Were the crusades moral?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Timi_Celcer
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

Timi_Celcer

Guest
I know the first crusades were mostly defensive actions against muslims but later crusades were all about conquering the Holy land. The pope blessed all that went on a crusade and the crusade is put under the just war doctorine. Why? Crusades were mostly all about fighting pagans, re-conquering some of the lost land and conquering the Holy land. II Vatican council declared that all faiths are equal while forcefully converting others is sinful. Crusades to the north were all about converting people there to Christianity. Isn’t there a contradiction?
Also how can re-conquering of Iberian penisula be moral? The Church teaches that all people can go to heaven no matter what religion they are, so why did the crusaders kill so many people for nothing. Is that moral? And why was conquering of the Holy land necceseary? We lost it anyway, so why the extra casualities? And still conquering is sinful, what would the Holy land brought us that we didn’t have anyway?
 
Timi_Celcer said:
I know the first crusades were mostly defensive actions against muslims but later crusades were all about conquering the Holy land. The pope blessed all that went on a crusade and the crusade is put under the just war doctorine. Why? Crusades were mostly all about fighting pagans, re-conquering some of the lost land and conquering the Holy land. II Vatican council declared that all faiths are equal while forcefully converting others is sinful. Crusades to the north were all about converting people there to Christianity. Isn’t there a contradiction?
Also how can re-conquering of Iberian penisula be moral? The Church teaches that all people can go to heaven no matter what religion they are, so why did the crusaders kill so many people for nothing. Is that moral? And why was conquering of the Holy land necceseary? We lost it anyway, so why the extra casualities? And still conquering is sinful, what would the Holy land brought us that we didn’t have anyway?
Click to expand...
The Crusades were not about converting people. They were about protecting Christian pilgrims that were getting robbed and killed. Plus, we needed to push back the Muslims, so they didn’t get into Western Europe. The Crusaders that killed Muslims, Jews, and Eastern Christians weren’t blessed. They just did that on their own. The stealing was never blessed either. If it weren’t for the Crusades, we’d all be speaking Arabic right now.

Vatican II never said that all faiths are equal. Catholicism is the Truth, and always will be. The council just said we should be more friendly towards people of other faiths. The Church has never taught that you can go to heaven no matter what faith you are. There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, because the Catholic Church is the One, True Church.

We conquered the Iberian Peninsula to drive out the Muslims. There were Christians getting harassed by Muslims, and we were afraid that the Muslims were going to push even further into Europe, so we drove them out. Not driving Muslims out=end of Christendom.
 
I will second what bben15 said, and just add/reiterate:

Forcing people to convert has always been sinful. The response to God must be free.
Vatican II did not say all faiths were true, or that all people automatically go to heaven or anything like that. I am not sure where you got that from.

If you really want to get a better understanding read: “God’s Battalions” by Rodney Stark. He is a very respected Sociologist that gives a really good overview of what went on.
 
I didn’t mean that all faiths are the truth, of curse Catholicsm is the truth, i just meant that Second Vatican council declared faiths equal, as that no muslim or jew can be killed for their religion. I also didn’t say that salvation is outside the Church, but muslims can go to heaven if they don’t know Christ right? With crusades being missions to forcefully convert i meant the crusades towards the northern people. From wikipedia: The Livonian Crusade was proclaimed by Pope Innocent III against the Livonians who were mostly still pagan.[148] The Livonians were conquered and converted between 1202 and 1209. There were more crusades like that i believe.
 
Timi_Celcer said:
I didn’t mean that all faiths are the truth, of curse Catholicsm is the truth, i just meant that Second Vatican council declared faiths equal, as that no muslim or jew can be killed for their religion. I also didn’t say that salvation is outside the Church, but muslims can go to heaven if they don’t know Christ right? With crusades being missions to forcefully convert i meant the crusades towards the northern people. From wikipedia: The Livonian Crusade was proclaimed by Pope Innocent III against the Livonians who were mostly still pagan.[148] The Livonians were conquered and converted between 1202 and 1209. There were more crusades like that i believe.
Click to expand...
Converting the Livonians originally intended to be peaceful, but when the Livonians decided to kill Berthold of Hanover, the Pope declared war against the Livonians. So, the Livonians brought war and destruction upon themselves.

Pope Celestine declared a crusade in order to protect missionaries, not kill Livonians. When the Livonians decided to kill Bishop Berthold, Pope Innocent III declared war against the Livonians.
 
bben15 said:
Plus, we needed to push back the Muslims, so they didn’t get into Western Europe.

If it weren’t for the Crusades, we’d all be speaking Arabic right now.
Click to expand...
Could you please substantiate these claims?
 
All one has to do is investigate the question of how all the Muslim countries of today became that way. These countries were all Christian before. Then look at what is still going on with the continuous persecution and killings of Christians in these Muslim countries. Every time I hear about another church getting bombed, I wonder how there are any Christians left in these countries.
 
Still nobody answered how conquering the Holy land isn’t sinful. Sure they forbade us from going to sacred places there, but we could and can reach salvation without that sacred places. And the Holy land wasn’t ours the whole time anyway so it was poeple dying for no reason.
 
i tink the intentions beind the crusades and what actually happened are two different things.

defensive crusades were not immoral.

offensive ones, well, it depended on the circumstances, but usually they were declared if someone got attacked. a lot of immoral things did result from them though. i think things spiraled out of control of what the pope intended
 
TRH1292 said:
The book I mentioned, “God’s Battalions”, is a great start for this subject.
Click to expand...
andyklein said:
What does he say?
Click to expand...
It always seems counterintuitive to moderns that warfare and religion can be consistent. Ideally, followers of the prince of peace are to avoid the sword and shield. Clearly, this has not always been the case. Frequently in the crosshairs of critics are the Christian wars against Muslims known as the Crusades, commonly viewed as the birth of European imperialism and the forced spread of Christianity. But what if we’ve had it all wrong? What if the Crusades were a justifiable response to a strong and determined foe? Stark, a prominent sociologist and author of 27 books on history and religion, has penned a compelling argument that these bloody encounters had less to do with spreading Christianity than with responding to an ever more dangerous enemy—the emerging Islamic empire. There is much to be learned here. Filled with fascinating historical glimpses of monks and Templars, priests and pilgrims, kings and contemplatives, Stark pulls it all together and challenges us to reconsider our view of the Crusades. (Source)
Click to expand...
 
Timi Celcer #1
II Vatican council declared that all faiths are equal while forcefully converting others is sinful. Crusades to the north were all about converting people there to Christianity. Isn’t there a contradiction?
#4
With crusades being missions to forcefully convert i meant the crusades towards the northern people.
#9
Still nobody answered how conquering the Holy land isn’t sinful.And the Holy land wasn’t ours the whole time anyway so it was poeple dying for no reason.
Click to expand...
Wrong on all counts as others have indicated. Catholic historian Dr Warren Carroll writes: “The Crusades were a just war, fought against literally centuries of Muslim aggression against Christian Asia Minor (now called Turkey), Sicily and Spain. The diversion of the Fourth Crusade against Christian Constantinople and the Children’s Crusade were abominations denounced by Pope Innocent III.” [See the third volume of his *History of Christendom, entitled The Glory of Christendom, Christendom Press, 1993]. It took 700 years to drive the Muslim marauders out of Spain.

“To regard the Crusades as a great crime is based on either pacifism or a total disregard of the nature and history of the enemy the Crusaders were fighting.”

Following the destruction of Jerusalem, there was a great dispersal of the Jewish people across the Roman Empire, but many Jews remained in the Holy Land (as attested by the further revolts in the 130’s during the reign of Emperor Hadrian). This remnant suffered severely following the revolt of Simon bar Cochba, and the city of Jerusalem was itself renamed Aelia Capitolina and Jews forbidden from entering.

As the Christian faith grew in acceptance, pilgrims began journeying to the city that reclaimed its name by the early 4th century. It was a largely Christian place, but over time, Jewish people resettled there and throughout the Holy Land.

Palestine was subsequently an often bloody battleground for empires: the Romans, Persians, and Arabs. Following the Arab Conquest in the 8th century, the Holy Land began assuming much of its polyglot nature - part of trade routes and the extensive commerce of the Islamic world, with a host of different peoples settling there. Relations among the different peoples varied with he era. The period of the Crusades (12th-13th centuries) were marked by the bitter struggles for dominance and Christian efforts to recapture the Holy Land.
[Matthew Bunson, EWTN].

So the assumptions are totally false – that the Crusades were about converting people – they were about overcoming the evils of Muslim conquerors who initiated wars against other peoples.
 
bben15 said:
Converting the Livonians originally intended to be peaceful, but when the Livonians decided to kill Berthold of Hanover, the Pope declared war against the Livonians. So, the Livonians brought war and destruction upon themselves.

Pope Celestine declared a crusade in order to protect missionaries, not kill Livonians. When the Livonians decided to kill Bishop Berthold, Pope Innocent III declared war against the Livonians.
Click to expand...
The crusader invasion occurred before his death. In fact, he arrived with them. Berthold of Hanover participated in and was killed at the end of a battle between the crusaders and the Livonians.
Abu said:
So the assumptions are totally false – that the Crusades were about converting people – they were about overcoming the evils of Muslim conquerors who initiated wars against other peoples.
Click to expand...
That isn’t entirely true. The Baltic Crusade was a war of aggression. The Baltic pagans initially had peaceful relations with the Christians and even provided their mission with food and supplies. The explicitly stated purpose of this Crusade was to force the Livonian pagans to convert.
 
EmperorNapoleon #14
The Baltic Crusade was a war of aggression
Click to expand...
That is correct as Dr Warren Carroll confirms in his History of Christendom Vol. 3, The Glory of Christendom, Chapter 9, due to the ravages of the “Teutonic Knights”… “misnamed crusaders (who) converted several thousand of the pagan people to Christianity by force.” (p 377).

The reality is that the major thrust of the Crusades was in overcoming the evils of Muslim conquerors who initiated wars against other peoples.

Tim Celcer’s other major error is in writng that “II Vatican council declared that all faiths are equal.”
 
The crusades weren’t a singular event, or even a singular series of events. There were not just the various ones into the Middle East, each one of those being of different natures, but there were also things such as the Albigensian Crusades, crusades into pagan Eastern Europe, and even the discovery and conquest of the New World by Spain can be seen to be a part of that same crusading spirit.
 
Timi_Celcer said:
I know the first crusades were mostly defensive actions against muslims but later crusades were all about conquering the Holy land. The pope blessed all that went on a crusade and the crusade is put under the just war doctorine. Why? Crusades were mostly all about fighting pagans, re-conquering some of the lost land and conquering the Holy land. II Vatican council declared that all faiths are equal while forcefully converting others is sinful. Crusades to the north were all about converting people there to Christianity. Isn’t there a contradiction?
Also how can re-conquering of Iberian penisula be moral? The Church teaches that all people can go to heaven no matter what religion they are, so why did the crusaders kill so many people for nothing. Is that moral? And why was conquering of the Holy land necceseary? We lost it anyway, so why the extra casualities? And still conquering is sinful, what would the Holy land brought us that we didn’t have anyway?
Click to expand...
Below is a book about the Crusades based on what modern historians say. Most of the bad things you have heard about the Crusades are from anti-catholic propaganda from protestant historians in the 1800s. This is also true for the inquisition, the “dark” ages, role of the Catholic Church in the New World, Galieo, etc.

amazon.com/Concise-History-Crusades-Critical-International/dp/1442215755/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1388979035&sr=8-1
 
Timi_Celcer said:
I didn’t mean that all faiths are the truth, of curse Catholicsm is the truth, i just meant that Second Vatican council declared faiths equal, as that no muslim or jew can be killed for their religion. I also didn’t say that salvation is outside the Church, but muslims can go to heaven if they don’t know Christ right? With crusades being missions to forcefully convert i meant the crusades towards the northern people. From wikipedia: The Livonian Crusade was proclaimed by Pope Innocent III against the Livonians who were mostly still pagan.[148] The Livonians were conquered and converted between 1202 and 1209. There were more crusades like that i believe.
Click to expand...
The crusades were never about forcibly converting people (that is what Mohammedans do). The main purpose of the Crusades was to protect pilgrams visiting the holy land and to help protect the eastern roman empire from repeated Mohammedan attacks. The current mohamedean countries of Turkey, all of north Africa, Syrian, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Iraq were all once Catholic before being invaded and subjugated by Mohammedans.
but muslims can go to heaven if they don’t know Christ right?
Click to expand...
Possibly. It is not because of their religion but in spite of it.
 
thedavidwilson said:
. The current mohamedean countries of Turkey, all of north Africa, Syrian, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Iraq were all once Catholic before being invaded and subjugated by Mohammedans.
Click to expand...
The fact that many of those Christians in the Holy land were considered Monophysite/Nestorian heretics, and actually hailed the initial Muslim conquerors as liberators from persecution does not seem to have come up yet.
 
Vatican II never said that all faiths are equal. Catholicism is the Truth, and always will be. The council just said we should be more friendly towards people of other faiths. The Church has never taught that you can go to heaven no matter what faith you are. There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, because the Catholic Church is the One, True Church
Click to expand...
.

Agreed for the most part, but the fact that JESUS CHRIST is clearly stated as the way, the TRUTH, and the life in scriptures we should be careful what we pronounce as the truth nd only the truth. If it follows sound doctrine in the word of GOD through his son JESUS then it is truth.

Wikipedia describes the crusades as…
The Crusades were religious conflicts during the High Middle Ages through to the end of the Late Middle Ages, conducted under the sanction of the Latin Catholic Church. Pope Urban II proclaimed the first crusade in 1095 with the stated goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem. There followed a further six major Crusades against Muslim territories in the east and numerous minor ones as part of an intermittent 200-year struggle for control of the Holy Land that ended in failure. After the fall of Acre, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land, in 1291, Catholic Europe mounted no further coherent response in the east. Many historians and medieval contemporaries, such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, give equal precedence to comparable, Papal-blessed military campaigns against pagans, heretics, and people under the ban of excommunication, undertaken for a variety of religious, economic, and political reasons, such as the Albigensian Crusade, the Aragonese Crusade, the Reconquista, and the Northern Crusades
Click to expand...
.[1]

If one was to look into todays society we would have to consider another crusade so as to clean up the corruption that seeped in and taken root amongst us. Granted with moral due process and appropriate extraction.

The idleness by which we maintain is what is allowing this corruption to continue.

Praise be to GOD the heavenly father and his son lord JESUS CHRIST forever>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top