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viktor_aleksndr
Guest
Have you heard a non catholic saying that Catholics are killers (based on history) for they killed lots of people during the crusade in the Holy Land?
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cheddarsox
Guest
Yes, I have heard that, and the same concerning the inquisition and the attacks on groups of heretics etc. History is ugly, there is virtually no group of people, and no person who’s ancestory does not have blood on its hands.
cheddar
cheddar
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Scott_Waddell
Guest
The one’s making the assertion need to show that Catholics are more likely to kill than other people. That is quite a stretch considering the wholesale murder in 20th century by Soviets, Nazi’s, etc.
Scott
Scott
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Franze
Guest
Muslims have killed more christian armenians that all muslims killed in the crusades. Crusades were also a defensive war. We can now boycott them, but those times are different.
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NotWorthy
Guest
Viktor,
Look at who’s publishing this information. Do they address how many Catholics were killed in Germany by the Lutherans? Do they address how the Church of England helped squelsh the Catholics in Scotland and Ireland. We’re only talking a couple of hundred years ago. How long ago were the crusades? 800-900 years ago?
Think about it: How many wars have been fought by Christians in the last two hundred years “In the Name of God”? WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War? Nope, not there. The only wholesale killing in the “name of God” can be attributed to those Muslims in Africa, the Mideast, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia.
Is 800 years soon enough to start “getting over it”?
NotWorthy
Look at who’s publishing this information. Do they address how many Catholics were killed in Germany by the Lutherans? Do they address how the Church of England helped squelsh the Catholics in Scotland and Ireland. We’re only talking a couple of hundred years ago. How long ago were the crusades? 800-900 years ago?
Think about it: How many wars have been fought by Christians in the last two hundred years “In the Name of God”? WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War? Nope, not there. The only wholesale killing in the “name of God” can be attributed to those Muslims in Africa, the Mideast, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia.
Is 800 years soon enough to start “getting over it”?
NotWorthy
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NotWorthy
Guest
It may be interesting to note that there were numerous examples of people on secular trial in Europe who would often plead to be handed over to Ecclesiastical Courts for their trials. Why would this be, considering how brutal the Inquisition was?
Could it be that historians with an agenda may have schewed some of the facts in order to sway public opinion? Nahhhhhhh!
NotWorthy
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Maranatha
Guest
Let’s follow their logic. Some Catholics took part in the Crusades. The Crusades were war. During war there is killing. Therefore, all Catholics are killers.
nuf said.
nuf said.
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UnworthySoul
Guest
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Fidelis
Guest
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But_for_Grace
Guest
The crusades took place before the reformation so weren’t the protestants still part of the catholic church at that time and hence are not modern day protestants as guilty as modern day catholics
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Eden
Guest
Medieval historian, Thomas F. Madden has articles on both the Crusades and the Inquisition. About the Crusades:
full article here: nationalreview.com/comment/comment-madden110201.shtml
The crusades were in every way a defensive war. They were the West’s belated response to the Muslim conquest of fully two-thirds of the Christian world. While the Arabs were busy in the seventh through the tenth centuries winning an opulent and sophisticated empire, Europe was defending itself against outside invaders and then digging out from the mess they left behind. Only in the eleventh century were Europeans able to take much notice of the East. The event that led to the crusades was the Turkish conquest of most of Christian Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The Christian emperor in Constantinople, faced with the loss of half of his empire, appealed for help to the rude but energetic Europeans. He got it. More than he wanted, in fact.
Pope Urban II called the First Crusade in 1095. Despite modern laments about medieval colonialism, the crusade’s real purpose was to turn back Muslim conquests and restore formerly Christian lands to Christian control. The entire history of the crusades is one of Western reaction to Muslim advances. The crusades were no more offensive than was the American invasion of Normandy. As it happened, the First Crusade was amazingly, almost miraculously, successful. The crusaders marched hundreds of miles deep into enemy territory and recaptured not only the lost cities of Nicaea and Antioch, but in 1099 Jerusalem itself.
The smart money was all on Islam as the wave of the future.
Of course, that is not how it turned out. But surprisingly the rise of the West was not the result of any military victory against Muslims. Indeed, the Ottoman Empire survived largely intact until the end of World War I. Instead, something completely new and totally unpredictable was happening in Europe. A new civilization, built on the old to be sure, was forming around ideas like individualism and capitalism. Europeans expanded on a global scale, leaving behind the Mediterranean world, seeking to understand and explore the entire planet. Great wealth in a commercial economy led to a fundamental change in almost every aspect of Western life, culminating in industrialization. The Enlightenment turned Western attention away from Heaven and toward the things of this world. Soon religion in the West became simply a matter of personal preference. Crusades became unthinkable — a foolishness of a civilization’s childhood.
As for the Islamic world, it was left behind.
Which brings us back to the crusades. If the Muslims won the crusades (and they did), why the anger now? Shouldn’t they celebrate the crusades as a great victory? Until the nineteenth century that is precisely what they did. It was the West that taught the Middle East to hate the crusades. During the peak of European colonialism, historians began extolling the medieval crusades as Europe’s first colonial venture. By the 20th century, when imperialism was discredited, so too were the crusades. They haven’t been the same since. In other words, Muslims in the Middle East — including bin Laden and his creatures — know as little about the real crusades as Americans do. Both view them in the context of the modern, rather than the medieval world. The truth is that the crusades had nothing to do with colonialism or unprovoked aggression. They were a desperate and largely unsuccessful attempt to defend against a powerful enemy.
full article here: nationalreview.com/comment/comment-madden110201.shtml
The crusades were in every way a defensive war. They were the West’s belated response to the Muslim conquest of fully two-thirds of the Christian world. While the Arabs were busy in the seventh through the tenth centuries winning an opulent and sophisticated empire, Europe was defending itself against outside invaders and then digging out from the mess they left behind. Only in the eleventh century were Europeans able to take much notice of the East. The event that led to the crusades was the Turkish conquest of most of Christian Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The Christian emperor in Constantinople, faced with the loss of half of his empire, appealed for help to the rude but energetic Europeans. He got it. More than he wanted, in fact.
Pope Urban II called the First Crusade in 1095. Despite modern laments about medieval colonialism, the crusade’s real purpose was to turn back Muslim conquests and restore formerly Christian lands to Christian control. The entire history of the crusades is one of Western reaction to Muslim advances. The crusades were no more offensive than was the American invasion of Normandy. As it happened, the First Crusade was amazingly, almost miraculously, successful. The crusaders marched hundreds of miles deep into enemy territory and recaptured not only the lost cities of Nicaea and Antioch, but in 1099 Jerusalem itself.
The smart money was all on Islam as the wave of the future.
Of course, that is not how it turned out. But surprisingly the rise of the West was not the result of any military victory against Muslims. Indeed, the Ottoman Empire survived largely intact until the end of World War I. Instead, something completely new and totally unpredictable was happening in Europe. A new civilization, built on the old to be sure, was forming around ideas like individualism and capitalism. Europeans expanded on a global scale, leaving behind the Mediterranean world, seeking to understand and explore the entire planet. Great wealth in a commercial economy led to a fundamental change in almost every aspect of Western life, culminating in industrialization. The Enlightenment turned Western attention away from Heaven and toward the things of this world. Soon religion in the West became simply a matter of personal preference. Crusades became unthinkable — a foolishness of a civilization’s childhood.
As for the Islamic world, it was left behind.
Which brings us back to the crusades. If the Muslims won the crusades (and they did), why the anger now? Shouldn’t they celebrate the crusades as a great victory? Until the nineteenth century that is precisely what they did. It was the West that taught the Middle East to hate the crusades. During the peak of European colonialism, historians began extolling the medieval crusades as Europe’s first colonial venture. By the 20th century, when imperialism was discredited, so too were the crusades. They haven’t been the same since. In other words, Muslims in the Middle East — including bin Laden and his creatures — know as little about the real crusades as Americans do. Both view them in the context of the modern, rather than the medieval world. The truth is that the crusades had nothing to do with colonialism or unprovoked aggression. They were a desperate and largely unsuccessful attempt to defend against a powerful enemy.
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Eden
Guest
Thomas F. Madden on the Inquisition:
The Inquisition was not born out of desire to crush diversity or oppress people; it was rather an attempt to stop unjust executions. Yes, you read that correctly. Heresy was a crime against the state. Roman law in the Code of Justinian made it a capital offense. Rulers, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did common people, who saw them as dangerous outsiders who would bring down divine wrath. When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig or damaged shrubbery (really, it was a serious crime in England). **Yet in contrast to those crimes, it was not so easy to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. For starters, one needed some basic theological training — something most medieval lords sorely lacked. The result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent assessment of the validity of the charge. **
**The Catholic Church’s response to this problem was the Inquisition, first instituted by Pope Lucius III in 1184. **It was born out of a need to provide fair trials for accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges. From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the king and therefore deserved death. From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the pope and bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them. So, while medieval secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls. The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community.
As this new report confirms, most people accused of heresy by the Inquisition were either acquitted or their sentences suspended. Those found guilty of grave error were allowed to confess their sin, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ. The underlying assumption of the Inquisition was that, like lost sheep, heretics had simply strayed. If, however, an inquisitor determined that a particular sheep had purposely left the flock, there was nothing more that could be done. Unrepentant or obstinate heretics were excommunicated and given over to secular authorities. Despite popular myth, the Inquisition did not burn heretics. It was the secular authorities that held heresy to be a capital offense, not the Church. The simple fact is that the medieval Inquisition saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.
The Inquisition was not born out of desire to crush diversity or oppress people; it was rather an attempt to stop unjust executions. Yes, you read that correctly. Heresy was a crime against the state. Roman law in the Code of Justinian made it a capital offense. Rulers, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did common people, who saw them as dangerous outsiders who would bring down divine wrath. When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig or damaged shrubbery (really, it was a serious crime in England). **Yet in contrast to those crimes, it was not so easy to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. For starters, one needed some basic theological training — something most medieval lords sorely lacked. The result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent assessment of the validity of the charge. **
**The Catholic Church’s response to this problem was the Inquisition, first instituted by Pope Lucius III in 1184. **It was born out of a need to provide fair trials for accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges. From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the king and therefore deserved death. From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the pope and bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them. So, while medieval secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls. The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community.
As this new report confirms, most people accused of heresy by the Inquisition were either acquitted or their sentences suspended. Those found guilty of grave error were allowed to confess their sin, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ. The underlying assumption of the Inquisition was that, like lost sheep, heretics had simply strayed. If, however, an inquisitor determined that a particular sheep had purposely left the flock, there was nothing more that could be done. Unrepentant or obstinate heretics were excommunicated and given over to secular authorities. Despite popular myth, the Inquisition did not burn heretics. It was the secular authorities that held heresy to be a capital offense, not the Church. The simple fact is that the medieval Inquisition saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.
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Semper_Fi_1
Guest
Catholics had no choice during the crusades. During the crusades we were facing the Ottoman Empire which was conquering Europe and Constantinople… Become a Muslim, or die! Sounds like today doesn’t it? Now, what about the Protestant Crusades? Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
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brotherhrolf
Guest
Ask them about the fun and merriment of the Thirty Years War in protestant Germany! See them try and explain that.
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
Semper Fi:
The Ottomans don’t predate the 14th century. The activities of Muslims during the 8th century and later are too complex to be ascribed to any one Muslim regime: it would be like saying that the USA was responsible for the Renaissance
Many Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire had dhimmi status - they weren’t killed; they were “second-class citizens”. Spain and Portugal, by contrast, eventually got round to expelling their Muslim populations.
There were no Protestant crusades, unless one is prepared to call analogous mass movements in Catholicism “crusades” - prohibition in the USA in the 1920s might be called a “crusade”, conceivably: but if we’re talking about imperialism and expansion, than we have to speak of a Belgian “crusade” in the Congo - Belgian attitudes to the Congolese blacks were so brutal that they caused an international outcry. ##
The Ottomans don’t predate the 14th century. The activities of Muslims during the 8th century and later are too complex to be ascribed to any one Muslim regime: it would be like saying that the USA was responsible for the Renaissance 
Many Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire had dhimmi status - they weren’t killed; they were “second-class citizens”. Spain and Portugal, by contrast, eventually got round to expelling their Muslim populations.There were no Protestant crusades, unless one is prepared to call analogous mass movements in Catholicism “crusades” - prohibition in the USA in the 1920s might be called a “crusade”, conceivably: but if we’re talking about imperialism and expansion, than we have to speak of a Belgian “crusade” in the Congo - Belgian attitudes to the Congolese blacks were so brutal that they caused an international outcry. ##
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Semper_Fi_1
Guest
Gottle of Geer:
what about the forced conversions of natives, the massive killing of the natives, enslavement of Africans (supposedly Biblical)… etc… All done by protestants. Why do you think most of South Africa, Zimbabwe, etc is Christian now even though the countries themselves are mostly black? Protestant Imperialism has done much more than Roman “Imperialism” to any group.
hm, you just don’t want to call them crusades
what about the forced conversions of natives, the massive killing of the natives, enslavement of Africans (supposedly Biblical)… etc… All done by protestants. Why do you think most of South Africa, Zimbabwe, etc is Christian now even though the countries themselves are mostly black? Protestant Imperialism has done much more than Roman “Imperialism” to any group.
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Traditional_Ang
Guest
viktor aleksndr:
The Crusades were a response to bloody aggression by the Islamic Empire which, you should recall had closed off Jerusalem to ALL Christian Pilgrims. and, The final Crusade should never have been done since they were relying on flimsy sources of financing, including a the loser in a Civil War for the Byzantine Empire. That whole episode was over 700 years ago.
If this is what you have to do to maintain the Orthodox Faith, you’ve lost the argument and possibly even your faith. I know that most of the other Orthodox here would not resort to anything like this. and, If you’re a Protestant trying to
Viktor, The Bible doesn’t say “Some have fallen short!” It ways that “All have fallen short and need the grace of God!” We are all made in the Icon of God, but we’ve all defaced and damaged it terribly.
That’s why you need your Orthodox Faith, And I my Catholic Faith.
Viktor:
The Crusades were a response to bloody aggression by the Islamic Empire which, you should recall had closed off Jerusalem to ALL Christian Pilgrims. and, The final Crusade should never have been done since they were relying on flimsy sources of financing, including a the loser in a Civil War for the Byzantine Empire. That whole episode was over 700 years ago.
If this is what you have to do to maintain the Orthodox Faith, you’ve lost the argument and possibly even your faith. I know that most of the other Orthodox here would not resort to anything like this. and, If you’re a Protestant trying to
Viktor, The Bible doesn’t say “Some have fallen short!” It ways that “All have fallen short and need the grace of God!” We are all made in the Icon of God, but we’ve all defaced and damaged it terribly.
That’s why you need your Orthodox Faith, And I my Catholic Faith.
L
Liberian
Guest
viktor aleksndr:
Much of what passes for history nowadays is one-sided propaganda. Can you imagine a future history of American policy in the Middle East in the early 21st century that didn’t mention September 11, 2001? That’s about what we have in most popular histories of the Crusades.
Viktor,
Much of what passes for history nowadays is one-sided propaganda. Can you imagine a future history of American policy in the Middle East in the early 21st century that didn’t mention September 11, 2001? That’s about what we have in most popular histories of the Crusades.
- Liberian
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Cubsfan
Guest
Semper Fi:
Lets not forget that it was a predominantly Protestant United States that sent the Cheerokees on the trail of tears to Oklahoma. The treatment of the indigenous populations by Catholic Spain (though far from perfect) was far better then the protestants and their treatments of the native populations.hm, you just don’t want to call them crusades
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