The Crusades

 

At the end of the 11th century there is no "crusade" but there are "crusaders" - that is to say the cruce signati, pilgrims going to Jerusalem who, as a sign of this pilgrimage, have sewn or embroidered on the shoulder or chest or on the saddlebag a small cross (like those who go to Santiago de Compostela carry the shell).

At the end of the 11th century, at the Council of Clermont Ferrand in 1095, Pope Urban II indicated to the restless French knightly class - exhausted by the continuous wars within it - a new purpose: to leave the knights eager for honor and booty towards the East , on the way of pilgrimage, because the emperor of Byzantium needs brave warriors to face the advance of the Turks in Anatolia.

But in that twilight of the century the news had reached Europe that the Seljuk Turks had also occupied Jerusalem, overlapping the milder Arab occupier. Being far more brutal than their predecessors, they subjected European pilgrims to harsh persecution - harassment, theft, murder, and devastation of the places they worshiped.

Unarmed or half-armed pilgrims followed the knights: the process of the milites and the peregrinatio of the pauperes now coincided. The Crusade was born, almost suddenly.
War against the pagans and mission: a tragic link that revealed itself very early, starting from the last quarter of the 7th century. In a Christian world only in name, in appearance, but not intimately; in the rites but not in the costumes, the theme of the choice between baptism or death that the "Christian" victor proposes to the defeated infidel emerges. The Catholic religion that presided over these attitudes was a sacred and royal religion, with its relics carried in battle, its blessed weapons, its bishop-feudal lords more experienced in the art of deploying troops or in that of flushing out the bear. and chase the boar that not in obedience to the Lord.

With the Crusades, a new way of being "warrior of Christ" was born little by little: until then, this expression had been used in a symbolic way for martyrs , victims of persecution; now it was used to indicate those knights who chose to place their strength at the service of the Roman Catholic Church. The new chivalric ethic of the struggle for justice was born as a penitential ethic proposed to a class of professional fighters for whom the struggle and the risk of life now became meritorious works, a means of spiritual salvation: and in this the essence of the spirit of the crusade.

The monk Peter the Hermit was the great popularizer of the Crusade among the populations. An incredible enthusiasm pervaded the masses to rush to Palestine and wrest the dominion of the Holy Land from the Muslims and avenge the insults and insults suffered by pilgrims.

A crowd of nobles and commoners (about 300,000 people) left for Palestine in August 1097 under the guidance of Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine. Thus began the first Crusade (1097-1099).

Having reached Constantinople, fierce fighting began with the Turks in Asia Minor. After winning over them, on July 15, 1099, they stormed Jerusalem and freed the Holy Sepulcher. But at what price! The Crusaders abandoned themselves to all cruelty, sparing neither sex, nor age, nor the Jews themselves. Godfrey of Bouillon assumed the title of "defender and protector of the Holy Sepulcher", and his brother, later, had the title of "king of Jerusalem".

But the situation in Palestine remained precarious, for which another seven Crusades were necessary, which followed one another over the course of two centuries, without finally taking Jerusalem definitively from the Turks.

The Popes later tried to induce the Princes to organize other Crusades, but to no avail. At the beginning, the success of the Crusades helped to strengthen the papal authority, but following the chess suffered, it came out reduced.

Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, will significantly define popes as "wolves in sheep's clothing". In fact, the Crusades were not missionary enterprises, but rather military pilgrimages; they were manifestations of a "zeal without knowledge", as Paul the apostle would say (Rom. 10: 2), because they were ill-enlightened and contrary to the spirit of the Gospel and to every teaching of Christ.

THE CRUSADES AND THE PREACHING OF THE POPES

By promising to the participants ecclesiastical indulgences and exemption from taxes, Pope Urban II had given the Crusaders two goals that would remain priority for centuries, in the Eastern Crusades. The first was to free the Christians of the East. Thus had his successor, Pope Innocent III wrote:

"How can the man who loves, according to the divine precept, his neighbor as himself, knowing that his brothers in faith and in name are held in the strictest confinement by the perfidious Muslims and burdened with the heaviest servitude, not to devote himself to task of freeing them? [...] Perhaps you don't know that many thousands of Christians are bound in shackles and imprisoned by Muslims, tortured with innumerable torments? "

"Making a crusade," said Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith, "was experienced as an act of love." In this case, apparently, the love of one's neighbor.

The Popes equated participation in the Crusades with offering help to Christ himself (in calling the Fifth Crusade, in 1215, Innocent III wrote: "Christ will not condemn you for the vice of ingratitude and the crime of infidelity, if you refuse to help Him? "). The indulgence received for participating in the Crusades was canonically equated with the indulgence for pilgrimage.

CRUSADES ... CHRISTIANS?

But what did the Crusades have that was Christian? Is killing one's enemy to free a captive brother a teaching of Christ?

The Lord Jesus Christ said very clearly:

" Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat and persecute you " (Matthew 5: 44-46).

It's still:

" Do not oppose the wicked one; on the contrary, if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also to him; and to anyone who wants to quarrel with you and take your tunic, leave him your cloak also " (Matthew 5:39).

The apostolic teaching, which the popes would have had to refer to if they were really doctors of the church, is:

" Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Make a commitment to do good before all men.
If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.
Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but give to the wrath of God; for it is written: " Revenge to me ; I will give retribution," says the Lord.
Indeed, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; by doing so, you will gather burning coals on his head.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good "(Romans 12: 17-21).

If "Christian" violence for defensive purposes and "for love of neighbor" were justifiable, what should we say about the millions of Christians persecuted in our day in the world (see here )? How do they, like the first Christians, know oppression, martyrdom, injustice, suffering of every kind just because they are Christians? Praying for their persecutors, speaking to them of their Savior's love even when they are about to be executed, just as Jesus, while nailed to the cross, asked the Father for forgiveness for his executioners. Jesus is the example we must follow, not men.

We conclude with the words of exhortation addressed to us by the apostle: "Be imitators of me, brothers, and look at those who walk according to the example you have in us. Because many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ (I have often told you and I tell you even now crying) ... we, our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also expect the Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lord " (Philippians 3: 17-20).