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Vatican on a quest for the Crusaders
Richard Owen, Rome
March 21, 2006
THE Vatican has moved to rehabilitate the Crusaders by sponsoring a conference that portrays the Crusades as wars fought with the "noble aim" of regaining the Holy Land for Christianity.
The Crusades are seen by many Muslims as acts of violence that have underpinned Western aggression towards the Arab world ever since. Followers of Osama bin Laden claim to be taking part in a latter-day "jihad against the Jews and Crusaders".
The late Pope John Paul II sought to achieve Muslim-Christian reconciliation by asking "pardon" for the Crusades during the 2000 millennium celebrations. But John Paul's apologies for the past "errors of the church" -- including the Inquisition and anti-semitism -- irritated some Vatican conservatives.
According to insiders, the dissenters included Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Pope Benedict reached out to Muslims and Jews after his election and called for dialogue. However, the Pope, due to visit Turkey in November, has in the past suggested that Turkey's Muslim culture is at variance with Europe's Christian roots.
At the conference, held at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, Italian historian Roberto De Mattei recalled that the Crusades were "a response to the Muslim invasion of Christian lands and the Muslim devastation of the Holy Places".
Professor De Mattei noted that the desecration of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by Muslim forces in 1009 helped provoke the first Crusade, called by Pope Urban II at the end of the 11th century. He said the Crusaders were "martyrs" who "sacrificed their lives for the faith".
He was backed by Jonathan Riley-Smith, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University, who said that those who sought forgiveness for the Crusades "do not know their history". He attacked Ridley Scott's recent film Kingdom of Heaven, starring Orlando Bloom, as "utter nonsense".
Professor Riley-Smith said the script, like much writing on the Crusades, was "historically inaccurate". "It depicts the Muslims as civilised and the Crusaders as barbarians. It has nothing to do with reality." It fuelled Islamic fundamentalism by propagating "bin Laden's version of history".
He said the Crusaders were at times undisciplined and capable of great cruelty but the same was true of Muslims and troops in "all ideological wars".
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, Christians had been persecuted after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem.
The Times
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