The gospel account of Peter drawing his sword and the Crusades

[livingwordunity]

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.

Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s slave and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me?” (John 18:10-11)

 

[TimothyH]

That is what Acts of the Apostles is about. Peter, and then Paul, and the Church in general relive the life of Christ. Everything that happens to Christ also happens to the Church. If you follow the narrative thread in Acts of the Apostles it becomes clear, and you can see the same things happening to Peter and Paul as happened to Jesus.

-Tim-

 

[pwlj_christ87]

you make a pretty cool connection between the verses of the bible and the crusades, i dont know enough about them to make a valid (name removed by moderator)ut, but i will say that i do know that yes the church is mainly spiritual as you said… but if wha happens to the church happens to christ than there is some correlation still while not directly military…

such is the case in poland and the overthrow of communism (with the pope and people marching about)

and egypt in recent times

yes we the people through the eucharist are the body of christ, and he is the head, and if we must revolt against (usually we are persecuted instead, that is the proper context), than our persecutions are shown… and we “fight” that way

 

[Bible_Reader]

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.

What about the wars over the Papal states; the wars of Italian independence?

 

[Peter_Plato]

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.

Taken to its logical implication, this recapitulation idea would seem to indicate that the Church will be abandoned by all its disciples save a few before being crucified, ‘die’ and then resurrected as the second coming. Of course, that would be in line with Jesus’ question of whether he would find faith on Earth when he returns. On the other hand, I don’t think this should be assumed to be the scenario that necessarily will occur.

Bottom line - remain faithful. God’s will be done.

 

[livingwordunity]

What about the wars over the Papal states; the wars of Italian independence?

After the Crusades wars were fought by Catholics, but the Pope no longer called on Catholics to fight in one.

 

[livingwordunity]

Taken to its logical implication, this recapitulation idea would seem to indicate that the Church will be abandoned by all its disciples save a few before being crucified, ‘die’ and then resurrected as the second coming. Of course, that would be in line with Jesus’ question of whether he would find faith on Earth when he returns. On the other hand, I don’t think this should be assumed to be the scenario that necessarily will occur.

Bottom line - remain faithful. God’s will be done.

I agree that Jesus asking if there would be faith on earth when he returns means that most of the world will probably have apostatized by that time. And the way things are going it sounds like he is talking about this generation and the next since the most powerful nations on earth, which were formerly Christian, have officially apostatized. The one exception is Russia which all the other powerful nations are furious with for that reason. Plus, our Pope has mentioned in at least two of his recent homilies how there have been more Christian martyrs in the past century than all the earlier centuries combined. It’s also my opinion that “the Black Death”, at the time called “the Pestilence”, was a fulfillment of End Times prophecies. Since the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that the period of the “last days” is “the time of the Church, the Kingdom already inherited though not yet consummated” (CCC 732), I believe that the End Times events have been happening one by one spread out over the 2,000 year history of the Church. But these events and signs are now increasing in intensity as the world is now on a fast-track to global apostasy from the only religion that was founded by God Himself.

End times will bring greater persecution to Christians, Pope says

These worldly powers which seek to destroy God, noted the Pope, also manifest in the contemporary desire to keep religion as “a private thing,” alluding to the fact that today many religious symbols have become taboo.

“You must obey the orders which come from worldly powers. You can do many things, beautiful things, but not adore God. Worship is prohibited. This is at the center of the end of time.”

Once we “reach the fullness of this pagan attitude,” the Pope continued, “then yes, he will come…’ truly the Son of Man will come in a cloud with great power and glory.’”

 

[abucs]

The crusades lasted for 500 years and ended with the great naval battle of Lepento. We have to remember that when the crusades were called Sicily was under occupation from the muslims, Spain had long been conquered and muslim armies had already attacked southern France and Egypt was still a majority Christian country. In fact 2/3rds of Christendom had already fallen to either the muslims or the pagan Vikings.

The results of the Crusades were mixed and only ended when the threat to Europe had ceased although the Christian response came too late for Egypt, Anatolia and part of the Balkans.

Also before the Crusades were called there was a great deal of debate as Christian communities fell to islam and were sold into slavery. The first response was to send priests to try conversion. The Church also did this to the Vikings who were similarly attacking, raping and pillaging from the north. The Vikings accepted Christianity and modern Europe was formed. The muslims rejected conversion and the Church developed the 'just war; theory which eventually brought a halt to the aggressive march from the south.

The Pope has not called for war again since, This is because Europe’s safety has not been threatened by an outside power since that time.

 

[livingwordunity]

The crusades lasted for 500 years and ended with the great naval battle of Lepento. We have to remember that when the crusades were called Sicily was under occupation from the muslims, Spain had long been conquered and muslim armies had already attacked southern France and Egypt was still a majority Christian country. In fact 2/3rds of Christendom had already fallen to either the muslims or the pagan Vikings.

The results of the Crusades were mixed and only ended when the threat to Europe had ceased although the Christian response came too late for Egypt, Anatolia and part of the Balkans.

Also before the Crusades were called there was a great deal of debate as Christian communities fell to islam and were sold into slavery. The first response was to send priests to try conversion. The Church also did this to the Vikings who were similarly attacking, raping and pillaging from the north. The Vikings accepted Christianity and modern Europe was formed. The muslims rejected conversion and the Church developed the 'just war; theory which eventually brought a halt to the aggressive march from the south.

The Pope has not called for war again since, This is because Europe’s safety has not been threatened by an outside power since that time.

 

[Watcher74]

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.

It wasn’t the church that was under attack, tho certainly the Muslims had conquered lands that had previously been held by Christians. The biggest threat was to Byzantium, who had lost most of their empire and the enemy was at their gate. They then asked the pope for help and Europe had still resented the initial incursion of the Muslims into Europe and the loss of Spain, Sicily, and southern Italy. Really the Crusades didn’t have much to do with religion. They didn’t go to convert anyone, they went to reclaim the Holy Land and because they believed going on the pilgrimage would bring them penance. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a complete failure. The kingdoms that survived along the coast lasted nearly as long as the United States has been a nation. Not a bad run.

 

[nmgauss]

The Pope has not called for war again since, This is because Europe’s safety has not been threatened by an outside power since that time.

How about Genghis Khan and his Golden Horde? How about the Ottoman’s and their conquest of the Balkans and Greece?

 

[nmgauss]

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.

Actually Charles Martel, Frankish statesman, successfully repelled the Umayyad Muslims at the Battle of Tours in the year 730 CE. The Crusades were launched by Pope Urban II who proclaimed the First Crusade in 1095 CE, 365 years later.

According to historians, after the fall of Charlemagne’s empire, and the destruction perpetrated by the Vikings, Europe had no unity. It was fractured into many small principalities, each ruled by a local potentate competing for dominance using his own knights and sometimes his private army. Eventually by the eleventh century, Europe was crawling with renegade knights and armies. Raping and pillaging was rampant by thousands of knights whose instinct for this kind of activity was voracious.

So, as the story goes, Pope Urban II saw an opportunity to channel the energy of all these knights and private armies into a campaign to take back the Holy Land. Thus the Crusades were started.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

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.

In fact the Crusades did not fail entirely. They put a temporary end to the advance of Islam into the West. Had it not been for the Crusades, it is entirely possible that we would all be Muslims today. Yes, the Vatican has sheathed its military sword, but for the time that it was used, Islam in the West was halted. Now that Islam is on the march once again in the West (as much through immigration as through terrorism), other military swords will have to be drawn to defend the West and Christianity from the pincer attack of Radical Atheism and Radical Islam.

 

[abucs]

How about Genghis Khan and his Golden Horde? How about the Ottoman’s and their conquest of the Balkans and Greece?

It was the Ottoman’s fleet that was destroyed at the battle of Lepanto and Ghenkis Khan was 2 or 3 centuries before that. Khengis Khan’s ruling grandson Kublai Khan had a Christian mother and requested from the Pope by lettter that he send 100 missionaries to Mongolia to teach he and his people Christianity.

There was also an attempt at a French-Mongolian alliance against the Muslim presence in the Holy Land.

 

[livingwordunity]

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.

 

[nmgauss]

It was the Ottoman’s fleet that was destroyed at the battle of Lepanto and Ghenkis Khan was 2 or 3 centuries before that. Khengis Khan’s ruling grandson Kublai Khan had a Christian mother and requested from the Pope by lettter that he send 100 missionaries to Mongolia to teach he and his people Christianity.

There was also an attempt at a French-Mongolian alliance against the Muslim presence in the Holy Land.

Are you hurling opposing assertions at me in a childish game of “Who is better”? That does not clarify the issue of Europe’s threats from the East. The Ottoman’s domination of the Balkans and pounding at the gates of Vienna are well documented in spite of the battle of Lepanto, which occurred early in Suleiman’s campaign to conquer the West. The latter defeat at the hands of the Holy Alliance is pointed to with pride by Catholics as one of their crowning achievements in halting Ottoman expansion along the Mediterranean. However, subsequent to that, Suleiman focused his efforts on a land campaign which eventually conquered most of the Balkans.

And what does Kublai Khan’s mother being Christian have to do with Europe’s threats from the East? And what does the Pope sending 100 missionaries to Mongolia have to do with anything we are talking about? Are you feeling defensive and have to show any superiority of Christians whenever you can?

 

[nmgauss]

In fact the Crusades did not fail entirely. They put a temporary end to the advance of Islam into the West. Had it not been for the Crusades, it is entirely possible that we would all be Muslims today. Yes, the Vatican has sheathed its military sword, but for the time that it was used, Islam in the West was halted. Now that Islam is on the march once again in the West (as much through immigration as through terrorism), other military swords will have to be drawn to defend the West and Christianity from the pincer attack of Radical Atheism and Radical Islam.

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.

 

[mikekle]

I think the church should still be fighting like they did back then, maybe if they operated like this, we would not have things like abortion on the scale we see today, as well as many other evil things that are allowed to go on by world Govts and corrupt leaders.

I have a feeling our law makers would think twice about passing certain laws or law enforcement agencies would have to question their enforcement, if they knew the Vatican had millions of christians ready to fight for what they believe in!!! I doubt we would even have abortion in the world if the church stuck to its roots.

 

[abucs]

Are you hurling opposing assertions at me in a childish game of “Who is better”? That does not clarify the issue of Europe’s threats from the East. The Ottoman’s domination of the Balkans and pounding at the gates of Vienna are well documented in spite of the battle of Lepanto, which occurred early in Suleiman’s campaign to conquer the West. The latter defeat at the hands of the Holy Alliance is pointed to with pride by Catholics as one of their crowning achievements in halting Ottoman expansion along the Mediterranean. However, subsequent to that, Suleiman focused his efforts on a land campaign which eventually conquered most of the Balkans.

And what does Kublai Khan’s mother being Christian have to do with Europe’s threats from the East? And what does the Pope sending 100 missionaries to Mongolia have to do with anything we are talking about? Are you feeling defensive and have to show any superiority of Christians whenever you can?

I’ll leave all the personal stuff out because 1) I don’t know where that came from and 2) it is a waste of time to get sucked into it.

Lepanto was repeated to show that I had included the Ottoman’s in the 500 years of the battles of the crusades. Yes, after Lepanto the muslim aggression did continue to threaten parts of Eastern Europe but without the navy it would never again threaten all of Europe, In fact it was the Christian navies that opened up the new world and far surpassed that of the Turks who were then confined with their sea presence.

The Ottoman’s besieged the gates of Vienna in 1529, the battle of Lepanto was in 1571

The mention of Ghenkis Khan was to show that he was well before this time, The mention of his grandson and Christian mother and the mooted Mongol/Christian alliance against the muslims (still well before the end of the Christian response of the crusades) was to show that the ‘golden horde’ as you called them had ceased to be a threat to Europe.

You may be forgetting but you pointed to me when I wrote :

                     "The Pope has not called for war again since, This is because Europe's safety has not been threatened by an outside power since that time."

by asking

                     "How about Genghis Khan and his Golden Horde? How about the Ottoman's and their conquest of the Balkans and Greece? "

I have responded to your post quite civilly and appropriately. If the conversation becomes uncivil then you can talk to yourself.

Sorry LWU, this is obviously not the direction you wish this thread to go.

 

[kentuckyliz]

Let’s all pause for a moment and give a big thank you to Jan Sobieski, a favorite hero of mine.