Cancelled Crusades and More!

Despite debased assertions, four centuries of Muslim aggression and conquest occurred. The Christian world defended itself with the Crusades.

At the 1999 “Prayer Breakfast,” then-President Clinton gushed, “Throughout history, people have prayed to God to aid them in war. I do believe that even though Adolph Hitler preached a perverted form of Christianity, God did not want him to prevail.” Does Clinton believe this tale about Hitler and Christianity? Perhaps. The Main Lame Stream Media (MLSM) and Marxist academia rarely supply the complete story.  The audience has little reference to place things in a proper and comprehensive perspective.

The MLSM may have found it convenient to focus on that Hitler had received a Catholic Baptism. The truth — all his adult life, Hitler hated Christianity in general.

The myopic vision about Christianity and the pagan/occult Nazi regime is one of many examples.  Another is the “horror” of Christianity vs. the downplaying of Communism.  See The Black Book of Communism.  For example, the Crusades may have claimed about two million lives in three centuries.  Pol Pot in Cambodia directed the murder of about the same number of people in three years.  To summarize, Communism is the fulfillment of atheism.  But of course, your author qualifies this statement because not all atheists are bad.

The mantra used by the debased woke crowd is the notion that Catholicism committed the “vast horrors” of the Crusades and the Inquisition. And our good protestant friends are not immune; the same woke crowd makes sure we all learn about the Salem Witch Trials. Revisionist type of history, that is.  There are plenty of documents for serious students that supply a comprehensive account of each of these points of interest. The gaslighting of this topic compels your author to write a summary of each one.

The Crusades

Despite the debased assertions, four centuries of Muslim aggression and conquest occurred. The Christian world defended itself with the Crusades. As such, it was not about colonialism or unprovoked attack, nor was it an affront by an aggressive pope or even ambitious knights. Rather than surrendering to the Muslim worldview, Christianity as a culture and faith had to defend itself.  It is proper to compare the Crusades to western culture’s actions in the two world wars.

In the seventh century, the religion of Mohammed was spreading. Millions of Christians faced the choice to convert or pay the ultimate price. Mohammed was born in Mecca in what is now Saudi Arabia around the year 570 A. D.  At the age of 40, and he began to preach as God’s prophet of the “true religion.” Mohammed set up a theocratic state at Medina after 622 and began to convert Arabia to Islam.

Following Mohammed’s death in 632, Muslim forces began to direct outward their warlike energies. Previously, the Arabs sparred with each other, and the result was a century of conquest.  In less than a century, Muslims had seized control of Syria, the Palestine area, and North Africa.  Muslims took control of southern Spain, invaded France, and threatened to invade Rome. Charles Martel held them at bay at the battle of Thurs (Tours) in France in 732. Also, during this same time, the Muslims took control of Jerusalem, but they allowed Christians to come to the Holy City to worship.  In the eleventh century, the Christians were under persecution by a sect of Islam called the Seljuk Turks. This same sect had a fort at Nicaea near Constantinople.  In the 820s, the Muslims conquered Sicily and Crete.

Byzantium (a part of Christendom) was under the leadership of Emperor Alexius.  He tried to expel the Turks from the area. Alexius requested help from the Pope. In response, in 1095, Pope Urban from France was able to mobilize an army of thousands.  The warriors and knights expelled the Turks from the Holy City.

Four years after Urban II’s speech in France, some frustrated Crusaders made it to Jerusalem. Many of them died on the way, and the frustrated warriors arrived in Jerusalem. These aggravated soldiers massacred thousands of inhabitants. They did so in the barbaric manner practiced during warfare at those times. History shows us that they had slaughtered Muslims and many Jews. The conquest of the Turks by the Crusaders paved the way for the Holy City to return to its Christian roots.

After they were checked in their expansion in Western Europe, Muslims later conquered Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of India. The Crusades lasted about two centuries, and the only successful campaign was the retaking of Jerusalem.  Fifty years after the battle for Jerusalem, the Muslims captured one of the key outposts Crusaders had created to protect the region (Edessa). That was the spark of the Second Crusade led by St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

Unfortunately, as in all wars, many of those on the “front lines” were not in the fight for pure reasons. Since many were criminals, the people cherished their absence from Europe, and many of the Crusaders were Christians in name only. Late in the Crusades, the Venetians used the Crusaders. Covertly, they destroyed one of their main competitors, the city of Constantinople (a part of Christendom). That helped to weaken Istanbul, Turkey, then Constantinople (Byzantine Empire) and caused it to fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, who by 1683 were infringing as far as Vienna, Austria in 1683.

The capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders was the foundation for the waning popularity of their movement.  A terrible military expedition was the Children’s Crusade.  Here, the propaganda aroused children resulting in their deaths or capture into slavery.

The Muslims were consistent with the Koran.  This book sanctions the use of force to win converts.  Christians were not consistent with Christianity by this kind of warfare. Many of the Christians would not take up arms.

Many authors claim that the Crusaders were opportunists. They claim the Crusaders took advantage to rob and pillage away from their homeland. Research dispels that urban legend, and it would be dishonest to dispel the truth that elements of the Crusades plundered. While a few did become wealthy from the crusades, the vast majority returned with nothing.

Often, luminaries tout that the principal goal of the Crusades was to force Muslims into Christianity. The truth is Muslims in territories taken by the Crusaders could keep their religion. They also kept their property and livelihood. The only notable attempt at peaceful conversion was by the Franciscans in the 13th century.  That was unsuccessful and abandoned. 

All the above aside, we never should sweep terrible things committed in the name of “Christianity” under the rug.  Nor should we look the other way because of the fear of Caustic Cancel Culture Pogrom (CCCP) using the epitaph of “Crusader.”  Remember the Rwandans, as they mourn the 800,000 or so that have lost their lives in recent years.  Or how about the plight of the Christians in Sudan?  The MLSM has made it politically incorrect to discuss details about a certain religion.  To talk about the “M” religion gets one accused by the CCCP of being a bigot.  Meanwhile, to debase Christianity in general and Catholicism, in particular, is more than acceptable; it is a sport.  For balance, this author knows good people who adhere to the teachings of the Koran.  It is a minority that causes the problems.

Brain Holdsworth’s “In Defense of the Crusades” video is an excellent recap of the above and more.

The Inquisition

The Spanish Inquisition was a court set up in 1233 to decide whether a Christian accused of heresy was guilty of holding heretical beliefs. If guilty, the purpose of the court was then to persuade him to abandon his false beliefs and repent. If he remained intractable, the court turned him over to the secular authority. Death by burning at the stake was usually the punishment given to condemned heretics. 

The key to understanding the Inquisition lay in the corruption of certain people in the Church at that time. Simony (buying or selling of ecclesiastical pardons and offices) was rampant. In short, there were many bad men throughout various levels of leadership of the Church at the time. That is analogous to the evil that has infiltrated the Church today – the sexual predators. As a side note, in the case of sexual predators, the debased folk enamored with moral relativism seem to have a black and white worldview here.

Wealth and power have charms even for bishops and priests. In the Church, as it grew through the centuries, wealth and power depended upon the obedience of the flock. A hardy disputant who questioned his corrupt ecclesiastical superior was a mutineer of the worst kind. If he succeeded in attracting followers, they became the nucleus of a rebellion that threatened a revolution. The motive, good or evil, prompted the suppression of such sedition at all hazards and by every available method. 

In this context, some religious movements arose among the laity.  Movements that said that the Church was not necessary for salvation. One of them, the Waldensians, was a precursor to modern evangelicals. But another one, that of the Albigensian (also known as Catharism) rejected the historic Christian faith.  Another crusade constrained these new religions. Although many faced death, these heresies continued.  What the Crusade was unable to carry out, the Inquisition was set up to complete.

Historians do not know for certain how many thousands faced death in the Inquisition. There are some reasonable approximations. Estimates show the entire number killed has been between 30,000 and 300,000.  Any number is bad, but the total is far less than the “millions” the anti-God crew gush forth.  New research shows that 1% of the 125,000 people tried in Spain by Church tribunals for heresy ended up dead. ¹

The Catholic Church has every right to disavow the excesses of the Inquisition because oppression forms no part of her Creed; that these atrocities have been grossly exaggerated; that the Inquisition was a political tribunal; Catholic Prelates were amenable to its sentence as well as Moors and Jews; the Popes denounced and labored hard to abolish its sanguinary features. 

The Spanish Inquisition was a monstrous epic of brutality and barbarity.  According to some historians, it occurred in part to promote national unity. Were these Christians persecuting non-Christians? It was the very opposite. Some writings suggest that the members of the Inquisition Party were not Christians. They lived in the Dark Ages when the gospel of Jesus Christ had been all but forgotten. The faith was so perverted that it bore little resemblance to that given to us by Jesus Christ.  The corrupt authorities at the time of the Inquisition were banning the Bible.

The Salem Witchcraft Trials

During the late Middle Ages, the killing of thousands of alleged witches occurred in the name of Christ. The 1486 book by Jacob Spener, Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches’ Hammer), played a significant role in this madness.  This hysteria even made a temporary appearance among the otherwise civil Puritans of New England.

In the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692, judges of Puritan New England followed Deuteronomy 19:15. They accepted the evidence of two “unimpeachable” witnesses.  But in 1692, some Salem judges received “spectral evidence.” That is testimony by individuals with a ghostly likeness of the accused. They (supposedly) burned houses, sunk ships, etc.  Tribunals targeted several hundred of the accused, and the lives of twenty ended with hanging. Contrary to popular opinion, no witches faced burning in America.

Hidden from the history books is the fact that the Christians helped to stop this hysteria. Increase Mather and his son Cotton, the leading Puritan ministers of the day, spoke openly against it. Increase wrote a pamphlet, “Cases of Conscience,” in which he called for implementing the biblical pattern of two witnesses, and the killings stopped.

Sources:

Why Apologize for the Spanish Inquisition? by Rev.  Fr.  Alphonsus Maria Duran; Publisher, Eric Gladkowski; February 1, 2000 

Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas F.  Madden; Publisher, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; October 1, 1999

What If Jesus Had Never Been Born by D.  James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe; Publisher, Nelson Reference; April 9, 1997

Cogent author and publisher, Frederick R. Smith
Cogent editor, Sean Tinney

1. James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, cited from his book The Faith of Our Fathers, 1876, Page 212