The Crusades: For nothing or for Christ?

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Spencer is an interesting read and is certainly free from worries about how his ideas will be received in the politically correct world. But all the same, he should be viewed as a single original perspective.

Hopefully you wouldn’t draw conclusions about American politics ONLY through reading Pat Buchanon. Same thing with Spencer. Good insights and original thinking are admirable, but get them from lots of differing sources!

I’m not a scholar, but I know just enough history to know that warfare in the past was up close and personal. Humans just aren’t generally capable of slashing other human being apart with swords, seeing their friends fall in battle and then instantly turning that blood-craze off when the enemy become routed. Few of use civilians can understand, but a tiny shadow of the effect can be seen in football when players all too often sucumb to the urge to unnecessary violence. Imagine that fervor times 1,000 and it might be what a medieval battlefield looked like.
 
MontChevalier said:
a Crusade against pornography, anathema and abortion would indeed be things to stand opposed to, but what about a Crusade, modeled after the same kind of a thousand inst an ever-increasing Islamic or Pagan threat?

Remember what I said about dhimmitude?

Wouldn’t that be worth something to fight against?

There are reports, although I don’t have sources for it, that many armenian orthodox christians are being persecuted in Turkey, and in several other places all over the middle east, and the far-east, like in China.

I know they’re not Catholic, but they’re still our brothers. I mean, perhaps we might have different ideas of who is our brother and who is not, but I believe that whoever acknowledges Jesus, acknowledges God, and through this, he or she is my brother or sister. Maybe some don’t agree.
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The chief problem Catholics have now is that we have no country, really. Where is the Catholic heartland? What country welcomes all Catholics in extremis? Whither can we fly to escape the abortion, pornography, and suppression of our faith?

We have nowhere to go, thus there is nowhere from which a crusade can be launched.

Politically, Catholics are in a state of defeat across the world. Those who are themselves unfree are not likely to liberate any one else. “Physician, heal thyself.”

The communists, some Muslims, secular capitalists all know this and that is why they oppress and persecute all Christians when they choose. Say what one will, but the end result of the Crusades was to achieve peace and at least a modus viviendi in the east that endured for centuries.

By contrast, the United Nations has not been able to achieve five consecutive years of peace there.

Which brings up the last point, regarding whether a new crusade would be justified in the east today. I think not, because as the pope has correctly observed, the anti Islamic cause is not totally justified. The attack on the Turkish Empire by the British in WWI (with French and Italian connivance) was unjustified, and was motivated by nothing other than greed. The US became the heir to that tradition of exploitation after WW2. The high handedness with which the US, France and Britain dealt with the Muslim world, and the crushing of the empire that unified it, is the root of the violence that plagues that part of the world today, which causes so much Christian suffering.

So even if we had a country from which we could march, where would we go first? London? Washington, DC?

Our best hope is that Russia will convert. This may not be in the way we expect, and perhaps she is in the very process of converting now.
 
MontChevalier said:
You are indeed correct. And it’s a good thing I thought ahead and went out searching for historians proper historians, and what do you know? I found them!

There’s Rodney Stark’s God’s Battalions, and Chris Tyerman’s God’s War: A New History of the Crusades. The latter one is over a thousand pages long, so you know it’s good.

While I agree with you Planty Pall; and you are indeed correct, a Crusade against pornography, anathema and abortion would indeed be things to stand opposed to, but what about a Crusade, modeled after the same kind of a thousand years ago? Say against an ever-increasing Islamic or Pagan threat?

Remember what I said about dhimmitude?

Wouldn’t that be worth something to fight against?

There are reports, although I don’t have sources for it, that many armenian orthodox christians are being persecuted in Turkey, and in several other places all over the middle east, and the far-east, like in China.

I know they’re not Catholic, but they’re still our brothers. I mean, perhaps we might have different ideas of who is our brother and who is not, but I believe that whoever acknowledges Jesus, acknowledges God, and through this, he or she is my brother or sister. Maybe some don’t agree. 🤷

The Pope would NEVER call a Crusade against fellow Christians. It stands against what the Crusades truly are, pilgrimages.

Much rather, I would rather keep the body count down to zero, but if it’s war, then death toll’s will always happen. It can’t be helped. Even you should know that.
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Hi Mont Chevalier,

I don’t think the pope ever called a crusade unless other Christians were in distress, correct me if I am wrong. It has to be to relieve oppression. I guess I tend to view western democracy with a dimmer eye than I do militant Islam. In any case, I can’t see any reason why a Catholic should think that the pope could never call for another crusade. If he did, I would hope I could support it.

You have me wanting to re-read my three volumes by Sir Steven Runciman on the Crusades. I noticed in your profile that you liked him and I could do with a brushup. I think our times are slowly seeing rational discourse take place in regards to historical events that were once too charged with emotion. If you are ever interested in Spanish history in general, or especially the Inquisition in particular, I highly recommend Henry Kamen. He is an historian at the University of Barcelona who has been translated into English and published by Yale University Press. I didn’t find his books through TAN Publishers or Ignatius Press but from the mostly “unCatholic” History Book Club. His The Spanish Inquisition is no apology for the Catholic Church, but it explodes the legends and myths that have made a misunderstood institution into a household word for mass torture, cruelty, and injustice. He has also written a very readable biography of Philip II, also available through Yale Press.
 
Warrenton said:
The chief problem Catholics have now is that we have no country, really. Where is the Catholic heartland? What country welcomes all Catholics in extremis? Whither can we fly to escape the abortion, pornography, and suppression of our faith?

We have nowhere to go, thus there is nowhere from which a crusade can be launched.

Politically, Catholics are in a state of defeat across the world. Those who are themselves unfree are not likely to liberate any one else. “Physician, heal thyself.”

The communists, some Muslims, secular capitalists all know this and that is why they oppress and persecute all Christians when they choose. Say what one will, but the end result of the Crusades was to achieve peace and at least a modus viviendi in the east that endured for centuries.

By contrast, the United Nations has not been able to achieve five consecutive years of peace there.

Which brings up the last point, regarding whether a new crusade would be justified in the east today. I think not, because as the pope has correctly observed, the anti Islamic cause is not totally justified. The attack on the Turkish Empire by the British in WWI (with French and Italian connivance) was unjustified, and was motivated by nothing other than greed. The US became the heir to that tradition of exploitation after WW2. The high handedness with which the US, France and Britain dealt with the Muslim world, and the crushing of the empire that unified it, is the root of the violence that plagues that part of the world today, which causes so much Christian suffering.

So even if we had a country from which we could march, where would we go first? London? Washington, DC?

Our best hope is that Russia will convert. This may not be in the way we expect, and perhaps she is in the very process of converting now.
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That is an excellent point you raise about us Catholics having no home nation. Not now.

It is difficult to unravel the injustices that sometimes go back centuries in various places that still lead to violence recently and today. I find it hard to easily identify “good guy” and “bad guy” in most modern wars. World War I is probably the most complicated for me. There are good people on all sides involving these warring nation-states. Its terrible. I have tended to support Britain against the Turks, but I am kind of partial to Lawrence of Arabia who was certainly against the Turks, but not completely for Britain either. He certainly opposed French claims. I tend to view it as a backwater action to protect the canal and hopefully drain precious German resources away from the Western Front as opposed to any position that claims the Turks were being nasty. I think the Turks just happened to be allied with Germany. But maybe I don’t know enough about Turkish claims.

I agree with you about Russia too! Our Lady of Fatima has promised the conversion of Russia. More than anything…THAT is why I do not assume a worldwide status quo involving the continued ascendance of godless democracies.

Planty
 
Planty_Pall said:
. World War I is probably the most complicated for me. There are good people on all sides involving these warring nation-states. Its terrible. I have tended to support Britain against the Turks, but I am kind of partial to Lawrence of Arabia who was certainly against the Turks, but not completely for Britain either. He certainly opposed French claims. I tend to view it as a backwater action to protect the canal and hopefully drain precious German resources away from the Western Front as opposed to any position that claims the Turks were being nasty.
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Please don’t take my statement as overly anti-British. I, too, am a big Lawrence of Arabia fan - I remember seeing his keffiyeh at the Imperial War Museum, and I used to take walks past his home in Oxford, many years ago! The Great War is difficult, and there were good and bad on all sides, and many brave deeds were done for a mixture of good and bad reasons, which makes it even harder to untangle.

Regardless, Christendom perished in that conflict, and the seeds of middle east discord were sown which we are still living with.

But back to your topic of a modern crusade: my prediction is that it would come about when, somewhere, a country proclaims a Catholic government for Catholics. Wherever that country is, it will receive tremendous hostility from other countries. The last thing modern western countries want is a nation that is Catholic to the core. That is the country that Catholics will be called to defend.

As to the continued ascendency of the west, it has been declining for 90 years, but so great was its momentum that it has propelled forward for many decades. Now, however, we see the wheel turning. The question is, what will these agnostic regimes do to retain the power they have obtained?
Cheers!
 
Warrenton said:
The chief problem Catholics have now is that we have no country, really. Where is the Catholic heartland? What country welcomes all Catholics in extremis? Whither can we fly to escape the abortion, pornography, and suppression of our faith?

We have nowhere to go, thus there is nowhere from which a crusade can be launched.

Politically, Catholics are in a state of defeat across the world. Those who are themselves unfree are not likely to liberate any one else. “Physician, heal thyself.”

The communists, some Muslims, secular capitalists all know this and that is why they oppress and persecute all Christians when they choose. Say what one will, but the end result of the Crusades was to achieve peace and at least a modus viviendi in the east that endured for centuries.

By contrast, the United Nations has not been able to achieve five consecutive years of peace there.

Which brings up the last point, regarding whether a new crusade would be justified in the east today. I think not, because as the pope has correctly observed, the anti Islamic cause is not totally justified. The attack on the Turkish Empire by the British in WWI (with French and Italian connivance) was unjustified, and was motivated by nothing other than greed. The US became the heir to that tradition of exploitation after WW2. The high handedness with which the US, France and Britain dealt with the Muslim world, and the crushing of the empire that unified it, is the root of the violence that plagues that part of the world today, which causes so much Christian suffering.

So even if we had a country from which we could march, where would we go first? London? Washington, DC?

Our best hope is that Russia will convert. This may not be in the way we expect, and perhaps she is in the very process of converting now.
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You make a good point. But let me put it up for you: How do we gain our own heartland?

And I wouldn’t count too much on Russia. The article, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Russia , pretty much states that the Russian Orthodox Church kindof reigns supreme there.

And what would be the point on marching to London? Washington or Paris?
 
TMC said:
I would be careful relying on Robert Spencer for information about the Crusades. He is a well-known critic of Muslims and Islam - he writes not as an objective historian but as someone with a cultural and political agenda. I am not saying his writings are worthless (I don’t know, as I haven’t read them), but I would also look to objective historians for some balance. As for the Church’s viewpoint, the Church does not attempt to justify or defend the Crusades. You are correct that the Pope did not explicitly apologize for the Crusades, but he did apologize for some of the atrocitities committed during the Crusades.
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One should NEVER rely on only one historical source anyway. And, as you say in this case, especially if the writer has a historical ax to grind. The OP should read several accounts, though I doubt any of them is fully objective–it’s not in the nature of history, science, or religion.
 
MontChevalier said:
Although, I’m still waiting for an answer to my original question:
How do we gain our own heartland?
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We wait. But, while we wait, we Catholics demand more autonomy from the governments under which we live. For example, we seek the right to run our own schools free of government interference. We seek the right to have a portion of our taxes remitted in order that we may support the Church and her charitable institutions more fully. We have more children than the other people. We seek the right to conduct economic life, for instance, through church-affiliated farms and shops, free of government intrusion.

That way, when the existing forms of government and economics collapse, Catholics will have an institutional framework ready to replace them. Government power will follow social and political independence, first at the local level and then at the national level.

All we need is one government that is ours: then, that government will serve as a rallying point for others, and we will be on our way to more rapid reform.
 
On the matter of the Crusades - there were both good and bad aspects to them.

In the Middle East, they were established as a form of self-defence i.e. the Templars.

There were many Catholic Templars who died fighting for Christian ideals and many who were martyred (e.g. the beheading of the 80 Catholic Templars after the Battle of Hatteen for refusing to spit on the Cross).

There is a renewed Catholic Templar Order dedicated to the Tridentine ways.

I believe the Templars should be exonerated by the Church to allow for the canonization of those who died as true Knights of Christ.

When the Templar Master, Jacques de Molay, was taken to be burned at the stake in Paris, he asked that his hands be tied in the position of prayer and that he die facing Notre Dame Cathedral.

That was no heretic or anything of the sort!

Alex
 
If you’re looking for a Catholic country, there is always Malta. The State Religion is Catholicism and laws reflect Church teaching (ie. abortion is completely illegal). Like 99 percent of the people are Catholic there and I think people take it pretty seriously.
 
hamburglar said:
If you’re looking for a Catholic country, there is always Malta.
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This is true, and Malta’s importance is greater than its size. I was thinking, however, of a larger country that might have the capacity to accept numbers of Catholic immigrants.
 
You know, I still haven’t seen how many Catholics have different opinions of the Crusades.

How do I put up a poll?

Maybe that might give me an idea.

You know my interest in Catholicism began because of the Crusades. One day I said, what the heck am I doing? I’m barely protestant anymore.

It was when my protestant friend said,“Give catholicism a shot.” and I said,“Why not?”

Of course, that was months ago. But here I am. And that’s my life story of the day, completely digressing from the topic of the thread. 😃

I have with me, in hand, a copy of Villehardoins Chronicle of the 4th Crusade.

Does anyone know why those crusaders, by your opinion, did do what they did?
 
A new Templar order? What’s the name? Are they approved by the church or are they just some weird new age cult?
 
Morgan_Hiver said:
A new Templar order? What’s the name? Are they approved by the church or are they just some weird new age cult?
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I checked out the website. They appear to be a lay society dedicated to traditional (ie, pre V2) prayer and sacramental life and charity. Kind of like KOCs. Go to the website in the link, and from there, go to the Italian website. The Italian website has an English option which gives a more full explanation.

christi-militia-templi.org/

Cheers1
 
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