A
- Status
P
Petergee
Guest
**Quote:
Originally Posted by Petergee
You made the accusation that the despoilers of Constantiniople were not excommunicated. Cite your proof or apologise for the outrageous accusation… **Another made up argument you’re willing to deal with. It seems that much of which I post you ignore, intent on inventing debate and attacking that!
So now you’re no longer disputing that the sackers of Constantinople were immediately excommunicated? Why did you demand “proof” for this well-known historical fact then?I gather that since making that outrageous allegation, you have since looked it up and confirmed you were wrong, but are not man enough to admit you were wrong, so now you deny having ever made the accusation.
I have to say that since experiencing the standard of “debate” by you and several other EOs in this forum, my hitherto high opinion of the EO has been somewhat shaken.
And what relevant points of yours are you accusing me of “ignoring”?
C
Contarini
Guest
I have never heard this last part. Do you know of an instance of a civil authority being excommunicated or threatened with excommunication for failing to inflict the punishment? It is a technicality, but I think it’s an important one, because it shows that in delivering heretics to death the Church was in some sense working against its own principles.
And yet Calvin didn’t advocate burning (he wanted Servetus beheaded). . . . and of course the idea of burning heretics was a Catholic one (though like most of the bad stuff in the High Middle Ages, it seems to have had roots in ancient Roman practice).
Still, it is true that among Protestants Calvinists have been a lot less tolerant than Arminians, generally speaking. Whether Augustinian Catholics have been worse than those of a gentler bent I’m not sure.
Edwin
C
Contarini
Guest
Weren’t they already excommunicated for attacking Zara?
The Pope is to be commended for condemning the sack, but unfortunately he proceeded to recognize the conquest and use it as an opportunity to “reunite” East and West. That is where he can rightly be condemned. But he was certainly not responsible for the initial atrocity.
That may be a stretch, but it was certainly very powerful, and had a habit of thumbing its nose at the Papacy.
Not Urban II, but Montalban may be thinking of the military orders formed in the 12th century.
Edwin
C
Contarini
Guest
I don’t think anyone ever accused Cromwell of being a moderate; I do not know of him massacring Anglican civilians; and Anglicans in the 17th century would definitely have been considered Protestants.
Edwin
V
Vigis
Guest
I started my own thread expressing my own views on the Crusades. I would post my views here on this thread and explain why they were justified, but that would take about 14 or 15 posts, so here is a link to my thread if you would like to read it. I do not want to deter y’all to another thread or anything, but I just thought that it would be better if I just posted a link to something that took about an hour to copy and paste from Word to where I typed it several days ago. Any comments would be appreciated.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=174696
God bless.
Vigis
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=174696
God bless.
Vigis
B
bobzills
Guest
From your previous post:
What happened to the gold and riches stolen by the Catholic Crusaders from the Eastern Orthodox Churches?Vigis said:
P
Petergee
Guest
True, he wasn’t able to give them any further penalty having already given them the church’s capital punishment. IIRC the Pope also, having learnt of their plans to attack Constantinople, gave them strict orders NOT to do so but to proceed directly to the Holy Land, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
Should the EOCs be condemned for recognising the Moslem conquest of Constantinople? Of course not. The Church has to live in the real world and deal with the political facts on the ground, making the best toi draw the good out of a bad situation.
The Crusaders organised these themselves in the Holy Land, the pope didn’t organise them.
P
Petergee
Guest
You’ve got to be kidding. Cromwell certainly did not consider any Anglican (who by definition recognised a church led by bishops and the king) to be a protestant; they were his prime enemy. To take one example, thousands of unarmed civilian lay Anglicans, mostly old men, women and children, had taken refuge in the Anglican church tower at Drogheda. Cromwell ordered his troops to first drag some of them out and literally beat them to death, then set fire to the tower and burn the rest of them alive.
P
Petergee
Guest
They were at least saved from falling into Moslem hands in 1453.
V
Vigis
Guest
I really do not know what happened to it all. It still may be in Catholic hands, but I could be wrong on that.
God bless.
Vigis
C
catholicguy918
Guest
remind the protestants that the monarchy of Spain started the inquisition, not the Pope.
P
Petergee
Guest
Who knows?
We know that many of Venice’s treasures were stolen by Napoleon and taken to France.
Many of France’s treasures were stolen by Bismarck and Hitler and taken to Germany.
Many of Germany’s treasures were stolen by Stalin and taken to the USSR.
God knows what happened to those.
C
Contarini
Guest
I’m sure Cromwell thought Anglicans were insufficiently Protestant. But you assume that treating them as enemies meant that he didn’t think they were Protestants. Anyway, my point was that Anglicans certainly considered themselves as Protestants (a few of the most high-church were beginning to try to distance themselves from the Protestant-Catholic split) and were so considered in Europe generally. The idea that “Anglicans” are not “Protestants” is largely a creation of the 19th-century Anglo-Catholic movement. It’s even a bit misleading to speak of “Anglicans” as distinct from other English Protestants before 1662, but given the destruction of episcopacy and the banning of the BCP during Cromwell’s rule, it’s fair to use “Anglican” to describe those who continued to be faithful to these things.
I didn’t know this–I confess to not knowing a lot about the details of Cromwell’s campaign in Ireland, although I know it was marked by atrocities, which I had thought were directed solely against Catholics. From wikipedia (and no, I don’t claim that wikipedia is necessarily accurate, but it’s a good place for a brief refresher) it appears that “Royalists” in general were massacred, and you are right, that would very likely have included Protestants (“Anglicans”). Wikipedia names St. Peter’s as the church whose steeple was burned, and I see from a google search that this is/was in fact an Anglican church. The only mention I see of someone being beaten to death in the wikipedia article is the commander, who was supposedly killed with his own wooden leg.
So thanks for the information. I still maintain that Anglicans were then (and essentially still are, though since the 19th century it’s more dubious) best described as Protestants and would have been seen as such by themselves and Europeans generally. But I was clearly ignorant of the fact that Cromwell’s atrocities in Ireland were not confined to Catholics.
Edwin
C
Contarini
Guest
That’s very different, obviously, since the Orthodox have no authority over the Muslims. You’re comparing apples and oranges. The Pope could have ordered the Crusaders to return the conquered territories to the Byzantine Empire as a condition of lifting the excommunication. He could have put an interdict on all the conquered lands instead of acknowledging them as legitimately Catholic territory, which he did. He could have refused to recognize the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople in any way.
I recognize that in the 13th-century religious climate these actions would have been difficult if not inconceivable. I respect Innocent for excommunicating the Crusaders in the first place and I do not question his sincere moral outrage and what they did. But ideally this is what the Pope should have done, and if he had then perhaps East and West would be united today. (But admittedly this is pure speculation.)
Edwin
C
Contarini
Guest
The Spanish Inquisition. The word “Inquisition” is also used for medieval church courts established by the papacy and using Roman law to hunt down heresy. And of course there is the Roman Inquisition established by Pope Paul IV in the sixteenth century.
But you are right that the Papacy resisted the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition and protested its brutality.
Edwin
B
bobzills
Guest
I read somewhere that some of the treasures were placed in Catholic Churches in the West, such as St. Mark’s in Venice. I don;t see the justification for Catholic Crusaders to forcibly steal artifacts from Eastern Orthodox Churches and place them in Catholic Churches. Why would Catholic Churches accept these stolen items to be placed in their Churches?
V
Vigis
Guest
It is never justified to steal in those circumstances. Besides that what were they to do with them? Leave them in the hands of those in Constnatinople who ravished the city and enjoyed prostitutes dancing on the alter of the Hagia Sophia? After what had been done I could not think of a safer place to take them to other than the West. Nevertheless they should not have been stolen from Constantinople even if it was unsafe there.
God speed.
Vigis
B
bobzills
Guest
Basically, that is what I was thinking. That’s why I see the Fourth Crusade as a terrible disaster for the Church.
P
Petergee
Guest
He may well have done so. I’m not aware of any record that the excommunication was ever revoked. But the Crusaders had quickly moved on to the Holy Land as the Pope ordered, or else gone home. The Venetian soldiers and administrators who set up the Venetian state at Constantinople were not Crusaders.
- Status