Objections Dealing with Crusades and Spanish Inquisition

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Objections Dealing with the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition are difficult for me to answer to and defend the faith. Help would be apreciated, thank you. 😦
 
I can’t watch the video due to internet restrictions, however have a lack at these Catholic answers resources. They should send you in the right direction!

Crusades
catholic.com/thisrock/2006/0603tbt.asp
catholic.com/radio/event.php?calendar=1&category=&event=6452&date=2010-10-25 - this is a radio interview/call in

Inquisition
catholic.com/library/Inquisition.asp
catholic.com/thisrock/2007/0709tbt.asp
catholic.com/thisrock/2007/0711tbt.asp
catholic.com/radio/event.php?calendar=1&category=&event=6648&date=2011-03-09 - another radio interview, this time on the Inquisition
 
I tend to answer these by saying that the Church is infallible, but people are not. Admitting that not everyone who stands for the Church or works for it is perfect is a good way to start to refute these arguments.
 
For goodness sake, you don’t need to watch those videos. They are full of bias, and they are most of the time incorrect, and put the Church in very bad light. Heres two quick facts for you:

A) The Crusades were a retaliation to centuries of muslim aggresion, they saved Western Europe from Islam.

B) The Inquisition did not kill heretics, contrary to popular belief. They were one of the most lenient courts of the time. They were lenient to heretics and tried to bring them back to the pasture of the Lord. If they were unrepentent and refused to acknowlege themselves as wrong, the Inquisition could do no more, they were given over to the secular authorities.

Don’t read anti-catholicism. Don’t risk your soul. Read these for more information, they are from the well known historians Thomas F. Madden and Thomas E. Woods Jr.

Spanish Inquisition:
churchinhistory.org/pages/spanishinquisition/truth-spanish-inquisition.htm

The Flat Earth Myth:
lewrockwell.com/woods/woods46.html
 
MrZetterlund said:
Thoughts and comments on first few minutes on this video:
youtube.com/watch?v=HAz30mbxhWc&feature=related
Click to expand...
Quick fact check:

Inquisition
  1. Only Catholics could be brought to trial by the Inquisition.
  2. A person had to be found guilty twice to be executed.
  3. The Inquisition was actually run by the civil government of Spain, not the Church.
  4. The Inquisition jail was far preferred over the civil jail. Men were known to have comitted
    blasphemy in order to be transferred to the Inquisition jail.
  5. The Inquisition was actually begun by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, although with Rome’s permission, in order to root out Muslims who had “converted” to Catholicism for monetary and social benefits. If they were found still practicing the Muslim faith, they were brought to trial by the Inquisition.
  6. Yes, some people were executed, in horrible ways. But to put it in historical context, everyone in those days who was executed was done so horribly. Humane treatment of prisoners was not the order of the day.
Crusades
  1. In the first 100 years of Islam, the Muslims wiped out all of Catholic North Africa and most of the Middle East, especially around Jerusalem. They spread Islam by the sword! They also pushed their attack into the Middle of Europe and were finally defeated by Charles “The Hammer” Martel and his army.
  2. The Muslims continued attacking through the centuries before the Crusades, even attacking Rome. They sacked the Vatican and dug up and burned bodies of some of the Saints there. The Church’s response at that time? Build a big wall around the city.
  3. Finally, the Muslims closed off the Holy Land to Catholic pilgrims altogether. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Pope requested a Crusade to free the Holy Land so that the faithful could once again be able to make pilgrimages. In the meantime, to substitute, the Way of the Cross was created. On the way to Jerusalem, they defeated the Muslims who had surrounded then Catholic Constantinople.
  4. The Crusades were a very delayed response to centuries of Muslim aggression.
  5. The Crusaders only held Jerusalem for about 100 years, before being defeated by the Muslims once again.
  6. Subsequent Crusades were less and less effective. The last requested Crusade never even got off the ground. Interest had withered to nothing by the kingdoms requested to send soldiers.
 
Scoobyshme said:
Quick fact check:

Inquisition
  1. Only Catholics could be brought to trial by the Inquisition.
  2. A person had to be found guilty twice to be executed.
  3. The Inquisition was actually run by the civil government of Spain, not the Church.
  4. The Inquisition jail was far preferred over the civil jail. Men were known to have comitted
    blasphemy in order to be transferred to the Inquisition jail.
  5. The Inquisition was actually begun by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, although with Rome’s permission, in order to root out Muslims who had “converted” to Catholicism for monetary and social benefits. If they were found still practicing the Muslim faith, they were brought to trial by the Inquisition.
  6. Yes, some people were executed, in horrible ways. But to put it in historical context, everyone in those days who was executed was done so horribly. Humane treatment of prisoners was not the order of the day.
Crusades
  1. In the first 100 years of Islam, the Muslims wiped out all of Catholic North Africa and most of the Middle East, especially around Jerusalem. They spread Islam by the sword! They also pushed their attack into the Middle of Europe and were finally defeated by Charles “The Hammer” Martel and his army.
  2. The Muslims continued attacking through the centuries before the Crusades, even attacking Rome. They sacked the Vatican and dug up and burned bodies of some of the Saints there. The Church’s response at that time? Build a big wall around the city.
  3. Finally, the Muslims closed off the Holy Land to Catholic pilgrims altogether. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Pope requested a Crusade to free the Holy Land so that the faithful could once again be able to make pilgrimages. In the meantime, to substitute, the Way of the Cross was created. On the way to Jerusalem, they defeated the Muslims who had surrounded then Catholic Constantinople.
  4. The Crusades were a very delayed response to centuries of Muslim aggression.
  5. The Crusaders only held Jerusalem for about 100 years, before being defeated by the Muslims once again.
  6. Subsequent Crusades were less and less effective. The last requested Crusade never even got off the ground. Interest had withered to nothing by the kingdoms requested to send soldiers.
Click to expand...
:clapping:
 
Thanks to those who’ve responded thus far to the OP. This is one subject (of many) that I need to learn more about.
 
tom_c said:
Thanks to those who’ve responded thus far to the OP. This is one subject (of many) that I need to learn more about.
Click to expand...
This is a small thing, but did you know that the Inquisition was the very first judicial body in which every accused person had a right to be represented by counsel before he was questioned? And if the accused didn’t have one, one was provided for him?

That was not the case even in the U.S. until the “Miranda” case in 1966.

Also, the accused was asked to write down a list of all his enemies. If his accusers were on that list, the case against him was nearly always thrown out.

Another small thing. The previous poster was right in saying that after the reconquest of Spain from the Muslims, some Muslims either converted or pretended to convert for personal gain or other reasons. But they were considered threats to the state if their conversion was insincere. Muslim armies were only a few miles away. Therefore if a former Muslim who converted was accused of secretly remaining a Muslim, he was considered a potential “spy” or “turncoat”, and the purpose of the Inquisition was to determine whether the accusations were true or not.

If a man said he was a Muslim and never claimed to convert, he wasn’t subject to the Inquisition.

Jews were in a similar position because they were very much in the employ of the Muslim powers prior to the reconquest. So, if a person was a Jew and never converted, he was left alone. If he converted and still practiced Judaism secretly, he was considered a potential spy or agent of Islamic powers.

We can look back on it and think it was perhaps silly, but we don’t think the assassinations of the “secret jihadist” Maj. Hasan, who pretended loyalty to the U.S. military, were at all silly.
 
The Inquisition was run by Spaniards who were Catholic, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Church encouraged it, or that it was in control of it.

I could go on a rant about the Crusades, but to shorten it up a bit:

Christians had been massacred for centuries before the Crusades by Muslims trying to spread Islam, so that by the time they happened, all of North Africa was Muslim, as was Arabia and Turkey, with parts of Italy and Spain. The Crusades happened (at first) to defend Constantinople from being massacred (as there were many Christians there), and to make the Holy Land and other places Christian territory. That’s in short.
 
Scoobyshme said:
Quick fact check:

Inquisition
  1. Only Catholics could be brought to trial by the Inquisition.
  2. A person had to be found guilty twice to be executed.
  3. The Inquisition was actually run by the civil government of Spain, not the Church.
  4. The Inquisition jail was far preferred over the civil jail. Men were known to have comitted
    blasphemy in order to be transferred to the Inquisition jail.
  5. The Inquisition was actually begun by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, although with Rome’s permission, in order to root out Muslims who had “converted” to Catholicism for monetary and social benefits. If they were found still practicing the Muslim faith, they were brought to trial by the Inquisition.
  6. Yes, some people were executed, in horrible ways. But to put it in historical context, everyone in those days who was executed was done so horribly. Humane treatment of prisoners was not the order of the day.
Crusades
  1. In the first 100 years of Islam, the Muslims wiped out all of Catholic North Africa and most of the Middle East, especially around Jerusalem. They spread Islam by the sword! They also pushed their attack into the Middle of Europe and were finally defeated by Charles “The Hammer” Martel and his army.
  2. The Muslims continued attacking through the centuries before the Crusades, even attacking Rome. They sacked the Vatican and dug up and burned bodies of some of the Saints there. The Church’s response at that time? Build a big wall around the city.
  3. Finally, the Muslims closed off the Holy Land to Catholic pilgrims altogether. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Pope requested a Crusade to free the Holy Land so that the faithful could once again be able to make pilgrimages. In the meantime, to substitute, the Way of the Cross was created. On the way to Jerusalem, they defeated the Muslims who had surrounded then Catholic Constantinople.
  4. The Crusades were a very delayed response to centuries of Muslim aggression.
  5. The Crusaders only held Jerusalem for about 100 years, before being defeated by the Muslims once again.
  6. Subsequent Crusades were less and less effective. The last requested Crusade never even got off the ground. Interest had withered to nothing by the kingdoms requested to send soldiers.
Click to expand...
WAAAAY better said than me :D. In fact, the OP should just ignore my post 😊. NICE 👍
 
Swiss_Guy said:
The Inquisition was run by Spaniards who were Catholic, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Church encouraged it, or that it was in control of it.

I could go on a rant about the Crusades, but to shorten it up a bit:

Christians had been massacred for centuries before the Crusades by Muslims trying to spread Islam, so that by the time they happened, all of North Africa was Muslim, as was Arabia and Turkey, with parts of Italy and Spain. The Crusades happened (at first) to defend Constantinople from being massacred (as there were many Christians there), and to make the Holy Land and other places Christian territory. That’s in short.
Click to expand...
A quick clarification. The Inquisition itself was a Church organization. It was a fact-finding body. The Spanish state was the “cop” and the “prosecutor”, so to speak. A man might, for instance, be accused to the State of being a fake convert from Islam. The State would arrest him. Before the Inquisition, they would usually just imprison or execute him as an enemy. Sometimes people didn’t even bother to go to the State with it, and just grabbed the guy and hanged him.

The purpose of the Inquisition was to investigate somebody the State had seized. If the inquisition found the accusations were false, the man was let go. If the Inquisition found they were true, it handed the person back to the State. Not surprisingly, the State would most often execute the person. The Inquisition most often found the accused innocent. But the Inquisition itself, did not execute anybody.

The Inquisition was basically an intervention into what the State or locals were going to do. Not saying everything it did was benign, but it was not what most people think it was.

While it all might seem very strange, it has to be understood that the situation in Spain at the time was sort of like it would be if Al Quaeda had conquered most of the U.S., and then Americans retook it from them. Americans would be enormously suspicious of those Muslims who “stayed behind” after the reconquest, claiming to be “loyal Americans” and probably with good reason. It would be very difficult to prevent wholesale slaughter of those people by the populace.
 
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