The Crusades: What Really Happened? - Explaining the Faith

well welcome everybody i'm father chris aylar here live from stockbridge at the national shrine of the divine mercy and it's an honor that you're here with us as we are continuing to take you with us back to seminary now this is this week's topic is going to be church history because one of the classes that i enjoyed the most was church history and this was a course that covered three of the biggest black eyes that we get as a church but you have to understand there's more to the story what are they the crusades the inquisition and galileo and i'm going to be covering all three of those not today but in future talks so today we're going to cover the crusades i was going to do islam with this but it's so big i'm splitting out islam to next week to explain christianity's relationship with islam which we will do next week so today we're taking you to our church history seminary course on the crusades let us begin with a prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen heavenly father we ashley send the holy spirit down upon us to give us peace as as your people especially we pray for the victims of miami and the collapsing of the condominium that has caused many lives and tragedies we ask that you help console or that you do console and we help to pray for all those victims and those in need and we ask all this through christ our lord amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen well again thank you everybody as you saw from your slide one of the objectives today is to give you the real truth not a one-sided skewed version yes christians made mistakes in the crusades and we're going to certainly talk about that but what has happened in our history is the schools and the story has gotten really perverted in the wrong direction they're not giving you the full truth today we want to clarify and give you the full truth on the crusades all right as i mentioned this is a big black eye that the church has but it's mainly because people don't understand what happened in the crusades as fulton sheen said and i quote this all the time millions of people hate what they think is the catholic church but very few if any hate what actually is the catholic church and this case in point is the crusades this is a perfect example all right i'm going to give you some history today but then we're going to get into a deeper meaning the spiritual meaning of what was going on in the crusade so bear with me in the first half we'll get through the history but then we're going to get to the interesting stuff what does it mean for us today all right the crusades were first called in the year 1095. they lasted about 200 years officially there were eight main crusades that we talked about first crusade second crusade third crusade eight total main ones and it ended in the year 1291 at the fall of arkers and this is acre uh acree so this was kind of the accepted standard now battles with christianity and islam continued after that though you had vienna and lapanto those are going to be big ones i talk about next week they battles went all the way into the 17th century and they have an effect on us today let's look at our next slide but during the crusades i'm going to be talking about we have some huge names richard the lionhearted you've all heard that on your screen st louis most of you probably think of st louis as the city right or the sports team he was the only french king ever to become a saint my favorite you also i know i talk about the divine dozen that i turn to st louis the ninth is one of those all right so there's big names now the problem and why i'm bringing all this up is because our children today are indoctrinated in the schools to not learn the truth on the matters of the church all right what am i talking about all right what our kids are taught and what i've heard from many non-catholics you have to know how to defend our faith you can't love what you don't know and if you want to love your faith if i really believed that the church did what i was told they did in the crusades in the inquisition and with galileo i wouldn't be able to be a catholic because it just doesn't it's not what the church is about ironically it's not what the church is about because the church there's two sides of the story and my goal is to clarify for that for you today starting with the crusades and the others later now the fact is we are told that the crusades were nothing but imperialism that that the christians slaughtered peaceful muslims and this was all it was about the truth is actually documented and we're going to show you some of the places the crusades began as defensive wars responding to four centuries of invasion from islam and that is what happened here this islamic jihadists now the invasion of christian territory and muslim persecution especially of pilgrims going to jerusalem that were being beheaded were the reasons they called the first crusade okay to engage in defense here's why the byzantine which is basically eastern catholic you've heard the term byzantine we are latin right in the east we are western all right in the east we know as byzantine now that was the glory of christendom rome was in the west constantin constantinople was in the east we called that the byzantine empire now it basically was gigantic and was reduced to basically greece what happened let's take a look at our next slide one of the examples the many examples that we want to talk about is hajjis hajjiya sophia what does that mean holy wisdom look at this church on your screen isn't that incredible that was the single greatest church catholic church in the world in our existence it's now a mosque let's look at the second slide this gives you an idea of how expansive and beautiful that church was and now look at the pillars that has been put up as a mosque this is what's been going on this has been what is the issue the muslims ordered the destruction for instance of the holy sepulchre church in jerusalem all right the church in jerusalem the holy sepulchre is very important to christianity it was built by constantine and his mother saint helena in the 4th century it's part of our story and so there was a lot of complaints when the church took back sophia because they said well it was a mosque well before it was a mosque it was a catholic church then the catholics got it back then it became a museum now it's back to being a mosque now there are many examples of why the crusades happened let's look for instance in 1065 12 000 german pilgrims were massacred on good friday in the holy land 12 000 on good friday in the year 1065. so by the end of the 11th century let's look at our screen there this is a shocking map look at all that green by the end of the 11th century the forces of islam had captured two-thirds of christendom two-thirds of the christian world was lost look at your map that's startling all right jerusalem the home of jesus christ gone egypt the birthplace of christian monasticism gone asia minor where saint paul planted the seeds of christianity gone they were all taken so this is what the christian church stood up and said wait a minute if we don't do something we're going to lose everything islam pressed westward now they moved towards constantinople which was the capital of the eastern catholic church ultimately they took it it's now called istanbul in turkey then they started to press into europe so this is before all of this happened before the church did a thing don't you think listening to that now do you think if the the the tide was reversed and the christians were moving in and taking upon all the land by physical force that somebody wouldn't say well gee in history looking back it's good that somebody stopped them yeah you bet they would so all this was going on it was unprovoked aggression that at some point caused the christians to say we have to react we don't have a choice so what happened in desperation the emperor of constantinople the capital of the eastern church which is now turkey istanbul cried out for help to the christians in the west which is interesting because the east split from the west a few years earlier in 1054. that's called the great schism that's why we have i should do a whole talk on that that's why we have us as catholics and under the pope but we also have eastern and russian orthodox you know the very elegant masses and and they're called orthodox they split but now the east who split from us was crying out for help they cried back to the west to the pope to us the latin right church and said help us we're losing everything our people are being beheaded our churches are being destroyed our land is being taken please help us so let's look at the next slide pope urban ii in 1095 called the first crusade at the council of claremont the pope preached not violence and attack but he preached we're going to go on a pilgrimage an armed pilgrimage to be able to defend these pilgrims to recover lost christian territory and mainly the city of jerusalem jerusalem fell it was in the hands of islam the place of christ the place of david gone so he called upon the french knights right the christians of the west to help the christians in the east the crusades were not and i repeat this the crusades were not a response of some power-hungry pope or knights templar in the da vinci code that said jesus married mary magdalene and they had the holy grail don't fall for that garbage the truth has been documented and we're going to share that with you today it was a response to four centuries of attack as we said where two-thirds of christianity was taken the crusades were launched to recover to get back these christian territories and return them to christ so that we could worship back again in the churches right which is one of the criteria that justifies armed conflict if there is protection or self-defense the church is taught armed conflict can be allowed and i'm going to talk about what's a just war coming up now the big justification for these these knights to be armed and going on pilgrimage was self-defense and protection of the innocent people who were threatened on pilgrimages they were being beheaded so the goal was to protect these pilgrims going to jerusalem from being enslaved or killed this is a pretty noble cause now did they make mistakes absolutely and we'll talk about those so here's what pope urban ii said now i need to give you a warning if you have children watching right now this is a little graphic but i think i have to read you his quote so that you have an understanding okay of the seriousness of what was happening so if you have a young child that you don't want to hear a little bit of graphic description please turn down the volume on your computer this is a description from pope urban ii of why he called the crusades he said the muslims are taking the christians they are cutting open their navels and spilling out their intestines they then are tying the intestines to a stake and they are driving the men around the stake in a circle until all of their intestines are spilled out and wrapped around the stake and then they are forcibly circumcised the christians and their blood is put into the holy water fonts they are then going in and desecrating the altars end quote if you're a christian at that time and this is happening do you not feel that maybe it was justified to say somehow we have to end this they tried negotiation they tried talking it continued let's look at our next slide this is what pope urban gave to the crusaders you see that that's a jerusalem cross or a crusader's cross you see it on sometimes the pro the priests vestments it's a cross and then there's a little cross on each of the four corners one big cross and then in each corner is a little cross now the crusades basically started what we call religious military orders a new knighthood you've all seen the pictures the knights templar right uh the the knights of uh malta the tectonic knights you've heard all of the da vinci code you know the famous crusaders with the big metal a face mask that looked like a hockey player the big red cross on their chest what is this all about this is something that's important in our history and we've blocked it out as christians let's look at our next slide you see this statue this is actually the statue on my desk this statue is a statue of the knights templar the very first military order all right their story is not as i said about stealing the holy grail or uh harboring mary magdalene as a as the child of jesus she was curing jesus's child none of that what is the true story of the knights templar something that we should all know and nobody knows anymore the true story is after the crusades and jerusalem fell the crusaders went back and in the first crusade they took jerusalem back again now they didn't plunder it they didn't steal they went back home the problem was how do you defend the city now once you go back home they didn't stay there for booty they went back home so what happened the formed new group that we all know as the knights templar today was formed and you know what it really means the poor knights of the temple night's templar the poor knights of the temple the temple in jerusalem that jesus used to go to they were formed to defend the pilgrims in jerusalem so they took the white habit of the cistercian monks let's put that back up again if we can uh owen if you don't mind that last slide you see that knight is wearing a white looks like a habit of a cistercian monk and it is added to it the red cross so that's i just wanted to show they could take that back down because they took vows they took vows like we do as religious they had many non-fighting men but they had some who took arms they were supported by the pope and they were put in many other countries so they built these castles in palestine they were both monasteries and military barracks and they still stand today but when you go there and you see these castles everybody wants to make up some kind of fables or stories or folklore about it oh the secret society and the skull and the bones so the knights were on the battlefield but also monks in the chapel they were monks and they were soldiers they fought the muslims and many died as martyrs in fact 20 000 died in war so all of a sudden now they're losing a lot of men they started to take lesser candidates now to show the sincerity these men had to go through being tested in secret and that's where all the rumors came from they would not reveal the secrets of their society and the testing that they would go through to show loyalty to jesus christ so because they wouldn't reveal the secrets history went wild with rumors the holy grail mary magdalene having jesus's child and they hid his descendant line and in the line of jesus it it was crazy now what is true though is they did become wealthy through real estate but it doesn't mean that they were some secret crazy society they were in fact wealthy and prominent now they were challenged for control of jerusalem by a second group called the hospitalers i'm going to talk about in a minute but they govern jerusalem and yes they made many mistakes and that's why jerusalem fell a second time now saint louis ix who i showed you a minute ago one of my top dozen divine dozen favorite saints he brought these two groups together the knights templar and the hospitalers and for a moment there was peace but what happened was these knights templar did fall out of trust with the church and without the pope's permission certain men of the church went after them that doesn't mean the church sanctioned it you can have bad men within the church either the knights templar were doing bad things or the man who went after him and accused him or do were lying and saying bad things so one of the reasons they went after him was their secrecy which these rites of initiation were happening the secrecy called many rumors and wild stories remember we always fear what we don't know so the templars listen to this this is what you saw in the da vinci code this is what you hear in schools this is the catholic night templars they spit on the cross they deny jesus christ they permitted sodomy they worshiped idols there's no proof of this so they were put on trial and most agreed to the accusations why because they were being tortured to death now this was only the only ones who admitted anything bad were in france other places portugal spain germany cyprus italy they were found innocent it could never be proved that they did anything wrong but that secret rule they had was a cause for suspicion distinct from their official rule was never proven it was never proven that their official public rule was any different from their private secret rule but yet they were accused of it now we don't know but there's no proof that it was and you're going to be taught in history and through the da vinci code that this is what they did no so finally the pope gave in to the pressure and he dissolved them but he never condemned them and their property was turned over to another group the black knights with the white crosses these guys the hospital the knights templar were white with red crosses and there was another group that was left in black with white crosses they were called the hospitalers or saint john of jerusalem now their job also was to defend jerusalem but the two didn't get along so later the grand master of the knights templar who admitted that they did these things wrong because he was being tortured to death then said no we didn't i did it because i was being tortured severely and he took back all his alleged confessions he was then killed because of it and that was the end of the night's templar that was the end of them they that guy said accused of many many things now another group that was their rival which seems weird why would christians have rivals amongst each other well we do today protestants and catholics but this other group called the hospitalers let's show our slide this is the blacks outfits with the white crosses they existed and still exist today they never were shut down they're now today known as the knights of malta let's take a look you recognize that person that's cardinal burke cardinal burke was the head of the knights of malta there you see him with the modern knight of malta symbol cardinal burke the emblem black with the white cross both of these two groups had an obligation of defending jerusalem now they too had a lot of real estate they were important at the battle laponto i'll talk about that next week but leo the 13th you've all heard me say the greatest pope ever in the church basically said they were good so since 1870 they have been devoted to helping soldiers in the battlefield being an ambulance service in the field of battle all right now that being said father chris why are you defending all the crusades you telling us nothing bad happened yeah they did let's talk about that let's talk about the biggie uh if we could silence our cell phones please that would be great let's talk about the biggie the fourth crusade let's take a look at our next slide you probably don't even know what the fourth crusade is i want to tell you a story the fourth crusade was one of the worst things that's ever happened between christians christians killing christians christians attacking christians we shouldn't attack or kill anybody but especially our own brothers what happened all right christian armies sacked the constantinople and you're like father you just said that was the capital of eastern catholicism yes but in the fourth crusade it was ransacked by christians what are you talking about all right pope innocent iii called for a new crusade in 1898 and the french barons planned and met to say we got to get to the holy land again we got to go defend her again because she's fallen again so they went and they said we're going to go by sea this time we're going to actually travel by sea we're not going to march 2000 miles by foot we're going to get on boats and we're going to take boats to the holy land right i guess it would be through the mediterranean somebody can correct me on that but before they did they had to make a plan so the boat builders in venice you ever see those pictures of venice right the flooded streets with with the the music playing and the couple in the boat and the and the guy's playing the violin or whatever and he's singing that's that's a beautiful example of the italian beauty and they in venice wanted to build the boats so they told him to make thirty thousand problem was only thirteen thousand crusaders showed up so the venice boat builder said we want our money and the crusaders said we only got thirteen thousand men we don't have the money to pay for thirty thousand they said you better pay up so venice faced a real problem if they didn't get their money it was gonna shut the city down it was all focused on building these boats for the crusaders they didn't have any money to pay them though the crusaders only had 13 000 of them but if they didn't go to the holy land they were failing in their crusade and their soul would be in jeopardy because the pope said part of the crusade is to save your soul now pope or prince alexius angelus all right said that if you free my father who is imprisoned in constantinople i'll pay your debt and they all said all right let's go to constantinople the pope heard about this and he says don't you dare pope innocent iii and the crusaders didn't listen so what the crusaders are about to do was never supported by the church the pope told them don't do it but all the crusaders went they got to cast santanopo and when they got there constantinople didn't side with this prince who was leading the crusaders they turned against him now what happened so the crusaders went there and they besieged the city and this new emperor who was in constantinople wouldn't give in and so they took over and this young prince became the new emperor and released his father then he turned around and guess what he couldn't pay the boat builders he promised them and he still couldn't pay him so this new emperor comes in bear with me on this history we're getting it close here the alexis the fifth and he killed the prior emperor who owed the money he had declared himself the emperor now unable to be able to be financed the crusaders were ticked off their journey from constantinople to jerusalem was now over and they murdered or he was murdered dyslexia who owed them the money he had been murdered by the the new emperor so now the crusaders said we're in trouble so they decided to attack they decided to attack constantinople and despite the papal protests is one of the worst things in christian history you know the split between the east and the west between uh the catholics and the orthodox the russian orthodox and the greek orthodox people will say that it's because of the filioque way the the words we use in the creed it was originally but the reason we've never come back together truthfully really many people believe is this fourth crusade and this is what happened so this whole fourth crusade was not motivated by greed nor part of some plot of rome to attack the east it was none of that you'll read that you'll hear that you'll be told that the crusaders only desire to go to the holy land to liberate jerusalem but in a series of bad decisions they blundered and then what happened islam took over now we are in a mess all right so now we're going to start what does this all mean let's look at our next slide this is the reason steve runseman wrote a three-volume book called the history of the crusades in 1951 he said and this is the lies you're going to hear that the crusaders went to the holy land just to get wealthy actually the opposite's true many of them went broke trying to pay to go many risked everything in the name of protecting the holy land and in fact other than the first crusade they all failed they really weren't successful so the crusaders were not these money-hungry power-hungry people they were trying to liberate jerusalem did they slow the muslims a little bit did they stop them no the muslim empire continue to expand listen to what happened they conquered all christian territories the balkans eastern europe constantinople as we said he said in this book that the christians were the barbarians bent on destroying a peaceful islam culture that the crusades were unjust wars of christian aggression a myth that many of you have heard and believe that's not true the church has never taught or never excuse me taught that this was supposed to be a mission of conquest a mission of money was a mission of freedom now to do it they had to fight so the church is never taught that all violence is sinful in fact saint augustine tells us there can be just wars divine revelation tells us in the bible that you can fight what did david do he fought what did the israelites do they fought you know a review of the historical records of the crusades show that this was a good reason to fight the old testament gives us tons of examples where god sanctioned the jewish people to fight the same happened here so we're going to finish today it's going to be a shorter talk today were the crusades just wars were they you ever hear that just war what was a just war well world war ii stopping hitler something like that yeah the crusades were they just wars well let's look at this was america let's our next slide were they holy wars or were they stomp stampedes for money and power and riches were the crusades like the united states going over to europe and world war ii and helping defend against the nazis most scholars will say no the crusade was actually spiritual we were fighting in world war ii to stop an evil hitler or an empire of japan and that's why god blesses i believe the polish and the filipino people no nation suffered in world war ii more than the polish in europe at the hands of the nazis but no nation remained more catholic than the polish even after being decimated by the nazis god rewarded them for being faithful likewise in world war ii no nation suffered at the hands of japan more than the philippines but yet no nation remained more faithfully catholic than the philippines that's why i believe they are chosen people i finally was able to finagle to spend the entire month of september in the philippines i'll be going out there to speak to hundreds of bishops and priests it's their annual retreat in the philippines where all the priests and bishops of the philippines come together and i'm going to have the honor of speaking to them i'll be out there for a week retreat priests have to do an annual retreat i'll be out there to speak to all the priests and bishops of the philippines and that is one message i want to relate your role as god's current chosen people we are a polish order i feel the same way about poland but when we went over to world war ii into europe we were fighting to liberate against an evil the difference with these crusades is it was spiritual the pope said that you can wipe out your sins if you want to go to heaven i'm granting an indulgence that if you help liberate the holy land not kill muslims there's a big difference but if you want to help liberate the holy land you'll be given indulgence to be forgiven and freedom of your punishment so many chivalry knights rose up and wanted to do this so this first crusade was called to offer the sinners of europe a path to penance for their sins nobles who were fighting each other back in europe all of a sudden turned and said let's fight the enemies of jesus let's liberate jerusalem so this first crusade included super good people and some criminals and not good not so not so much good people that's the ones who did some of the bad things it explained some of the violence that happened later because these crusading forces had both good and bad people just like anything today every nation has good and bad people every family has good and bad people every company has good and bad people this is a fact so it was chivalry religion and taking up of arms came together in a sacred army for a sacred cause did they always live up to the good ideal no but the cause was good did they make mistakes yes so there is such a thing as a just war in the church and the crusades fit into that category if anybody challenges you what about the crusades why are you catholic how could you be catholic when they did the crusades you say well actually do you know what the just war theory is about do you know what the just worth theory says it says there are times in self-defense that you need to stand up and that's what thank god for the crusader we wouldn't have a church today you know what you wouldn't even have non-catholic christian churches today you wouldn't have baptists if you are if you are approached by a methodist a baptist a presbyterian a pentecostal and they accuse you about the crusades you can say do you realize if it wasn't for the crusades your religion wouldn't exist today [Music] no christian religion would because when the crusades happened that 200 years in the 11th 12th 13th century there was no other catholic faith or a christian faithful catholicism there was no methodist baptist lutherans there were none there was only the catholic church had the crusaders not done something all of christianity would have been wiped out and we would have nothing knowledge of jesus today we'd all be muslim so the next time somebody comes after you about the crusades you could say you know you ought to thank god that there were some brave men who stood up and didn't let christianity disappear from the face of the earth you should be thankful so the crusades who we are accused of being imperialism and unjust aggression against the muslims actually was the opposite people think oh these were poor muslims they didn't have anything and the high and mighty and the rich europeans came and killed them no actually the muslim civilizations were the wealthy ones they were the sophisticated and the powerful the west was weak and poor they were the third world i bet you've never heard that so the church should teach why the first crusade happened in the first place let's look at this why why did urban ii call it let's look at our next slide urban ii called the first crusade for four reasons one to rectify disorder and reform the church yes we had a lot of issues internally two for the salvation of souls the crusaders could earn an indulgence pay for their sins do penance by liberating innocent people of jerusalem three to bring aid to the eastern christians even though the eastern christians defied the west left the pope rejected the pope the west said you know what you're still our brothers even though you defy the pope now you're still our brothers and we're going to help you and finally to protect jerusalem and the holy land so i want to show you a quick video it's only two minutes long where a guy named brian mercier he is one i've shown some videos from him before on mary believe it or not we're almost done here we don't have too much more much shorter talk today but this is a two-minute video that's going to give you an example of everything that i've been saying so far so that you know it's not just me let's watch many people say that the catholic church started the crusades because they were a power hungry church that just wanted uh to dominate other religions that they were intolerant and that they pretty much persecuted anyone who disagreed with them they wanted wealth and all of these other myths and misconceptions but these couldn't be farther from the truth we're going to discuss the crusades and what they were about in two minutes [Music] muhammad as you all know was the founder of islam and he didn't have much success preaching in the city of mecca they actually kicked him out where he fled to medina and he ended up having more success there and ended up raising a little bit of an army there and with that army he went back to mecca and sacked it raising it to the ground just destroying it and from then on he spent the rest of his life on the battlefield fighting wars for islam by the time he died he had conquered the whole fertile crescent and after his death it got even more so the armies of islam grew and conquered more and more and more in fact from 657 a.d to 757 a.d they conquered everything from afghanistan all the way over to north africa and up into europe which they probably would have succeeded if it weren't for the franks who stopped them uh but the thing is they continued to battle and battle and take over the world in fact they conquered the whole persian empire they conquered the whole roman empire and they had conquered half of the byzantine empire and it was at this point that the head commodore alexis the first called for help from the pope now this is the same commodore this is the same byzantine empire that broke away from the pope and rebelled against them and now they were calling on the pope for help well the pope prayed about it for a really long time and in the end he said you know what our brothers in the east need our help there are innocent people dying so we're we are going to gather an army we're going to help them that's why the crusades were started they were wars of self-defense there were wars of actually helping other people in need and protecting christians around the world who were being killed people over in the holy land were actually being killed christians who were on pilgrimage going there were actually being killed sometimes by the thousands so to create a safe passage for them they were going to take the holy land make it safe for them and they were going to help the byzantine empire that's why the crusades were started there were wars of self-defense all right so not only does that brian talk fast as i do i think his points are almost exactly in line with the points i've been making as well and these come from some great great people some very many uh scholars that we have turned to uh throughout the years like i forgot to mention steve wydenkopf was the one that i pulled a lot of information out that i just read the statistics and the history so he has some great material out there and some work that he did so i wanted to mention him um very good now if you watch that video and you've listened to what i've been saying it's clear that it was centuries of jihad that means holy war and the invasion of many christian lands that prompted for centuries that prompted the crusades for instance what are some of the examples you know spain was always a christian land but before the invasions came in the 700s they were christian before the invasions from the south in the 700s they were christian after that they became mores and it took centuries for the christians to get spain back it wouldn't be a christian country today if it wasn't for the crusades what about john the eighth pope john the eighth he essentially had to pay protection money to prevent rome from being assaulted we had to pay ransom something's wrong with that could you imagine if it was reported in the news that the catholic church was demanding ransom for the jehovah witnesses or we were going to take over everything they ever owned my gosh you you'd be the front page news for 25 years [Music] and so we don't want to lose sight of the reality here all right let's look at our next slide this was a real problem in the mediterranean was piracy islamic piracy were capturing christians and enslaving them you know we hear all this talk and of course we should because of course it was not right but the 1619 project and all that and that was horrible but do you know barbarossa and islam's slave trade was infinitely greater than the european african-american slave trade both are horrendously wrong don't get me wrong please don't send me the letters please don't tell my superior that i'm saying there's nothing wrong with the european african-american slave trade i can't condemn it enough okay but i'm also saying the islamic slave trade was ten times greater you don't believe me look up barbarossa and what he did to the christian slaves and the slave trade that was being conducted do you know in fact it lasted so long do you know that president thomas jefferson that's why he formed the marines the united states marine corps was founded for that purpose my dad is a marine from the halls of montezuma to the shores of tripoli we will fight our country's battles in the air in the land and the sea that's the marine corps hymn the shores of tripoli was this islamic slave trade the harassment and thomas jefferson formed the united states marine corps to fight that we don't know this stuff we don't know our history because it's all being canceled all right the spanish they were so brutalized and i'm not making excuses but when they came to the new world they too were brutal now if the if the society wants to today to say everybody's a victim and therefore even if you do horrible things it was because the way you were treated in your past then you could make the argument well then spain when they did dumb things in the new world was because the way they were treated i'm not making that argument i promise you i'm not but you can't have a double standard now the first crusade as we said was called to help the holy land we said that because christians like the coptics those are the egyptian christians and other christians were forced to flee like they are today christians were forced to leave we are facing the same thing today but the media doesn't tell you that the coptic christians are the most incredible people in my book because they're remaining faithful and they're being surrounded by hostile other religions and they're being murdered for their faith a hundred thousand christians every year die for their faith persecuted tortured is into the hundreds of thousands but we don't hear anything about that on the news none of that over this number are killed for their faith these christians back in the times of the crusades in the holy land also received that kind of treatment at the hands of the new rulers from islam we did fault too we made mistakes when we conquered jerusalem to take it back we killed muslims there was there's no arguing that you you don't have to tell me in a letter that i didn't point that out i'm pointing it out but we have to look at what was behind all this all right there was even the jews were impacted the jews were wrongfully hurt and caught in the middle of the crossfire here spanish catholics they must acknowledge their anti-semitism right in the global war of conquest after 1492 and what they did to the indigenous peoples here but they too were a victim at the hands of islam so we're not saying any of this is right all of it is wrong and i hope we learn from it instead of canceling this and canceling our history in the cancel culture let's learn from it this is crazy the church doesn't deny that its members have committed some evil acts in the name of the faith in the year 2000 john paul ii went with leaders of the church and did public penance on behalf of the church now i want to explain this they did public penance i mean you know what i think i'm going to hold that to the end because that's so important but don't make the mistake of assuming that the crusades were all evil just about imperialism nothing to do about invasion or protecting pilgrims none of that it was all about greed and power no there was some stupidity but that's not why the church called it just because the church called it doesn't mean it's it was used the right way god gave us our human sexuality some people are going to misuse it they're going to look at pornography go to prostitutes are you going to blame god no god says don't do that i'm giving you the gift of your sexuality don't misuse it well if it's gone to be misused do you say well gee it's god's fault no god said not to do it it's the same with the church the church said go and free jerusalem it didn't say rape or pillage and if some of that did happen because i know i'm going to get the letters i'm not denying that it didn't happen the church isn't denying that it didn't happen but the church did not sanction that the church did not say go and steal and loot and take bring back the riches like all the other crazy non-catholics will tell you even catholics believe this it's not true it's true that some stuff happened it's true that bad things happened but not because the church said to do those things just like god doesn't say misuse your sexuality god says i'm giving it to you and giving you the guidance and the rules stay within the rules the rules is it's a share between man and a woman within marriage outside of marriage you're misusing it just like outside of the antenna free in jerusalem the crusaders may have misused what they were told to do by the church just like we misuse what we are told to do by god but everybody wants to blame the church there were some members of the church that are to fault but not the teaching of the church that's my point all right so let's finish here because we do have to recognize this all right so the church the crusaders here's what's i think very important crusaders were often we were told that they were going to look to get a bunch of money but you know that they were actually kings like kling louis the ninth and lords in europe they had them in their heirs risk everything in fact many lost their fortune how could it be about getting rich for king louie who already had a rich kingdom and he put it all on the line to go fight the crusades you know in fact the pope called the crusades true but the church didn't run them they were run by the nations in the military of those countries they were not run by the popes all he did is say let's stand up and defend the christian lands so can christians go to war then in good conscience this is where i want to finish with just war theory can we i once um had about an hour-long conversation i was driving um i think i was driving to buffalo to do a filming a couple years ago and i got a call and i didn't get two words out on this phone call because this person had gotten my phone number from the office and called me and then i had my my office phone forwarded to my cell phone so i picked it up and i'll never forget this conversation because this guy told me that i had mentioned on memorial day to pray for the soldiers for their love that they laid down their life for you and me and this man on the phone says how dare you tell us to honor [Music] war are we honoring war no we're honoring the men that laid down their life and gave their life so that you and i can worship this god of ours and so this man on the phone tore into me for i couldn't get a word in edge by saying nowhere is this church teaching the church does not teach even self-defense jesus said to turn the cheek yes jesus did but jesus wasn't weak jesus overturned the money changer tables right at an injustice now what do i mean by all this all right can christians go to war in good conscience actually yes under certain circumstances very tight but catholic thinkers have been developing the just war theory for years you know where it came from augustine saint augustine for instance if there was no just war theory we'd the whole world would be under the rule of adolf hitler but he was stopped the evils of nazi germany and imperial japan and world war ii were stopped and the world was saved because of it was a just war but many conflicts are not considered just by the church for instance john paul ii argued that america's invasion of iraq actually was not just based on the just war theory i was surprised he actually said that that is legitimate the church has the tradition of condemning most but not all war man i know i'm going to get the letters here and that's okay because you can look up everything i'm gonna tell you this is church teaching i promise you let's start with what the church teaches about war you know my dad is a marine and he was trying to it was probably about five years ago he was at a funeral as part of the marine corps color guard and they were at a funeral and some protesters showed up with signs because this man whose funeral was somebody was killed in afghanistan or iraq so he was a military man and they were ready to have his funeral and all these protesters came with signs yelling and screaming that he's going to hell because he was a killer and my dad is there with the marine corps my dad's a vietnam marine out of da nang my dad's not a killer but my dad will lay his life down for freedom so these people come and they do all this protest and they're screaming holding signs condemning this young man whose funeral can you imagine how the parents felt and all of a sudden this huge group of bikers [Laughter] showed up with american flags and crosses modern day crusaders and showed up and stopped stood in between these protesters so that the funeral could continue no family deserves to have to go through that so when i heard that story i started to go back to my seminary notes and that's what i'm going to share with you today finishing now with what does the church say about war all right let's look at our next slide catechism 2265. this is right out of the catechism legitimate defense can can be not only a right but a grave duty this is the catechism legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others and in the crusades that was the church the defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm adolf hitler imperial japan advancing islam taking and killing pilgrims in jerusalem for this reason those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility this is right out of the catechism all right that's important i don't have a slide for this but i want to read you another catechism 2309 the strict conditions for the use of legitimate defense by military force requires rigorous consideration what does that mean i'm not sitting up here saying anytime we want for any reason at all we can go to war false the gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy now here's what the catechism says before you can go to war you must look at this one the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community must be grave significant it can't just be name-calling two all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be ineffective negotiation so first it must be serious two you must try to negotiate third there must be serious chance of success to send a bunch of men into battle to know they're all going to die it's not moral fourth the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders greater than the evil to be eliminated what does that mean that means if you're going to war to stop one country from farming on another country's land but you're going to slaughter everybody in the meantime that means that the evil wasn't as great as the evil you're going to perpetrate to fix so all of this is summarized in one of the hardest to understand concept i learned in seminary and if you can stick with me on this one you earn your seminary certificate [Laughter] it's called the principle of double effect and it applies beautifully not just to war but let me give you an example a mother is pregnant she's gonna have a baby and they discover that the pregnancy the fertilized egg instead of making its way to the uterus got caught in the fallopian tube what's it called an ectopic ectopic pregnancy now the doctors tell you you got to make a choice can you imagine this you either got to do the surgery to save the baby but it's going to cost the mother's life or you're going to make the procedure that's going to have to terminate the pregnancy to save the mother's life what do you do is it evil is it evil if that family chooses to save the mother's life and they lose the baby most non-catholics would accuse us catholics as saying yes no not necessarily this principle of double effect answers that question according to the law of the church called double effect it is permissible to take an action which has two effects one good and one evil this is a case in point you're gonna save the life of the mother and the child will die or you're going to save the child and the mother will die one good one bad no matter which choice you make one result's going to be good one result is going to be bad so what we do is we look at the conditions and this is what we want to show you on the screen the principle of double effect again you stick with me on this you earn your seminary certificate if these three conditions apply you can do the action another case in point is the bombing of japan and world war ii the bombing of japan is evil but the good was it'll end the war and save many american lives so is that justified let's look at the principle of double effect one the action itself must not be intrinsically evil okay so back to the mother a surgery to save either the mother or a surgery to save the baby is not intrinsically evil either choice i make to do surgery to the mother or for the mother or do surgery to save the baby is not intrinsically evil so first one is the action cannot be intrinsically evil itself neither one is well father bombing hiroshima is intrinsically evil actually that's warfare and in a just war it's not evil necessarily it can be but not just not necessarily two the evil effect must not be an end in itself or a means to accomplish the good in other words you foresee it but you don't want it so i know by saving my wife's life that it's going to cause the death of the child i foresee that but i don't want it i'm not purposely having that surgery for my wife to kill the baby that's called abortion you see the difference so it's foreseen but undesired so in other words the evil effect must not be an end in itself in other words i'm not purposely having that surgery to kill the baby i'm having the surgery to save as much as i can both lives hopefully or at least one life and third the evil effect must not outweigh the good effect so in other words which life is worth more catholics are accused all the time of saying we honor the baby's life in the womb more than the mother that is not true both lives are equal so losing one is not greater than losing another or less than losing the other so if all these things can be met it is permissible to do the action so in that case of the mother it is permissible to do either one it's a heart wrenching horrendous choice a family would ever have to make and i have heard stories of mothers who have chosen to give their life for the child but for the mothers who the family has shown to live and the child was unintentionally killed in the effort to save the mom do not condemn them do not condemn them so if these three conditions are met the action may be taken despite the fact that a negative will occur that's why it's called double effect all right so the law of double effect would have would not have applied the church says believe it or not to the atomic bomb i disagreed for many years it saved american lives and i still in a way see that and feel that but as a priest i have to follow church teaching not like a blind robot but because i submit my conscience to say okay lord fill my heart with understanding here the reason why the bombing of hiroshima does not fall into the principle of double effect is that the situation that even though dropping bombs in and of itself is not intrinsically evil it's called warfare and in through it it is arguable that more lives were saved yes because then america saved more lives the second condition was violated do you remember the second condition second condition says the evil must not be the end in itself and in the bombing of hiroshima the the evil was kill these people to make it the good happen of the war stop that's a tough one that's a very difficult one can't necessarily say that i fully agree to that but i have to submit to it so the second condition was violated because the death of the innocent was used as a means to achieve the goal the means never justify the end and the ends never justify the means is arguable so we have to look at this however the united states more than any nation in the world is committed to the principle of sparing innocent life no other nation in this world has tried harder to spare innocent lives and this is true during military operations captive populations in the war of terrorism the us has gone out of their way to protect the citizens the us is committed to the principles of just war praise be god all right that's it we are done but i think if you were to wrap up everything we say here was the crusade a just war one war is not intrinsically evil in and of itself not necessarily two the goal was not to kill muslims so we're going to look at the three principles of the double effect one was the act evil no war in and of itself can be for self-defense two was the goal to kill muslims no it was to free jerusalem three the evil killing did it outweigh the good effect no because it it it it brought back christ and the faith to the world so then why were the create crusades not more successful why were they not more effective many theologians will tell you god withhold victory from us because the people were sinful the christians it led to a movement in europe of piety and repentance it purified the christian society in every way because they realize how close they were to being lost and i this is where i earlier said about john paul ii and i said we'll get to that you know john paul ii apologized and all my non-catholic friends tell me this that he apologized for the crusades did he ah john paul ii apologized for the sins of catholics who took part in the crusades john paul ii never apologized for the crusades themselves that's what you need to remember he apologized for the sins that happened not for the crusades themselves amen amen hallelujah hallelujah well god bless everybody i want to offer you a chance to help our ministry we want just a couple of announcements uh owen if you could show on our screen i have a series of talks on dvd called explaining the faith you can get them here at our bookstore our bookstore right here here at the national shrine of divine mercy where you can visit our website at shopmercy.org or call us at 800-462-7426 i have several talks on that dvd i talk about mary i talk about divine mercy i talk about confession i talk about the mass i have all kinds of talks that we hope you'll pick up and we've got graphics videos slide shows we have everything on there for you so we hope you'll get it if not if you're more of a reader i wonder if we could put our next slide up please get my book which is also at the gift shop here at the you at the on on our property or same place you can get it for any donation all right if you visit thedivinemercy.org udm or again call the same 800 number 462-7426 and i want to finish by a couple little things become a marion helper you know what we share in the graces of these masses prayers rosaries penances if you're a marian helper and there's no cost there's no there's no it takes 10 seconds to sign up just visit micprayers.org mic for marion's immaculate conception mic prayers dot org takes 10 seconds doesn't cost anything become a marian helper see our next slide and you know what you get you get a lot of grace your ability to get to heaven depends on grace and we're going to need all the grace we get and there's a lot of grace in masses prayers rosaries and penances and when you're a marian helper you share in the graces of all our masses prayers rosaries penances just like you were a marian of the immaculate conception yeah can't beat that so please sign up be a mirian helper micprayers.org or dot com and i hope you can join us because i'll be going on two pilgrimages in the next two years please join us we'll show owen on the screen on october the 14th through the 24th of this year guess where we're going we're going into the footsteps of saint paul we will be in the lands that where we talked about here today that were originally christian we're going to be in turkey and other places can do a lot of praying while you're there for the conversion back to christianity steve ray if you haven't been with him before is my one of my good friends so it's got one of the best pilgrimages out there and you can join us for this cruise which it's open and you don't require a vaccination and finally the france pilgrimage if you want to join us next year june 20th through july 2nd of 2022 in the shrines of france that's really where the heart of the pilgrimage started or the crusade started was in france and so you can join me in deacon harold sivers great guy if you haven't he's awesome and so let us finish now with a prayer and next week you know i if you tuned in today and you said father i thought you're going to talk more about islam in terms of what they believe and do they believe in a trinity not believe in trinity what's the differences in belief what's the role of islam and the end times that'll all be next week so i separated two talks out because there was just so much so next week we're going to talk about the role of islam in god's salvation history what is what do we agree on what do we disagree on what are the problems what are the solutions it's very important because right now for the first time in human history there are more muslims than catholics in the world so we have to know each other we have to understand each other and so join us next week as we talk about that today we talked about crusades but next week we're going to talk about islam and the relation with christianity and what you need to know in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen heavenly father we ask you send the holy spirit down upon all of you to continue to have a beautiful grace-filled rich day full of mercy we ask for healing for all of those who are wounded and we ask for reconciliation between all peoples on earth especially jews christians and muslims we ask that the truth of christ will prevail and all will see the truth that is given to us through jesus christ and his church and may almighty god bless you in the name of the father son and the holy spirit amen thank you and we'll see you next week you

Channel: Divine Mercy

Views: 427,729

Keywords: the Crusades, the causes of the Crusades, why the Crusades, Catholic Crusades, the crusades and Islam, Muslim expansion into Christian lands, were the crusades just, were the crusades morally just, truth of the crusades, church teaching on the crusades, Explaining the Faith, fr. Chris Alar, Chris Alar, Catholic Teaching, Catholic, Islamic expansion, just war, were the crusades needed, what happened with the crusades, the crusades, the crusades catholic

Id: Rw2pgmkr7DA

Length: 79min 36sec (4776 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 26 2021