Vatican change of heart over 'barbaric' Crusades

Maybe they have simply been checking up upon the latest medieval research which has especially looked at the charters of knights who went on the crusades thus showing their true reasons for going. Or just maybe they have decided to look into their own archives to find out the truth.

Or maybe they simply went to the public library and took out some history books that were collecting dust on the shelves for 30 years or longer.

This is a start.

John Paul II was an extraordinary man...just as Ronald Reagan was. Both had the courage and fortitude to explicate the malevolence of Communism - albeit in strikingly different ways - in an age where apologia and moral equivalence were very much in vogue (as they are now).

Yet, both had a blind-spot when it came to Islam. I honestly believe that blind-spot was derived from the intensity of their revulsion for Communism. It didn't allow them the scope of vision that would encompass an accurate reading of the Islamic threat.

I suffered myself similarly. I spent two decades studying the crimes of Stalin and his successors; it wasn't just the terrible toll on humanity, it was the insidiousness of their methodology...in particular, the re-writing of histrory...the falsification of the past in order to white-wash the present and warp the future. Reality became infinitely malleable.

Islam's saving grace is that it wasn't communism...in fact it was, at least on the surface, the antithesis of communism. And so we believed.

I finally came around in 1993, when Al Azhar endorsed female "circumcision" as being in "full accord with Islamic teaching." My tardiness was perceived as foresight by my friends and family, who didn't have a clue until 9-11. But studying Stalin for so long and with such acuity had sensitized me to the nature and essence of sociological evil. Why didn't I see Islam for what it was even earlier?

My God, how the Persians and the Greeks of the 7th century must have lamented their foolishness and myopia after the fact...as they nursed ancient grievances towards each other and ignored the gathering stormclouds emanating from the southern desert. They were even forewarned by the calls of the Prophet to submit..but were oblivious to the gravity posed by such an invitation.

Fast foward to today: The Catholic Church has been a passive facilitator of jihad for 2 decades, encouraging Muslim immigration and turning a blind eye to the persecution of Christians within Dar ul Islam (good ole "quiet diplomacy"). Meanwhile, mainline Protestants are today literally active facilitators with their disinvestment campaign to strangle the economy of Israel.

Which leaves us the Evangelicals...where one can literally here the red-neck, countryfide accent of the sermonizer de jour (touche, Mr Robertson) as he/she denounces Islam in the most unsophisticated fashion...with pathetic, bigoted expressions like "demonic" and "Satanic cult."

Then again....if the shoe fits.

The popes have historically played an important role in the defence of Christendom against the sword of Islam (1571 & 1683). Looks like B16 will do the same. He was chosen for a reason, to re-evangelise Europe and defend her from the Mohammedans. A secular, hedonistic and childless Europe will not fight for its survival.

Cornelius: I agree with your analysis (and share much of your experience), but you forget one thing about Pope John Paul. He was, personally, a convinced pacifist. If you ever read Lewis' THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS, you may recall the Devil's advise to his nephew - only make your man a pacifist if you know he is a coward with some serious inward doubts about his own courage. Now Karol Woytila was the exact opposite of that. Himself as brave as a lion, he could oppose war in good faith even during the horror of Nazi occupation; and he did. As a well-read Catholic philosopher, he was aware that the Church allowed for just war; but to him, that remained a theoretical concession at best. He never, shall we say, met a war he could like. The tremendous success of his tactics of peaceful resistance, in ripping off the gates first of Communist Poland and then of the whole of Eastern Europe, convinced him even further of the superiority - not only moral, but tactical - of passive resistance to fighting. That being the case, in short, the very notion of fighting war for the Catholic faith must have seemed to him pretty much a case - in the old evangelical words - of "the abomination standing where it should not"; of the most hideous and detested thing he could think of, claiming to serve the thing he himself had given his life to and that he honoured and loved above all others.

The Vatican apologised for the excesses of the Crusades in particular that of the 4th which ended up sacking Constantinople, which undermined the unity of purpose of the Christian West and East. And in as much as these excesses undermined Christian unity, the Vatican was perhaps right to apologise. Although I don't see what good that would do since this happened hundreds of years ago and the protagonists are long dead. No such apology was offered to Muslims some of whom were offended that they were left out of the apologies to the Orthodox and the Jews.

Ivan: thanks for reminding us of the Fourth Crusade. As I understand it, the resentment for the sack of Constantinople is still something like a folk-emotion in the Orthodox world - at least, that is what I was told - and of course Pope John Paul, who was extremely concerned with reunion with the Orthodox, would be keen to remove that particular cause of offence.

(That the Byzantines brought the catastrophe on themselves by successive massacres of Latin settlers and by humiliating the Venetian nobleman who, as Doge, eventually drove the Crusaders to the imperial capital, is another matter. Again, the Crusaders can be seen to have rather more of a reason on their side than popular accounts allow; nevertheless, the destruction of the Byzantine empire was a great crime, and was probably the deciding cause in the revival of Turkish fortunes and the rise of the Ottoman dynasty.)

Why should Christians and Europeans be the only ones apologetic about wars they ran? The Muslims aren't apologetic about anything they did ever. Apart from them, there are others: Chengiz Khan is still lionized in Mongolia. Russia still celebrates Tsar Peter the Great.

Even if Europeans were to feel rightly guilty about certain things - the Spanish Inquisition, the conquest of Peru, the 30 Year War, the death sentence on the entire Dutch Protestant population, the Danish raids on England, - under no circumstances should they extend that guilt to the Mohammedans - ever.

cornelius you wrote"My God, how the Persians and the Greeks of the 7th century must have lamented their foolishness and myopia after the fact...as they nursed ancient grievances towards each other and ignored the gathering stormclouds emanating from the southern desert. "

Well I honestly believe Islam arose out of that war. It was a response to the Greeks complete and utter success in that campaign. Heraclius completely defeated the Persians. He reclaimed the true cross and it was clear Jerusalem was to remain part of the empire. With Christian domination Greek culture would not driven out of the holy land. Tribalism had lost out to civilization. Yet out of nowhere as a response to this this new religion came out of the desert. A religion that preserved the tribal culture that existed before the arrival of the greeks almost a millenium earlier. A culture that preached revenge. A culture that did not believe in reason but prophecy and superstition a culture that was tribal, more than one wife, woman treated like cattle etc.

The big mistake was the greeks and latins fighting amongst themselves centuried later. If they remained united Islam would not have spread as far as it did.

Had the Greeks governed the Eastern Empire a bit better, the people may have put up more of a resistance and kicked the Mohammedans back into the deserts of Arabia. High taxes and misrule created a lot of resentment in places like Egypt which the Mohammedans took advantage of.

PAS I honestly think the empire was governed well back then. It was later that mismanagement allowed the turks to rise. My point was that religion contains the culture of the civilization that founded them. When the Germans adopted Christianity they took on roman and greek culture and became civilized. Other than the people who were forced to convert to Islam by the sword which group willingly converted to Islam. The answere it tribal barbarians like the Turks.

Christianity was a Greek religion more than it was Jewish. Greek Philosophies such as neoplatonism greatly influenced it. The Greeks were always alien to the region. The Syrians, phoenicians were civilized and they werent the ones that revolted. The eqyptians were civilized but there was some differences in religion and they became disolusioned and this allowed Islam to enter. The hellenized Jews to would of probably fit in more with the christians then muslims. But the arabs who were tribal, and if there were orthodox jews in the area would of not liked Christianity at all. Fro example in the roman empire jews who became citizens were only allowed one wife. Ones who didnt were allowed to be polygomists.

When there is too much success there is always an opposite reaction like in some chemical and physical reactions. Just like today the US success is creating forces to counter it. Back then the complete success of Christianity over the Persians alienated people who were afraid of their way of life. I believe Mohamed tapped into this. Of course most Jews and Christians told him to go to hell and then came Jihad.

Robert, you are very modest. From the article:

The American writer Robert Spencer, author of A Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, told the conference that the mistaken view had taken hold in the West as well as the Arab world that the Crusades were “an unprovoked attack by Europe on the Islamic world”. In reality, however, Christians had been persecuted after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem.

"Or maybe they simply went to the public library and took out some history books that were collecting dust on the shelves for 30 years or longer."
-- from a posting above

In "The Jerk" Steve Martin is out on his date with Bernadette Peters, and he is putting on his most embarrassing version of suavitude, as he tells the waiter, with an I-wasn't-born-yesterday smirk, that he, that waiter, better not try to foist any of that "old wine" on him, but should be sure to bring some of that good "new" wine. For thirty years, and more, almost all of the most important scholarship on Islam (and some, but not all, on the Crusades) has been somehow ignored, by the careful minions of MESA Nostra, Defenders of the Faith and Apologists for Muhammad, and this small army of apologists, both Muslim and non-Muslim, is to be found all over the Western world in its academic centers and universities. The tradition of faculty autonomy, autonomy not only from the Administration (the institution of tenure), but from the needs of the students (so that courses do not necessarily reflect their needs but rather the careerist needs, or current interests, or pretend-interests, of the faculty), but also autonomy from oversight by other faculty members. And the last is the area where something could be done. It may be possible to fight and win back academic terrain, by professors no longer believing that they can offer opinions only in their own departments. For example, members of a large history department should be allowed, upon acquainting themselves with the reading lists, the syllabi, the content of courses that purport to deal with Islam or related matters, to comment upon what they have discovered, and where what they have discovered bears little relation to what they know the students ought to be learning, they should speak out. A professor of European or American or Byzantine or Asian history has the competence to comment on, say, someone teaching a course on "Islam and the West," and to detect omissions and distortions, and should have the self-assurance to do so. No need to ignore the continuing brainwashing of students (most of whom are convinced that their teacher from the Middle East, with his exaggerated "kindnesses" and "interest he takes in them" with his invitiations to Middle Eastern "dinners" including a share-the-Iftar" business, the baklava brought to class, the liguid-brown-eyes-soft-voiced air of victimhood and miscomprehension -- oh, the whole routine is down pat, and the expected appreciation by naive students (and a good grade and promises of "if you ever need a reference you can count on me" also goes far to earn sympathy from easily-won-over students). The duty is to the historical truth, the truth about the contents and teachings and attitudes of islam, the truth about Muslm conquest, the truth about the subjugation of non-Muslims. All the chicken with pita, all the thimblefuls of cardamom-scented coffee, all the little discussions of what a mihrab is, and a qibla, and a chador explained as "portable seclution," will not sweeten this --the violation of the duty to give the truth, or something that asymptotically attempts to approach it.

a winged white horse ...

Perhaps it was one of those cocked hobbyhorses we've been hearing so much about lately.

Cornelius:

I don't know about the ancient Greeks and Persians, but I recently made the aquaintance of a Persian who fled the Islamic Revolution. Ali has considerable scholarship in Persian history. His opinion is that Islam has been a horrible negative force on Persian culture and that despite the wars between Persia and Greece, most Iranians are racially and culturally more similar to Greeks.

"The Jerk?" Embarassing suavitude?

Really, Hugh, I'm... amazed... I think.

BTW, did I miss the announcement, or did no one solve the puzzle you posed (three writers, city under Islam)?

waterdragon52 wrote: "His opinion is that Islam has been a horrible negative force on Persian culture and that despite the wars between Persia and Greece, most Iranians are racially and culturally more similar to Greeks."

Well, they didn't exactly welcome Alexander the Great as a liberator....

A defense of the Crusades is long overdue. A commendable move by the Vatican, but do not expect much more. Not very good for ecumenism, you know. Musn't upset the Vatican II reforms apple cart. The late John Paul II's apologies for the real and imagined sins of his predecessors were pointless exercises. The long dead perpetrators, if in fact they were guilty of sins or crimes, have already experienced their own particular judgement at the hand God. Furthermore, retrospective apologies never achieve the desired results. They are never reciprocal and they never satisfy the "aggrieved" party.

"the Times has it wrong: I was not in fact there."
-- from an Update above

Robert, stop being so modest. You were there. You just don't remember.

"did I miss the announcement, or did no one solve the puzzle you posed (three writers, city under Islam)?"
-- from a posting above

Longtime Lurker, I apologize. No, I haven't put up the results yet, and will try to do it today. I'm as eager to find out the correct answers as you are. Maybe even more so.

Paolo,

I'm trying to process what you've written. Are you suggesting that John Paul courageously took on the Soviet empire (of course, non-violently) on behalf of all the oppressed trapped inside the iron-curtain, but couldn't be seen defending Catholicism against Islam because to do so would have appeared excessively parochial?

Why couldn't he have spoke out on behalf of the persecuted Christians inside Dar ul Islam as a matter of principle (as he defended the persecuted everywhere)...disregarding perceptions of parochialsm?

John Paul II was indeed a remarkable man...but Islam was his blind spot and that blind spot had repercussions for Christianity and all of humanity. Thus, his legacy has become a mixed one.

Pissed Off Canadian,

1) You're right that the Persians were significantly weakened in their fight with Byzantium; this is why Persia fell so rapidly from the Muslim onslaught and yet Byzantium survived - albeit truncated - for another 8 centuries.

2) It's possible you have a point regarding tribal entities on the fringe of Byzantium welcoming the Muslim invaders. But the impetus for invasion was not external but rather the theology of Muhammad and its dictates to "fight until Allah's religion is spread throughout the world." Had Byzantium been all things to all people inside its borders, it still would have had to endure the hammer-blows of jihad.

Waterdragon,

No question that many Iranians embrace their pre-Islamic past, mostly because of the experience of living under an Islamist regime.

This is why the West's obsequious validation of Islam is so odious and counter-productive; where are disaffected Muslims to look for moral support? How can they point to the West as a beacon and an example of what their own societies should emulate when the West is validating the religion-ideology of their oppressors?

It's disheartening as hell.

"the destruction of the Byzantine empire " wrote Paolo.

One sack of Constantinople does not a destruction of a Byzantine Empire make.

What does a destruction of a Byzantine Empire make is a conquest by Muslims in 1453.

The embarrassing suavitude I remember most fondly was when the Henry Orient of Peter Sellers commanded a waiter trilingually: "Garçon! Due caffè, por favor!"

Cornelius: what I was saying, and I did not think it was so hard to understand, was that JPII, like Gandhi (and for much the same reasons), was a bit of a single-issue maniac with respect to non-violence. If it worked against the Communists, it would work against anyone. Just like Gandhi embarrassingly seemed to believe that non-violence would have worked against Nazis and Japanese, so JPII thought it a suitable response to Muslim tyranny and aggression. Great men have their blind spots, and the blinder the more successful they are. Napoleon thought that war was the answer to everything, because he was so successful at war. JPII thought that non-violent resistance was - and he was equally wrong.

Television: you are wrong even if we grant that the end of the Byzantine Empire is represented by the collapse of the last piece of territory claiming succession - for in that case you should be speaking of the fall of the empire of Trebisond (Trabzon, Trapezus) in, I think, 1468. But an Empire is not a pathetic sliver of land with a depopulated city in the middle of it; an Empire is a state, ouccupying considerable territories, and capable of producing power. In that sense, the Byzantine Empire certainly died in 1204. The crusade was doubly disastrous. First, it was unable to occupy the whole territory of the state whose capital it had seized, so that considerable - but insufficient - independent states, such as the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate of Epirus, arose out of the ruins. Second, it imported the inappropriate and disastrous model of feudal parcelling of the country, dividing even what they were capable to seize between small and riotous lordships. The result was the parcelling of the formerly highly centralized Byzantine state; and a new chance for the previously hammered and cowed Turks, among which the previously unknown dynasty of Osman and his sons started taking advantage of the divisions and weakness of the Christians. I should also mention that the third disastrous feature of the Fourth Crusade is that it made the split between Orthodox and Catholics irreparable, so that when the end came, many Orthodox quite literally said "better the turban of the Turk than the mitre of the Pope" - a point of view that generations of martyrs and victims were to regret.

Paolo,

I'm not sure I see John Paul's adherence to non-violence as the problem. He challenged godless communism and Soviet Imperialism on a conceptual and moral basis. He could have similarly challenged the intolerance of Islam without in any way advocating violence.

He chose not to.

Anyway, I appreciate the input.

Oriana Fallaci in "The force of Reason" wrote a masterfully succinct history of the Islamic empire building that triggered the Crusades.

Also, a great rant on the "PC-ing" (my word) of democracy. Highly recommended.

Apparently this Conference was so secret that even the speakers didn't know they were there. Or perhaps it all happened in a dream -- a winged white horse carried me to Rome, where I defended the Crusades and was back in time to update Jihad Watch before the morning commute.
--------------------------

You see Robert? You are under the spell of those satanic zionists who want to conquer the earth with the nazi's who travel from the planet Rada Rudicula.

My guess is that this arises from a misunderstanding of your recent interview with Zenit, which is a semi-official Catholic agency which dubs itself "The view from Rome".

While I deplore the sack of Constantinople, I must express my deep gratitude for two (alas, unsuccessful) Crusades which were meant to save Bulgaria from the Ottomans: one in 1396, and another in 1443-4. It was a rare expression of European solidarity which will never be forgotten in this country.
Vladimir
Sofia, Bulgaria

"...a winged white horse carried me to Rome..."

Henceforward to be known as "Undisclosed Locationville of the Rock"?

(P.S. Isn't Rome just heaven in springtime?)