Why are Catholics hated for defending Christendom? What do you know about the Crusades?

Question

The Crusades were a series of defensive wars against Islamic aggression in the Middle Ages and attempts to recapture the Holy Land from Muslim conquerors in order to allow safe pilgrimage and to protect and maintain the Christian presence there. Jerusalem had been Christian for hundreds of years when Caliph Omar seized it, and following that victory, Muslims warred their way into Egypt, other parts of Africa, Spain, Sicily, and Greece, leaving Christians dead and churches in ruins. They stole lands in the area now known as Turkey, destroying Catholic communities founded by St. Paul himself. They siezed Constantinople -- the "second Rome" -- and threatened the Balkans. They warred their way as far north as Vienna, Austria and Tours, France.


When they [Muslims] had despoiled all the country near to Damascus, they advanced to Jerusalem, took it by storm, and put all the Christians to the sword. The women and girls, having suffered every insult from a brutal disorderly soldiery, were loaded with chains. They destroyed the church of the Holy Sepulchre; and when they found nothing among the living, to glut their rage, they opened the tombs of the Christians, took out the bodies, and burnt them.

Why are Catholics hated for defending Christendom? For the same reasons Christians of all kinds, Protestant or Catholic, are hated in our increasingly secularized world: "I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." (John 17:14) Christianity and its virtues have been under attack since the time of Christ, and even more so since the so-called "Enlightenment." After centuries of attacks on the Catholic Church in "Reformation" circles and the later, consequent rise of secular humanism, moral and cultural relativism, and Marxist political correctness, the Crusades came to be seen and taught as an example of "Western Imperialism" or "Colonialism." Because members of the Church were doing the fighting, Christianity itself (and Catholicism in particular) was slandered as a cause of war. Note how the same people who scream about the Crusades tend to be those who scream about "religion" in general as being at the root of wars, ignoring the fact that atheistic communism and pagan Nazism killed hundreds of millions in the 20th century alone.

All this understood, it must be said that the Popes' noble, reasonable purposes for the war, however, became entangled with the purposes of those with secular interests and more interested in dynastic feuds, economic concerns over Mediterranean trade, or destroying the Eastern Roman Empire. Many "bad guys" jumped onto the Crusade bandwagon and evil was done by some of the Crusaders: the sacking of Constantinople (including the destruction of churches) and the murder of Jews along Crusade routes most definitely took place and are deeply lamentable. There is no excuse for such behaviors except human evil, but this evil was not sanctioned in any way by the Church, in no way reflects on Church teachings or her purposes for the Crusades, and resulted in the excommunication of many Crusaders responsible.

Answer 1

i notice you glossed over the crusade called the childrens crusade. it was beleived that only the inocent could win the city and since everyone knows adults arnt inocent they sent 30,000 children under the age of 13 to war no one surived. anyway in answer to your question the catholics are hated for the crusades because they never lived up to there noble idea and always fell to the greed of man. like when they didnt make to jeruselem but in fact sacked the christian held city of constantinople

Answer 2

Yes it does annoy me, the crusades was both sides Islam was spread by the sword. What also annoys me is certain Protestants who bring this up especially about witch burnings when the protestants burned alot more alleged witches and innocents during the last few centuries of protestant history then Catholic history which they conveniently forget in their Anti Catholic statements and rhetoric.

Answer 3

Christianity has been on the defensive against Islam almost from Islam's very beginning.
From medieval Muslim aggression to present-day aggression in America, Sudan, Armenia, Malaysia, Indonesia, jihad (in the sense of "holy war"; the word itself simply means "struggle") is an historical and extant Islamic reality.




Samuel Huntington, in his flawed but interesting book "The Clash of Civilizations", says:

"Violence also occurs between Muslims, on the one hand, and Orthodox Serbs in the Balkans, Jews in Israel, Hindus in India, Buddhists in Burma and Catholics in the Philippines. Islam has bloody borders."

Answer 4

I give neither blame nor credit to the RCC for the Crusades. The Crusades were the reasonable answer of Christianity to Islamic aggression. It is a shame, as you say, that the noble reasonable purposes for the wars were twisted with worldly concerns, and even more of a shame that history looks back on the Crusades as you say, as "Western Imperialism" or as "Colonialism" or any other "ism".
Let's not use the Crusades either as an excuse to defame Christianity, or as an excuse to lift up Catholicism.
Let's not forget the Inquisitions, when the Church definitely glutted herself on the blood of martyrs.

Answer 5

First of all they not really hated- at least no where near as much as actual Christians.

The catholics weren't defending christianity (God-made)- they were defending catholicism (man-made).

Answer 6

Dude....

The christians where only in the mid east for 70 years.

It is known.... as a fact. it is in Catholic Doctrine.

The Crusades where explicitly to "Recapture the holy land from the evil infidels."

Jeruselem has no real significance in Christian religion.

It is just a place.

Answer 7

I don't know where you got that information but you have GOT to send me a copy. That was BEAUTIFUL!