How do you handle the inevitable Crusades and Inquisition charges?

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Some good reading on the Inquisition:

The Spanish Inquisition : A Historical Revision

Inquisition and Society in Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Also:

Inquisition
by [Edward M. Peters](http://www.allbookstores.com/browse/Author/Peters, Edward M.)

Inquisition From Its Establishment to the Great Schism: An Introductory Study
by [A. L. Maycock](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=A. L. Maycock/104-4740257-0964744), [Ronald Knox](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Ronald Knox/104-4740257-0964744)

Church, Religion And Society In Early Modern Spain
by Helen Rawlings
 
The Holy Crusades and the Holy Inquisition were both great things. I would suggest for the Inquisition: “Why Apologize for the Spanish Inquisition?” which shows the errors in “history” produced by the anti-Catholics.

As far as philosophy behind the Inquisition itself, see St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa II, II, 11, iii: newadvent.org/summa/301103.htm
 
Oh, and as far as Galileo and the Inquisition, I would suggest this month’s edition of Catholic Family News, which has a great article on it. I would check back here: cfnews.org/cfn.htm to see if a link to the article is made available when the Decemeber information is put up.
 
Did I understsnd someone to blame the inquisiion on Evangelical’s Sola Scriptura?

The number of innocent people harmed by the inquisition were not that large (Although one was too many).

Moslems invaded the holy land and europe 300 years before the curssades with mor attrocities than were ever thought of by the crusaders.

The victims of secular states are much larger than posted above; I would argue that the total is well over 100 million souls.

condemning Christians (and Evangelicals are included in this) for these things is a red herring.

People just won’t accept the truth. Catholics, when you are right (however rare that might be) ( 🙂 ) Proclaim the truth!!!
 
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CatholicCrusade:
The Holy Crusades and the Holy Inquisition were both great things.
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Surely you jest 😦
Do you really believe the sack of Constantinople, the murder, looting and destruction of a christian city (no it was not under moslem control back then) was a great thing :rolleyes:
 
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prodromos:
Surely you jest 😦
Do you really believe the sack of Constantinople, the murder, looting and destruction of a christian city (no it was not under moslem control back then) was a great thing :rolleyes:
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Prodomos,

Please go back and read the whole thread. IN GENERAL, the Crusades WERE great things. It was an attempt by Christendom to retake its holiest of sites. In specifics, there were atrocities, and the sack of Constantinople is one of them, but that does not mean that the whole of the Crusades was a bad thing.
Just as a single event (or many) in a person’s life doesn’t condemn utterly if forgiveness is sought and ways are changed, we should not judge the whole of the crusades on the low points alone.

Hail Mary, full of grace…

Viking44
 
First, I keep a folder on the topic of “Inquisition and Crusades” in my hardrive, containing many short, pointed articles that are hard to find on the net, along with many links, such as the excellent ones that have been posted here.

Then, if the subject comes up, I say, “I am prepared to prove to you, with reliable, authoritive information exposing the truths and fallacies of either the Inquisition or the Crusades, if you are prepared to discuss what Protestant historians say about the 150,000 “witches” burned at the stake by fanatical reformers. I am also prepared to do a comparative head count, since that seems to be your interest.”

Ask this question:
Why hasn’t the Catholic Church propagated to the same intensity about the Protestant Inquisition in order to discredit the reformers?

(A: The Catholic Church has nothing to prove, formally speaking. Truth does not demand to discredit anyone to support it, or its not truth. Truth will stand by virtue of itself, or its not truth. Those who seek to disprove in order to prove THEIR truth, are self-defeating.)

The subject of the Inquisition and the Crusades is nothing more than a means of persecuting the Church by taking events out of their historical and social context, blowing out of proportion the sins of a few, with anti-Catholics making unqualified quotes from other unqualified anti-Catholics. It continues for one reason, anti-Catholicism is a money maker, capitalizing on the fear and ignorance of innocent sheep who have no shepherd.
 
In general, a thought that hit me today at public worship, while we were looking at something in Exodus 32, was that Moses commanded the Levites to kill “every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor” and they killed about 3,000 men that day. WOW!!

Ok, they were put to death for idolatry and their sinfulness, and they were people that had not too long previously swore their fidelity to God and His Law (Exodus 19:7,8).

So, obviously the analogy to Inquisition is limited, but I think that you pro-Inquisition people will like considering having that Scripture in your mind, and you anti-Inquisition people will despise any Scriptural support for such an atrocity.
 
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kepha1:
First, I keep a folder on the topic of “Inquisition and Crusades” in my hardrive, containing many short, pointed articles that are hard to find on the net, along with many links, such as the excellent ones that have been posted here.

Then, if the subject comes up, I say, “I am prepared to prove to you, with reliable, authoritive information exposing the truths and fallacies of either the Inquisition or the Crusades, if you are prepared to discuss what Protestant historians say about the 150,000 “witches” burned at the stake by fanatical reformers. I am also prepared to do a comparative head count, since that seems to be your interest.”

Ask this question:
Why hasn’t the Catholic Church propagated to the same intensity about the Protestant Inquisition in order to discredit the reformers?

(A: The Catholic Church has nothing to prove, formally speaking. Truth does not demand to discredit anyone to support it, or its not truth. Truth will stand by virtue of itself, or its not truth. Those who seek to disprove in order to prove THEIR truth, are self-defeating.)

The subject of the Inquisition and the Crusades is nothing more than a means of persecuting the Church by taking events out of their historical and social context, blowing out of proportion the sins of a few, with anti-Catholics making unqualified quotes from other unqualified anti-Catholics. It continues for one reason, anti-Catholicism is a money maker, capitalizing on the fear and ignorance of innocent sheep who have no shepherd.
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Good ammo against protestants, but my problem is atheists and agnostics that dismiss all religion outright. I don’t even know any protestants.
 
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caroljm36:
Good ammo against protestants, but my problem is atheists and agnostics that dismiss all religion outright. I don’t even know any protestants.
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First you need to quash any bogus figures they come up with. Kamen, in his book the Spanish Inquisition shows that in its 400 year history, the inquisition killed less than 5,000 people, most of them under Torquemada in the 1480s-1520s.

It’s a similar story with witches. The Inquisition killed very few witches. Most were killed by secular courts, and all across Europe, Catholic and protestant, the figure was in thousands.

Ask them to consider (and justify) how many people have been killed by Atheists and “freethinkers” in say:

French Revolution (close to 1,000,000)
Under Stalin and Lenin (6,000,000)
Under Mao (at least 6,000,000)
Under Pol Pot (1-2,000,000)
Even under the anti-Christian Hitler. (6,000,000)

The fact is that whenever Atheist regimes have come to power they seem to inevitably start killing by the Million. Probably because they have no absolute moral core to forbid mass killings. What is “good for the state” is the final morality.

As for the Crusades: they were a defensive war against an expansionist Islam that would have overrun all Europe. And there were far worse massacres of Christians by Muslims (upublicised of course) like at Antioch, which never recovered, than Vice Versa.
 
Dear Prodomos,

Do you blame the Catholic Church for the atrocities on Constantinople?

Do you blame Catholics for the atrocities on Constantinople?

Do you blame evil men for the atrocities on Constantinople?

Do other groups or persons have equal blame in the atrocities in Constantinople?

God bless,

Greg
 
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caroljm36:
Good ammo against protestants, but my problem is atheists and agnostics that dismiss all religion outright. I don’t even know any protestants.
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Anti-religionists have a hard time admitting that the Roman Inquisition was far fairer than any of the secular courts of the day, or that the heretics of the day were as disruptive of the society of the time as terrorists are today. French secularists are now discovering to their dismay that radical muslims cannot not be assimilated to their values. The Albi were as intolerant of Catholic beliefs as today’s Muslims are, and as Cardinal Lehmann of Germany has recently said, no dialogue between Christians and Muslims is possible today. Christian aid workers in Afghanistan who dare even to mention Jesus to Muslims are threatened with death, which is the fate of any Muslim who should ecide to become a Christian. The French are dismayed to learn–as surely they must–that men of the same mindset are walking the streets of Paris and speaking good French. One of these days they will understand the predicament of a rational and compasionate man like Dominic(no more a bigot than his son in faith, St. Thomas), who ran head on into this diabolical certainty. St. Thomas indeed addressed his Summa Gentiles to Muslims, but they were Muslims such as Averroes, with whom he shared a common interest in Greek Science. But such men were rare in Islam even in those days, and today they remain silent as their co-religionists show their contempt for all beliefs contrary to the most primitive form of Islam.
 
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chagen44:
Please go back and read the whole thread. IN GENERAL, the Crusades WERE great things. It was an attempt by Christendom to retake its holiest of sites. In specifics, there were atrocities, and the sack of Constantinople is one of them, but that does not mean that the whole of the Crusades was a bad thing.
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Actually, all but the first crusade were dismal failures, none of them acheiving what they set out to do, and the first crusaders massacred not only Moslems but Jews as well. How can anybody seriously call the crusades great things?

John
 
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GAssisi:
Do you blame the Catholic Church for the atrocities on Constantinople?

Do you blame Catholics for the atrocities on Constantinople?

Do you blame evil men for the atrocities on Constantinople?

Do other groups or persons have equal blame in the atrocities in Constantinople?
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I blame evil men, Greg, however I also hold the Pope of the time responsible for trying to take advantage of the situation instead of making restitution. The Vatican and Catholic churches of Venice certainly did not refuse the wealth that was brought to them, wealth obtained by looting churches and houses of Constantinople.
 
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prodromos:
Actually, all but the first crusade were dismal failures, none of them acheiving what they set out to do, and the first crusaders massacred not only Moslems but Jews as well. How can anybody seriously call the crusades great things?
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But what would have happened if there’d been no crusades? Surely the Muslims would have poured into Europe in the 1100s and 1200s, and Christianity would have been totally overrun.
I blame evil men, Greg, however I also hold the Pope of the time responsible for trying to take advantage of the situation instead of making restitution.
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The attack on Constantinople took place against the wishes of the Pope. Details are described in Schaff’s History of the Christian Church.
ccel.org/s/schaff/history/5_ch07.htm

The crusading forces mustered at Venice. The fleet was ready, but the Crusaders were short of funds, and able to pay only 50,000 marks of the stipulated sum. Dandolo took advantage of these straits to advance the selfish aims of Venice, and proposed, as an equivalent for the balance of the passage money, that the Crusaders aid in capturing Zara. The offer was accepted. Zara, the capital of Dalmatia and the chief market on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, belonged to the Christian king of Hungary. Its predatory attacks upon Venetian vessels formed the pretext for its reduction. The threat of papal excommunication, presented by the papal legate, did not check the preparations; and after the solemn celebration of the mass, the fleet set sail, with Dandolo as virtual commander…

But in nearby Constantinople:

The rightful emperor, Isaac Angelus, was languishing in prison with his eyes put out by the hand of the usurper, Alexius III., his own brother… Greek messengers appeared at Zara to appeal to Dandolo and the Crusaders to take up Isaac’s cause… As a compensation, Alexius made the tempting offer of 200,000 marks silver, the maintenance for a year of an army of 10,000 against the Mohammedans, and of 500 knights for life as a guard for the Holy Land, and the submission of the Eastern Church to the pope. The doge fell in at once with the proposition, **but it was met by strong voices of dissent in the ranks of the Crusaders. Innocent’s threat of continued excommunication, if the expedition was turned against Constantinople, was ignored. ** A few of the Crusaders, like Simon de Montfort, refused to be used for private ends and withdrew from the expedition…

confusion within the palace and the failure to pay the promised reward were a sufficient excuse for the invaders to assault the city, which fell April 12, 1204
 
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Axion:
But what would have happened if there’d been no crusades? Surely the Muslims would have poured into Europe in the 1100s and 1200s, and Christianity would have been totally overrun.
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You seem to have very little faith in the Holy Spirit. There are currently thousands of crypto-christians in Turkey.
The attack on Constantinople took place against the wishes of the Pope.
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It didn’t stop him accepting the wealth that poured into the Vatican as a result of the looting, nor did it stop him from taking advantage of Constantinople’s weakened position to try and force a union between Rome and Constantinople and setting up a Latin on the patriarchal throne.
confusion within the palace and the failure to pay the promised reward were a sufficient excuse for the invaders to assault the city, which fell April 12, 1204
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Many hundreds of innocents paid with their blood because one man went back on his promise. Churches were looted which had absolutely nothing to do with the politics being played by the crusaders and Alexius
 
What do you think about the forced reunions of the Eastern Catholic Churches with the Orthodox Church in Russia?
 
What I do is get their name, phone number, and address and tell them that someone will “be in touch” regarding their issues. I also ask them if their insurance policy and last will and testament is up to date. 😃
 
Prodromos:

Quit whining.

The Byzantines had their fair share of massacres upon Latin cities and churches. Let’s not go there.

And it was the Byzantine Emperor himself who asked the Pope for Crusaders to begin with, never mind his subsequent refusal to repay the Crusaders.
It didn’t stop him accepting the wealth that poured into the Vatican as a result of the looting, nor did it stop him from taking advantage of Constantinople’s weakened position to try and force a union between Rome and Constantinople and setting up a Latin on the patriarchal throne.
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Only after he excommunicated the Crusaders.

The Pope did the wise thing; try to make good come out of a bad situation. It’s not like the Crusaders would have been willing to give up their kingdom anyways. The Popes on a practical level have sledom wielded such power, where they could just give such a great command and have it obeyed without fight.

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

The point is, that was some 800 years ago. Get over it.

I’ve got as much sympathy for you as I do for black people who demand slave reparations.
 
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DominvsVobiscvm:
Prodromos:

Quit whining…
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Bravo on a well constructed and intelligent rebuttal of my post. I have come to expect such high quality posts from you and you haven’t let me down yet 👍

Keep up the excellent work
 
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