Category Archives: Crusades

August, Crusades, Ecclesiology, Saints

Aug 25 – St Louis IX of France (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270) – Crusader King

“Louis’s insistence on taking the cross [in December 1244] and journeying to the Holy Land was an outgrowth of his deep faith and love for Christ. He yearned to see Jerusalem under Christian control once more. His desire was so great that he was prepared to risk his personal and royal fortunes on the expedition. He was sovereign of the wealthiest region in all Christendom and the king of the most populous Christian country. There was much to lose by going on Crusade, but King St. Louis IX knew that the eternal reward greatly outweighed the temporal risk.

The thirteenth-century was the “century of St. Louis,” as no man more exemplified the tenor of the age than the saintly king of the Franks. Louis was blond, slender, handsome, gentle though firm, decisive in policy and generous in charity. He was a devout and dutiful son and a loving husband and father. Along with the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, Louis was the most important political figure of the thirteenth century and the central figure in Christendom. Those two men could not have been more opposite in all aspects of their lives. Frederick was the “Crusader without faith” whereas Louis was the “perfect Crusader.” One man seemed to eschew all religious faith, whereas the other embraced it and was declared a saint of the Church. Frederick kept a harem of Muslim women, whereas, uncharacteristic of the age for monarchy, Louis was a monogamous husband. Louis was a product of his times, but he also shaped the era in which he lived, and his influence (and intercession) continues to the modern world.

There was perhaps no greater king in the history of France. He governed his realm peacefully and justly for forty-four years, following three principles: devotion to God, self-discipline, and affection for his people. Even in an age of faith, the king’s personal piety and sanctity stood out. He wore simple clothing, especially after his return from the Crusade, and kept a regimented prayer life. He awoke each night at midnight to participate with his royal chaplains in the Liturgy of the Hours, and said fifty Hail Marys each evening, kneeling and standing for each prayer. Louis’s prayer life was augmented by penitential practices, including fasting, the wearing of a hair shirt, weekly confession, and the special personal mortification of not laughing on Fridays. He was concerned for his own salvation, but even more so for the salvation of his subjects, which he considered “his highest duty.”


-contemporary depiction ~1230 AD

…The Egyptian Campaign Begins

The French fleet arrived at Damietta on June 4, 1249, and once more the Muslim garrison prepared to fight Crusaders. The next morning, the Crusaders undertook an amphibious landing with Louis in the lead. When warriors waded to shore, the Muslim garrison commander, Fakhr al-Din, saw the strength of the Crusader army and decided to withdraw from the city to the sultan’s camp several miles away.

The city, now emptied of its defenders, was soon occupied by the French Crusaders in a surprisingly easy undertaking, which was the opposite of the siege during the Fifth Crusade [a 17-month siege in 1218-19].  Louis found stockpiles of food, equipment, and material that the Muslims left behind in their hasty retreat. The king decided to spend the summer in Damietta while waiting for his brother Alphonse and other Crusaders to arrive.

As winter approached, Louis thought an attack on Cairo would give the Christians complete control of Egypt and finish the task left undone by the Fifth Crusade, so he gave the command to march there in late November, 1249. He left a garrison and his five-months-pregnant queen in Damietta, and ordered the fleet to shadow the army’s movement offshore…”

Love,
Matthew

Crusades, Islam, September

May 18 – Sep 11, 1565: Knights Hospitaller defeat the Ottomans at Malta (3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days)


Lifting of the Siege of Malta by Charles-Philippe Larivière (1798–1876). Hall of the Crusades, Palace of Versailles. please click on the image for greater detail


-by Steve Weidenkopf

“In the same year that Pope Leo X condemned the errors of the recalcitrant Augustinian, Martin Luther, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire died. It was 1520, and Selim I left the throne of the mighty Turkish Empire to his only surviving son, Suleiman, who would come to be known to history as “the Magnificent.” Every Ottoman sultan was expected to glorify Islam by adding territory to the empire, and the Ottomans’ victorious and bloody march through Christendom since the late fourteenth century showed no signs of slowing at the beginning of the sixteenth.

Suleiman was the grandson of Mehmet II, the conqueror of Constantinople, but he quickly overshadowed the great achievement of his ancestor. While Mehmet focused on conquering the “Queen of Cities,” Suleiman set out during his forty-six-year reign to conquer the world. His forces conquered Baghdad, Belgrade, Budapest, and Rhodes. As the empire reached what would be its furthest reach, Ottoman military planners knew that land conquests were important but insufficient: control of the seaways was vital. Therefore, the Ottomans embarked on a campaign to control the “center of the world,” the Mediterranean Sea.

Suleiman’s desire to control the Mediterranean was thwarted for a time, however, by a Catholic military religious order: the Knights Hospitaller on the island of Malta. An Ottoman fleet successfully conquered the Knights’ previous home island of Rhodes in 1522, but Suleiman allowed the surviving Christian warriors to leave the island due to their gallant and tenacious defense. The Knights settled on the strategic island of Malta and harassed Ottoman naval vessels for the next thirty years. By 1565, Suleiman could no longer ignore the problem of the Knights, so he assembled an army of 40,000 warriors, a hundred artillery pieces, and one hundred thousand cannonballs and set out to attack Malta. He was certain of the imminent victory of Islam, but once more the Knights would prove their mettle and push back against the Ottoman horde.

The Knights had used Malta as their base of operations for almost forty years when the great Ottoman invasion fleet arrived. The Master General of the Order, Jean de La Valette, a veteran of the siege of Rhodes, knew the situation was desperate, so he sent a summons to all the Knights in Christendom to come to the island’s defense. He recognized that if Malta fell, the Muslims would gain a strategic base from which to launch an invasion of Sicily, Italy, and ultimately the very heart of Christendom, Rome.

The Ottomans arrived on Malta in May 1565 with a 180-ship fleet that sailed into and took the main harbor, unopposed. La Valette had placed his greatly outnumbered troops in several forts around the harbor. The Ottomans disembarked and arranged their camp in a crescent shape, as was their custom. The Christian defense centered on Fort St. Elmo, at the tip of the largest and most strategic peninsula, as it commanded the entrance to the harbor. Recognizing the importance of the fort, the Ottoman commanders decided to attack it on May 25. Ottoman engineers estimated it would fall in four or five days, but their calculation proved substantially incorrect.

As the calendar turned to June, the Ottomans had succeeded in capturing only the outer trench. The fight was brutal, seeing bitter hand-to-hand combat, heavy sniper activity, and a near-continuous Ottoman artillery barrage. Although the defenders fought bravely, it was only a matter of time before the fort would fall.

The defenders knew the end was near when a cannonball decapitated the fort’s commander on the twenty-sixth day of the siege. The Ottomans launched what proved to be the last attack on June 23 against the sixty Christian defenders remaining (out of an original strength of 1500). Only five ultimately survived the siege. The Ottoman commander (Mustapha Pasha) hoped to demoralize the remaining Christian troops across the harbor so he ordered some of the bodies of the dead Knights stripped of their armor, their hearts ripped out and heads cut off. Each headless corpse was then marked with a cross cut into the chest and nailed by the hands and feet to a wooden crucifix, which was placed into the water to float across the harbor to the remaining Christian defenses. La Valette responded to the Ottoman atrocity by beheading captured Muslim soldiers, loading the heads into his cannons, and firing them into the Muslim camp.

This grotesque exchange illustrates the fact that both sides knew this was a fight to the death, and that the stakes both for the Islamic caliphate and for Christendom could not be higher.

Those who died at Fort St. Elmo gave the other defenders of Malta time to consolidate and reinforce their positions, but the respite was short-lived. Fighting was intense through the month of July, and in early August an Ottoman assault nearly broke the Christian defenses. The hour was so desperate that even Maltese civilians, including women and children, manned the walls to push back the Turks. The remaining days of August were filled with intense trench combat that produced a stalemate, and casualties on both sides were heavy.

The Christian defenders received news on September 8, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the arrival of the long-awaited Spanish relief force in eighty ships. A few days later, on September 11, 1565, the Spanish reinforcements began their march towards the harbor to relieve La Valette’s troops. Aware of their vulnerability, the Ottoman commanders tried a risky, and ultimately futile, attack against the Spanish relief force. The fresh Spanish forces easily routed the Ottoman troops, who were wearied after four months of heavy fighting.


-Jean Parisot de Valette, please click on the image for greater detail

The Ottomans retreated hastily to their waiting ships in St. Paul’s Bay, the famous site of St. Paul’s shipwreck fifteen centuries before, and sailed home. Malta was saved and with it, Christendom. Pope Pius IV offered La Valette the cardinal’s hat for his valiant and brilliant defense of Malta, but the humble warrior refused the offer. He lived another five years, dying from a stroke after returning from a hunt on a hot summer day. He was buried on the island he so nobly defended.”


-re-enactment, please click on the image for greater detail


Non nobis Domine, Domine
Non nobis Domine
Sed nomini, Sed nomini
Tu o da gloriam

Not unto us, O Lord
Not unto us, O Lord
But to Your name
But to Your name
Give the Glory!

Love,
Matthew

Crusades, Ecclesiology

The Crusades – Glorious?

crusades

How can the Crusades be called “glorious”? Our modern mindset says they were ugly wars of greed and religious intolerance—a big reason why Christians and Muslims today can’t coexist peacefully.

Historian Steve Weidenkopf challenges this received narrative with The Glory of the Crusades. Drawing on the latest and most authentic medieval scholarship, he presents a compelling case for understanding the Crusades as they were when they happened: “armed pilgrimages” driven by a holy zeal to recover conquered Christian lands. Without whitewashing their failures and even crimes, he debunks the numerous myths about the Crusades that our secular culture uses as clubs to attack the Church.

“To recognize the glory of the Crusades means not to whitewash what was ignoble about them, but to call due attention to their import in the life of the Church.”
-Weidenkopf, Steve (2014-10-29). The Glory of the Crusades (Kindle Locations 76-77). Catholic Answers Press. Kindle Edition.

“The creation of these myths began in the sixteenth century when Protestant authors used the still-ongoing Crusades to attack the Church and, principally, the papacy.”
-Weidenkopf, Steve (2014-10-29). The Glory of the Crusades (Kindle Locations 129-130). Catholic Answers Press. Kindle Edition.

“Crusaders were portrayed as ignorant followers of superstition who participated in holy wars, which were nothing more than examples of Catholic bigotry and cruelty.”
-Weidenkopf, Steve (2014-10-29). The Glory of the Crusades (Kindle Locations 131-132). Catholic Answers Press. Kindle Edition.

“Martin Luther set the stage for the Protestant interpretation of the Crusades by seeing the Ottoman Turkish threat to Europe in the early sixteenth century as part of God’s plan for divine retribution against the evils of the Catholic Church. At the height of his revolution against the Church, Luther wrote, “to fight against the Turks is to oppose the judgment God visits upon our iniquities through them.”-Kenneth M. Setton, “Lutheranism and the Turkish Peril,” Balkan Studies 3 (1962): 142, in Madden, New Concise, 209.

“After a Turkish invasion force reached the gates of Vienna in 1529, Luther reconsidered his anti-Crusade stance and actually encouraged Christian princes (Catholic and Protestant alike) to join together to fight the Turkish horde. Of course, Luther did not actually call for a Crusade, nor did he desire a religious war resembling the Crusades. He steadfastly rejected any such notion by writing, “If in my turn I were a soldier and saw in the battlefield a priest’s banner or cross, even if it were the very crucifix, I should want to run away as though the devil were chasing me!”-Madden, The New Concise History of the Crusades, 210.”
-Weidenkopf, Steve (2014-10-29). The Glory of the Crusades (Kindle Locations 134-142). Catholic Answers Press. Kindle Edition.

“These scholars could not fathom the idea of warriors with actual faith engaging in warfare for primarily religious reasons.”
-Weidenkopf, Steve (2014-10-29). The Glory of the Crusades (Kindle Locations 191-192). Catholic Answers Press. Kindle Edition.

“Even good Catholic writers can find themselves relying on old stereotypes when discussing the Crusades. Fr. Robert Barron’s popular video series and companion book, Catholicism, strikes a condemnatory tone when discussing the Crusades. Referencing the four marks of the Church, Fr. Barron addresses the criticism leveled against the Church’s holiness and remarks, “How could one possibly declare as holy a church that has been implicated in so many atrocities and outrages over the centuries? How could a holy church have supported the Crusades, the Inquisition and its attendant tortures, slavery, the persecution of Galileo… and the burning of innocent women as witches?” 31 In Father Barron’s assessment, the Crusades are one example in a long “litany of crimes” in which even high-ranking clergy did “cruel, stupid and wicked things.” 32 He even suggests that the saintly Bernard of Clairvaux was probably “wrong, even sinful, to preach the Second Crusade.” 33

Fr. Barron’s work in this area betrays a lack of awareness of the recent and authentic scholarship on the Crusades (as well as the Inquisition) and instead relies on old, formulated, and erroneous criticisms of the Church’s historical past. Regrettably, the popularity of his (otherwise excellent) series ensures that these false narratives continue to influence the understanding of Catholics today.

Critics of the Church and even those within the Church argue that Pope St. John Paul II addressed the Crusades when during the Great Jubilee of 2000 he “apologized” for the sins of the Church; therefore, Catholics should not view these events in a positive light.

This view is not supported by the facts. John Paul II did not apologize for the Crusades; in fact, he never even mentioned the word during the Day of Pardon on March 12, 2000. In order to set the Church on a renewed footing as it entered the Third Millennium of the Faith, the pope tasked the International Theological Commission 34 to study the concept of a purification of memory that aimed “at liberating personal and communal conscience from all forms of resentment and violence that are the legacy of past faults, through a renewed historical and theological evaluation.” 35 On the Day of Pardon, John Paul II requested forgiveness from God for the faults and failings of our brothers and sisters who have gone before us in the Faith. His desire was born from a love of God and the Church in order for it to enter the third millennium free from the sins of Church members in the past. The pope not only asked God for forgiveness for the failings of past members of the Church but also called the Church to forgive those who have trespassed against it.

John Paul also recognized the importance of understanding the historical context in which the events of the past were lived, and he had no desire to pass judgment on our Catholic predecessors. 36 He did not reject the Church’s historical past, which is replete with examples of mercy, forgiveness, holiness, and grand achievement. In his September 1, 1999 general audience he expressly said that the Church’s “request for pardon must not be understood as an expression of false humility or as a denial of her 2,000-year history . . . instead, she responds to the necessary requirement of the truth, which, in addition to the positive aspects, recognizes the human limitations and weaknesses of the various generations of Christ’s disciples.”http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/1999/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_01091999_en.html.

The Church has not apologized for the Crusades because an apology is not necessary. On the contrary, for centuries the Crusading movement was integral to the lived expression of the Faith.”
-Weidenkopf, Steve (2014-10-29). The Glory of the Crusades (Kindle Locations 228-260). Catholic Answers Press. Kindle Edition.

“An authentic understanding of historical events begins not with the present time of the historical author, but with the contemporary time of the participant. Failure to adhere to that premise falsifies history and produces a “reading into” rather than a “learning from” historical events. 39”
-Weidenkopf, Steve (2014-10-29). The Glory of the Crusades (Kindle Locations 265-267). Catholic Answers Press. Kindle Edition.

“The International Theological Commission recognized this trap and encouraged those who would presume to judge the actions of Catholics in the past to keep “in mind that the historical periods are different, that the sociological and cultural times within which the Church acts are different, and so, the paradigms and judgments proper to one society and to one era might be applied erroneously in the evaluations of other periods of history, producing many misunderstandings.”-International Theological Commission, Memory and Reconciliation, 4.2.”
-Weidenkopf, Steve (2014-10-29). The Glory of the Crusades (Kindle Locations 269-273). Catholic Answers Press. Kindle Edition.


-interview w/Steve Weidenkopf

Q. Why do you think there is such a negative connotation in most people’s minds when it comes to the Crusades? Where did the negative “spin” originate?

A. Most people’s impression of the Crusades is fostered by Hollywood movies and documentaries on TV. Although this has led to wide recognition of the subject, the presentation of the Crusades is greatly misleading, because Hollywood and TV rely on an outdated anti-Catholic narrative. The negative “spin” actually began in the sixteenth century with the Protestant revolutionary Martin Luther, who attacked the Crusades because he saw them as an outgrowth of papal authority and power. Later on, Enlightenment authors like Voltaire and Edward Gibbon (among others) shaped modernity’s negative view of the Crusades by seeing them as barbaric events undertaken by greedy and savage warriors at the behest of a corrupt papacy. This anti-religious view of the inherently religious Crusades shaped popular imagination about the events and continues to be prevalent in our own day. Thankfully, modern-day Crusade historians eschew this prejudice and are bringing to light an authentic understanding of these Catholic events.

Q. Do you think a lot of the negative connotations the Crusades have is due to a misunderstanding about the time and culture in which they occurred?

A. Yes. History is best understood from the perspective of those who participated in the events themselves. In order to properly understand the Crusades, one must understand them as authentically Catholic events in an age of faith. This does not mean that everyone in the Middle Ages was a saint or society was perfect; but it was an era in which people made radical life decisions, like going on Crusade, because of their faith in Jesus Christ and his Church. The modern secular humanist world greatly struggles to understand the authentic religious worldview of the medieval period. The Crusading movement was a Catholic movement. Popes called for them, clerics (and saints) preached them, and Catholic warriors fought them for spiritual benefits. The Crusades cannot be properly understood apart from this Catholic reality.

Q. Your approach seems to be going against the normal apologetic arguments. Instead of merely defending the Crusades, you speak of their glory. What do you mean by that?

A. The glory of the Crusades means the movement was a very important one in the life of the Church (it occupies 600 years of Catholic history). It’s a historical phenomenon that all Catholics should know more about in order to defend the Church against modern-day attacks. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word used for the “glory” of the Lord is kabod, which means “heavy with weight,” or something of great importance. It’s in this manner that I talk of the glory of the Crusades. They were very important events in the life of the Church, and since modern-day critics use historical events like the Crusades to attack the Church, it’s important for Catholics to know our authentic history and refute the myths. Basically, to recognize the glory of the Crusades means not to whitewash what was ignoble about them but to call due attention to their import in the life of the Church.

Q. What do you hope to accomplish with your new book?

A. To allow readers to see the Crusades from the perspective of those who participated in them. This authentic story is present among Crusade historians, but despite their best efforts it remains within academia and has not replaced the more common false narrative. I hope my book can help bring this great scholarship to a wider audience. I want to arm Catholics with the truth about the Crusades so they can not only defend the Church but also be filled with a healthy sense of Catholic identity.

Q. Given the current state of the world, do you think that a modern version of the Crusader has any place in the life of the Church or society?

A. Well, our modern world is politically and religiously different from the medieval period, but we can learn much from our brothers and sisters in the Faith who lived during the time of the Crusades. The Crusades are filled with the stories of heroic men and women who risked all for love of Christ and his Church and who were concerned for their own salvation. Their deep faith and desire to place themselves completely at the service of the Church for a greater cause is praiseworthy and should motivate modern-day Catholics. The Church today is in need of defenders, and even more importantly the world is in need of the saving message of the gospel. Every Catholic is called to participate in evangelization, and our recent popes have called for a New Evangelization to bring Jesus to those areas that are lukewarm or have rejected the Faith. We can look at the zeal of the Crusaders to motivate us into giving more of ourselves for Christ and his Church in an age that is desperate need of both.

Q. First, we’ll get to a question that has gotten a lot of press lately: do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?

A.  In the document Lumen Gentium from the Second Vatican Council, the Church teaches that Christians and Muslims “adore the one and merciful God” (LG 16), so I think it is appropriate to say that Christians and Muslims believe in the existence of one God. But what we believe about the nature of God is vastly different. Dr. R. Jared Staudt wrote an excellent article that addresses this very important distinction (“Islam, Violence, and the Nature of God,” Catholic World Report, Sept. 2014). Islam does not view God as Jesus revealed him to be: a loving Father who desires our salvation and sent his Son to accomplish that task. Additionally, Islam rejects the Trinity, Christianity’s fundamental doctrine on the nature of God. What one believes about the nature of God shapes how one views and responds to others, and this is clearly manifest in the history of Islam and the Church.

Those alive during the Crusading movement did not believe that Christians and Muslims worshiped the same God. They recognized that Muslims professed a belief in one God, but they definitely understood that Muslim belief about who God is was not in keeping with Catholic teaching.

Q. Can you compare the threat of Islam during the Crusades to the threat of Islam today?

A.  Obviously, the geopolitical environment of the Crusading movement and that of today are quite different, so a direct comparison is not possible. But one can observe some similarities. Native Christians in Muslim-occupied territories of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries were harassed by various groups of Muslims, just as indigenous Christians today are persecuted. From its origins, Islam is a violently expansionist movement bent on the acquisition of territory. Within a century of Mohammed’s death in A.D. 632, Islamic armies conquered most of the ancient Christian territory in the Holy Land, North Africa, and Spain. ISIS is an Islamic organization that follows the teachings of Mohammed to expand the House of Islam through violent jihad. The establishment of the caliphate by ISIS, its conquests in Syria and Iraq, its persecution of indigenous Christians, its terrorist operations, and its infiltration of the West through propaganda and emigration all pose a significant threat to Western civilization.

Q. It seems that the Church has undertaken most of the historical battles against Islam, be it the Crusaders or the Holy League at the Battle of Lepanto. Why do you think that is?

A.  The rise of the Islamic movement in the seventh century was a crisis of epic proportions for the Christian world. Since Islam arose before the advent of powerful nation-states, the Catholic Church was the one international institution that could rally the desperate forces of the Western world to meet the threat. Before the Crusading movement, local Catholic rulers and warriors mounted defenses against Islamic invaders. The papal reform movement in the eleventh century freed the popes from the interference of secular rulers and allowed the popes to lead a united effort against the forces of Islam. In the beginning, papal leadership was very successful and important in the Western world’s response. But as the geopolitical environment evolved through the centuries, secular rulers became focused on their own political goals and were less inclined to listen to popes. As an example, Pope Pius II (r. 1458-1464) pleaded with the rulers of Christendom to mount a Crusade to retake Constantinople after the city fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Most rulers ignored him, so eventually he planned to lead the Crusade personally but died before the scheduled departure. The Church, and specifically the popes, have consistently recognized the danger Islam and its teachings pose to the Western world and have endeavored heroically to meet that threat.

Q. Do you think that modern-day Islam sees Christianity as a threat?

A.  There are elements within the Islamic world that dislike the Church, although I think there is also a strong dislike of Western secular culture and its immoral influence. The tenants of Islam and the Christian faith differ in significant ways, and those in ISIS and other violent Islamic groups recognize Christianity is an obstacle to their goals. Basic Islamic teaching views the world as in two camps: the House of Islam and the House of War. This dichotomy inherently views all that is not in the House of Islam as a threat that must be countered with jihad. Many in the Western world mistake Islamic anger and tension for misaligned economic policies or simple misunderstandings without understanding that core Islamic religious teachings are the reason for the current tension and violence.

Q. Across social media there seems to be an undercurrent calling for a “New Crusade.” What’s the likelihood of something like that happening in modern times?

A.  If one envisions a “New Crusade” in the vein of the armed expeditions sanctioned by the Church in the Crusading movement, then the likelihood is virtually nonexistent. The Church in the modern world, due in large part to the current political structure rooted in the nation-state, is focused on solving problems through diplomacy. In situations where diplomacy does not work, the Church turns for assistance to the international community and powerful Western nations. The Church voices support for those affected by Islamic violence and prays and works for peace, but the time of the holy war to defend Christians and the Faith from the onslaught of Islam, unless there is a radical change in the political structure of the world, is over. Of course, individual Christians may take it upon themselves (and some have) to fight in defense of their persecuted brothers and sisters, but they are not Crusaders in the proper sense of the term. For most Christians, the proper response to the current situation is fervent prayer and supplication to God to end the violence.

Love,
Matthew

31 Robert Barron, Catholicism—A Journey to the Heart of the Faith (New York: Image Books, 2011), 162.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Headed at the time by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger—later Pope Benedict XVI.
35 International Theological Commission, Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past.
36 The pope’s recognition of the importance of historical context and the work of historians was illustrated in his Discourse to the Participants in the International Symposium of Study on the Inquisition held on October 31, 1998. He said, “This is the reason why the first step consists in asking the historians . . . to offer help toward a reconstruction, as precise as possible, of the events, of the customs, of the mentality of the time, in the light of historical context of the epoch.” In terms of passing judgment on past Catholics, John Paul II said in his Angelus Address on March 12, 2000: “This is not a judgment on the subjective responsibility of our brothers and sisters who have gone before us: judgment belongs to God alone . . . Today’s act is a sincere recognition of the sins committed by the Church’s children in the distant and recent past, and a humble plea for God’s forgiveness. This will reawaken consciences, enabling Christians to enter the third millennium with greater openness to God and his plan of love.”
39 The full quote is “Reading history from present to past is reading into rather than learning from it.” Steven Ozment, A Mighty Fortress—A New History of the German People (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 8.

Crusades, New Evangelization, The Inquisition

“Fire & Sword: Crusade & Inquisition” -Matthew Arnold

https://soul-candy.info/2014/10/matthew-arnold-new-age-agnostic-to-catholic-apologist/

fire_and_Sword_nodisc__89369.1410853409.1280.1280

from:
http://saintjoe.net/fire-and-sword-crusade-inquisition/

“There is probably no institution in the history of man more unjustly maligned than the Catholic Church-and no more powerful rhetorical device than the distortion of the facts regarding the Crusades, Inquisitions and the Protestant Reformation. Opponents of the Church demand to know, “How can the Catholic Church be the true Church when she tortured and killed Jews, Muslims and even other Christians in the Inquisition?” “How can a truly Christian Church be responsible for bloody religious wars, when Christ said, ‘Turn the other cheek’?” “How can this Church, with the blood of millions on her hands dare to condemn ‘a woman’s right to choose’?”

Myths and Misconceptions
In the fascinating new three CD series, Fire and Sword: Crusade, Inquisition, Reformation, Catholic convert and EWTN Radio personality Matt Arnold pits the common accusations about these historical events against the findings of modern scholarship and what he uncovers will amaze you! In this informative presentation, he reveals that those who have a stake in keeping the myths and misconceptions alive are actively obscuring the best scholarship from both religious and secular historians.

Fire and Sword begins with an introduction to many virtually unknown facts about the Middle Ages, and exposes the common misconceptions about the period. Through the works of many leading medieval scholars Matt demonstrates that, “If we judge the past by its fruits, we’ll soon discover that the Middle Ages weren’t so dark (and Catholics not so barbaric!) as so-called history suggests.”

Holy War
In the presentation on the Crusades, you’ll discover the true motives and methods of the Christian Crusaders and the nature of their struggle with Islam. Following the example of the best current scholarship, modern medievalists going directly to primary sources for their research. They’ve discovered that Protestant and secular bias has rejected out-of-hand, the well-documented motives of the Crusaders in favor of a projection of their own anti-Catholicism. Surprisingly, the supply of written records from the Middle Ages is both large and largely ignored. Even many Catholics will be surprised by what they contain!

Catholic Kryptonite
In Fire and Sword, Matt Arnold describes the Inquisition as “Catholic Kryptonite” because many times, just when a Catholic apologist begins to make headway on issues like the papacy or the Real Presence, the specter of the Inquisition is invoked to destroy his credibility. This series will offer you the crucial facts to put this topic in its rightful perspective and even show how the process of Catholic inquisition was often more just and lenient than other contemporary forms of justice.

Finally, CD three takes a revealing look at the dark side of the Protestant Reformation. Far from an indulgence in “comparative atrocities,” this presentation uncovers undeniable facts of history, often in the words of the reformers themselves, to expose the real motives behind the 16th century movement to abandon centuries of Christian Tradition.

Powerful Reminder
You’ll have your eyes opened to new perspectives and, perhaps most importantly, you’ll more readily understand why certain forces (even within the Catholic Church herself) are so fervently dedicated to keeping the old myths alive. Fire and Sword: Crusade, Inquisition, Reformation explodes the many myths surrounding these crucial episodes in Salvation History and will positively empower you to better defend the Church that Christ established.

Questions Answered:
What was the real motive behind the Crusades?
Did Catholic Inquisitors really kill millions of innocent people?
Why did the Reformation happen?
Was the medieval Church corrupt?
Are the Crusades responsible for modern Muslim resentment of the West?
Why should the Middle Ages rightly be called the “Age of Faith?”
What does modern scholarship say about the Crusades and Inquisitions?
Why did some reformers consider reason an enemy of faith?

Love,
Matthew

Crusades, Ecclesiology, New Evangelization

The Glory of the Crusades

crusades

I am a fan of Steve Weidenkopf.  I own and have on my iPhone his Epic:  A Journey Through Church History.  It is interesting, fascinating, and worthwhile.  He gives the best, and frankly only, explanation of the  Inquisition (The Holy Office) in a positive light and reasoning I have ever heard.  He is informed, factual, balanced.  Who could ask for anything more from any author on any topic, or even just citizen?

Keep in mind the Ottomans constantly threatened Europe, which is where we get the narrative of Vlad the Impaler, or Dracula, from, Happy Halloween!!!  And, the Moors occupied Spain for 700 years, 711 -1492 AD.  Servant of God Queen Isabella the Catholic, whose cause for beatification is pending, would not meet with Columbus to “give him her jewels” for his attempt at a voyage until the Moors had been driven from Spain once and for all in the Reconquista.

I have just ordered his latest work The Glory of the Crusades.  The ebook becomes available this month.  I found it interesting, informative, educational, and enlightening.

It does seem history repeats itself?  Regardless of the reason?  The USA had bombed seven Muslim countries recently.  “Eight and I get a free falafel!” -Stephen Colbert.  Our Lady, Queen of Peace, pray for us!

http://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/title/understanding-the-crusades

“We have returned to the Levant, we have returned apparently more as masters than ever we were during the struggle of the Crusades—but we have returned bankrupt in that spiritual wealth which was the glory of the Crusades.”
-Hilaire Belloc, The Crusades, 1937

“In our age the Crusades are described as barbaric, wasteful, shameful, and even sinful. Rarely are they called glorious. This is because the modern world embraces a false narrative about the Crusades. This false story, however much discredited by authentic modern scholarship, remains entrenched in the minds of the masses.

Yet it was not always so. During the Crusading movement these military events were mostly seen in a positive light throughout Christendom, with popes and saints exhorting Catholic warriors to engage in them. Warriors who participated in these armed pilgrimages did so for a multitude of reasons but primarily for the sake of their own salvation. The Crusades emerged from a feudal society that stressed personal relationships founded on honor, loyalty, and service to one’s vassal. Crusading knights invoked those virtues as they fought for Christ and the Church to recover ancient Christian territory stolen by Muslim conquerors.

The Crusades also emerged from an age in which faith permeated all aspects of society. This does not mean medieval Europe was heaven on earth or that Christendom was some idyllic utopia. But it was nonetheless an era in which people made radical life decisions because of their faith in Jesus Christ and his Church. Accordingly, the Crusading movement was a Catholic movement. Popes called for them, clerics (and saints) preached them, and Catholic warriors fought them for spiritual benefits. The Crusades cannot be properly understood apart from this Catholic reality.

Sadly, though, too many Catholics today seem more inclined to apologize for the Crusades rather than to embrace their glory.

Perhaps this is because the meaning of glory is not properly understood. The Old Testament can help provide us a proper understanding of glory. After Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt, they sinned against God by worshipping the golden calf. God wanted to destroy the Israelites for their idolatry but Moses interceded for the people and the Lord relented. Moses’ special relationship with God included the gift of being in the presence of the Lord in the meeting tent where Moses spoke to God face to face. Moses pleaded with God for his presence to remain with the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land so that the other nations would see their uniqueness.

Moses also begged the Lord to show him his glory (Ex. 33:18). The Hebrew word for “glory” used most often in the Old Testament is kabod, which means “heavy in weight.” To recognize the glory of something, therefore, means to acknowledge its importance or “weight.” Moses wanted the Lord’s glory to shine for the people in order that they would recognize the important act of their deliverance from bondage. To recognize the glory of the Crusades means not to whitewash what was ignoble about them, but to call due attention to their import in the life of the Church.

Perhaps by reclaiming the true Catholic narrative of the Crusades we may be emboldened to honor our Lord by proudly bearing the cross against modern enemies that threaten his Church no less than did the followers of Mohammed a millennium ago.”

Love, glory, & victory,
Matthew