individual soldiers, or units, or even generals, go around committing atrocities, the individual groups or persons are punished for war crimes. An entire nation is not, unless you can find that the atrocities were a matter of national policy at that time. Individuals can attempt to wrap up their acts in political or religious trappings all they want; but that isn’t something that people believe, unless there’s evidence that the political group or religion actually advocates that as a policy.

There are policemen who are cruel and corrupt. I doubt your friend would insist that we stop having police for that reason.
 
Holly3278 said:
Hey everyone. My friend, Peter, who is a former Roman Catholic has an objection to the Catholic Church. He says that the Catholics in the crusade against the Albigensians destroyed a whole town and killed everyone there all because a small group of heretics was hiding there. He seems to think that this makes the Catholic Church wrong. I told him that the actions of a few do not condemn an entire Church. His main objection is that he thinks the crusades were organized by the Church as a whole. How do I counter this? 🤷
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I think that it’s tricky to assess responsibility, as, like in any complex event, there are multiple players and the situation is dynamic.

However, I think that there are two components that are quite damning to Pope Innocent III in this event. First, in the earlier 2nd Crusade, Bernard of Clairvaux (one of the organizers of the Crusade) was upset with the local population’s slaughter of Jews, contrary to the intent of the Crusade. (Lesson: Careful when you whip people into a frenzy!) And in the Fourth Crusade (also organized by Innocent III), the Crusaders again misbehaved… by sacking Constantinope: also not in the original plan.

Secondly, he allocated indulgences to those who participated in the Albigensian Crusade.

So, certainly the Pope and Church shares culpability here. I’m glad to see that the Catholic reference article cited earlier in this thread acknowledges this and doesn’t attempt to whitewash it.
 
Scoobyshme said:
The Church has never been guaranteed to be correct in matters of discipline. It has only been guaranteed to be correct in matters of doctrine/faith.
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That’s a curious point. I’m not familiar enough with indulgences to know… can they be granted for discipline, for matters outside the church? I would have assumed that the granting of indulgences has to do with matters of faith (for example, you can get a partial indulgence for reading the BIble, can’t you?)
 
curlycool89 said:
That’s not really that surprising. We always try to judge history by standards we have today, but you can’t do that.

Given that it was the 13th Century, that was pretty much the SOP. You should read what the English and French did to each other in the Hundred Years’ War (hint: it heavily involved pillaging). When people talk about war not being pretty these days, it pales in comparison to how brutal and terrible it was in the early 2nd Millennia. Now, that’s not to say that it’s justifiable or that we shouldn’t say what they did was wrong, but you have to look at it in context. That’s how war was fought back then and that’s all they knew. Society likes to look back and think it was so romantic and chivalristic, but all that’s been greatly overblown (for an example, look at the account of the Battle of Agincourt as given in Shakespeare’s Henry V versus the account given in Bernard Cornwell’s Azincourt. I would bet that Cornwell’s darker and peasant dominated version is closer to the truth than Shakespeare’s tale of nobility).
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I think that you may be missing the point. No one is questioning that “bad things happen”. I think the OP is trying to gauge what role the Church played in this particular “bad thing”. I think that your explanation seems a bit casual, considering that whole towns (including women and children) were slaughtered under a papal banner.
 
Major_Tom said:
That’s a curious point. I’m not familiar enough with indulgences to know… can they be granted for discipline, for matters outside the church? I would have assumed that the granting of indulgences has to do with matters of faith (for example, you can get a partial indulgence for reading the BIble, can’t you?)
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Not all indulgences are to do with faith per-cey. I believe for example that there’s an indulgence for attending World Youth Day. There’s also ones that can be gained on special occasions (for example on the Solemnity of Christ the King). To gain an indulgence, one does have to go to confession, receive the Eucharist, and pray for the Pope’s intentions though.
Major_Tom said:
I think that you may be missing the point. No one is questioning that “bad things happen”. I think the OP is trying to gauge what role the Church played in this particular “bad thing”. I think that your explanation seems a bit casual, considering that whole towns (including women and children) were slaughtered under a papal banner.
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And towns were raped, burned, pillaged, and decimated by both the English and French during the Hundred Years’ War (the French in Soissons, a number of towns by the English, also the bloody prisoner slaughter at Azincourt), and during the war between the English and the Vikings. Is it bad? Yes, but you have to look at it in context. That’s how war was fought by everyone back then. That was considered a normal part of war. That’s just the way it was.

It’s not like society grew out of it very quickly. Similar things happened during the American Civil War and even during Vietnam. People who think that war is gentlemanly and clean are totally out to lunch.
 
Scoobyshme said:
Well, I would begin by reminding him that the Crusades were not a matter of doctrine, but discipline. And the Church is not a museum of Saints but a hospital for sinners. Even the Apostles, whom Jesus hand-picked, sinned. Judas betrayed Him for 30 pieces of silver; Peter denied Him three times; the rest, except for St. John, deserted Him in His passion and death like cowards.

The Church has never been guaranteed to be correct in matters of discipline. It has only been guaranteed to be correct in matters of doctrine/faith.
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So, the Church can be wrong in matters of discipline, and the Crusades were a matter of discipline. Do you think that the Church did, indeed, do anything wrong during this Crusade?
 
I think the best illustration is this.

The Militant Church is not a lounge for saints, it is a hospital for sinners and sometimes it has desperately sick members (if not always).

-Prophecy
 
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