I love the parallel which is made between Malchus’ ear being chopped off by the ‘militant extremist’ Peter, and the paradoxical effect of taking up the sword in the name of ideology. Namely, that it tends to make people - on both sides of the ideological violence - practically DEAF.I now realize that shouldn’t have said in the OP that the Crusades had failed. Whether the Crusades failed or not depends on how we look at it. It failed in the sense that they could not permanently take back the countries from the Muslims who had taken these countries away from the Christians by force with the sword. But the Crusades succeeded in preventing Europe from getting invaded and becoming another Islamic conquest. The main point I was hoping that people would focus on with this thread wasn’t whether or not the Crusades had failed. I wanted people to think about Peter drawing his sword in the “anagogical sense” (CCC 117) and to compare it to the Crusades.
religion is never about politics rather, politics are about God found by religion and if to stay in order Guided/Inspired by God’s religion. after the Ottoman/Muslim empire destroyed much of the pagan Culture ( one of the 3-4 foundations of Islam’s historicity { “The most excellent jihad is to speak the truth in the face of an unjust ruler” } and mostly “their” pagan “prophecy” ) they suppressed/conquered jews and those who follow the new covenant and then moved into the west and east from mecca etc…It is important to note that while Islam generally disseminated in most of their origins peacefully ( “Whosoever kills a human being without (any reason like) man slaughter, or corruption on earth, it is as though he had killed all mankind …” Qur’an (5:32) “Do not kill a soul which Allah has made sacred except through the due process of law …” Qur’an (6:151) ) it took wars, mostly after they were persecuted in pagan Mecca" etc … such as the Riddah wars, to conquer the Arabs into accepting Islam. In the mid-tenth century during the rule of the Ummayad Caliph Abdul-Rahman III (929-961), helping the muslems to establish one the few forces that was mightier and more long-lasting the communism. Muslims of African origin sailed westward from the Spanish port of Delba (Palos) into the “Ocean of darkness an fog.” They returned after a long absence with much booty from a “strange and curious land.” It is evident that people of Muslim origin are known to have accompanied Columbus and subsequent Spanish explorers to the New World. and were largely stopped there in the west and also some minority territories. in the end though the majority of their leaders and tribes where on a wide scale unsuccessful.Islam as a threat to the West was already on the decline by the first Crusade. Also, conquest of the West was more an effort at political empire building than spreading Islam. Religion was not nearly as important in Islamic conquests as the expansion of the power by the Caliphs. In fact, a large portion of the Islamic community was opposed to this warfare and the building of an aristocratic monarchy as that of the Abbasids.
The advance of Islam in the West was halted more by the disintegration of the Umayyad Empire into the Abbasid Empire than anything else. The empire was so unwieldy that the Moors of Spain formed their own emirate, Al-Andalus, and were under only nominal control of the center of the Abbasid empire in Baghdad. Al-Andalus eventually became part of the Berber Empire based in Marrakech. Al-Andalus itself was divided into several principalities, none of which were powerful enough to offer a serious threat to the Christians to the north. In fact, the beginning of the downfall of the Moors began before the first Crusade under Alfonso VI when he captured Toledo.
violence begets more violence especially when pride is involved. Jesus could be saying here that pride can lead to worse than upheaval in this type of context.Hello everyone. I was thinking about how the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the Church is to go through Her own passion following in the footsteps of our Lord’s passion (CCC 677). And that got me wondering if the things that led up to the passion of our Lord might also correspond to the Church in some way. Peter drawing his sword seems to me to correspond to how the Pope called for the Crusades when the Church was under attack by the Muslim invaders. The Crusades, though well intentioned, failed and the Church reassessed Her role and determined since then that Her role would be limited to only spiritual leadership instead of involving Herself directly in wars. This seems to me to correspond to how Jesus told Peter to put his sword back into its sheath.