Inquisition and crusades: needed or mistakes?

[SPH1]

With regard to the Crusades - Protestants can harp on the Crusades because there were no Protestants around to be involved in those wars. So it is an easy and safe target. That way they don’t have to talk about later wars that Protestants were involved in, including religious wars. An easy, soft target: plain and simple.

I recently saw some documentaries on the Crusades on youtube which were pretty good. I was also impressed with the operation involved. We all probably know about the D-Day Invasion of Normandy during WW2. But consider the first crusade. In the middle ages a coalition force was somehow assembled and marched up to 3,000 miles. That has to be one of the longest military marches in history. Ending up in the middle of an Islamic world.

I guess my point is that the first crusade may be more impressive than even D-Day. I don’t know.

Also the Pope’s speech calling for the first crusade. One documentary said that it took a disunited, warring Western Europe and united it into something called Christendom, capable of fighting off Islam (rather than succumbing to Islam piece-meal). It also gave war a “higher purpose” rather than simply fighting with one’s neighbors. The higher purpose including coming to aid of fellow Christians in the East.

Here’s a youtube link on the crusades, How the Crusades Saved Europe and America (13 minutes):

youtube.com/watch?v=cMjUFBYEzqQ

 

[Novocastrian]

James and Joanna Bogle, two of England’s popular historians and authors, have a series on EWTN called, “Catholicism: the Heart of History”, that presents a scholarly look at Catholic history, from the birth of Christ to the present.

I saw their show when they discussed the Inquisition. They stated there were roughly 300 executions in 400 years. Yesterday’s press release says less than 1% of 125,000, so I’d say the upper limit is 1250.

The Bogles also made a contrasting observation. They claimed there were 400 executions per year of Catholics in England during the same general historical period. I’ve also read that King Henry VII alone executed 70,000 Catholics.

As another contrast, I’ve have heard of some of the wilder evangelical protestant claims that the Inquisition executed 68 million (more than the entire population of Europe in that era), for example: teachinghearts.org/dre04historynotes.html#inquisition

Both those numbers sound suspect. As far as I’m aware, the Inquisition (and associated Roman Catholic phenomena, such as the heresy trials under Mary I in England) was responsible for a few thousand deaths. The English Reformation was probably slightly fewer; as far as I’m aware, Henry and Elizabeth were responsible for a few hundred each.