What about Crusades, Almsgiving, Christian States?

Should The Pope Call a New Crusade?
Brian Holdsworth | 7 Dec. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snIYkwe6Ddg

1:20 The last Crusade was in 1936 to 1939.

Against the Reds. Pope Pius XI blessed the undertaking of Franco, and rightly so.

It's a bit ironic that this last Crusade involved allies on our side from the Muslim world, from Morocco, from the Rif, while Franco's previous war there had not been a Crusade, just a colonial venture (which he helped to upend, except for Ceuta).

3:18 I actually parted ways with Evangelical Protestantism partly over this issue.

I became Lutheran, I knew Lutherans had some Crusading spirit, though, as I would now say, it was sadly misdirected against Catholics. You know 1618 to 1648.

I had already been aware that some Swedes had overdone it in the South Germanies, both Bavaria and close to Vienna.

Andrew Dobbin

@ADobbin1

To be fair, the Catholic Austrian holy roman emperor started the 30 years war by trying to overthrow the norther german protestant princes and the swedes came in to defend their fellow protestants. In either case it was a rolling disaster for the common people as they were brutalized by both sides of the conflict. The end result was the treaty of Westphalia which set the foundation for modern europe.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@ADobbin1 "by trying to overthrow the norther german protestant princes"

The Thirty Years' War started in Bohemia.

Conflict was precipitated by two factors: Matthias, already aging, and without children, made his cousin, Ferdinand of Styria, his heir and had him elected king in 1617. Ferdinand was a proponent of the Catholic Counter-Reformation and not likely to be well-disposed to Protestantism or Bohemian freedoms. Bohemian Protestants opposed the royal government as they interpreted the Letter of Majesty to extend not only to the land controlled by the nobility or self-governing towns but also to the king's own lands. Whereas Matthias and Klesl were prepared to appease these demands, Ferdinand was not; in 1618 he forced the Emperor to order the cessation of construction of some Protestant chapels on royal land. When the Bohemian estates protested against this order, Ferdinand had their assembly dissolved.

@ADobbin1 As said, it begain in Prague, not Northern Germany. Look up Defenestration.

Next move was "The Winter King" ... married to the sister of Charles I of England, and ancestor to Lewis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

After the death of Matthias in 1619, Ferdinand II was elected Holy Roman Emperor. At the same time, the Bohemian estates deposed him as King of Bohemia and replaced him with Frederick V, Elector Palatine, a leading Calvinist and son-in-law of the Protestant James VI and I, King of Scotland, England and Ireland.

Both my comments

were deleted. Andrew Dobbin's comment was modified.

Andrew Dobbin

To be fair, the Catholic Austrian holy roman emperor started the 30 years war by trying to overthrow the norther german protestant princes and the swedes came in to defend their fellow protestants. In either case it was a rolling disaster for the common people as they were brutalized by both sides of the conflict. The end result was the treaty of Westphalia which set the foundation for modern europe.

Can you spot the difference?

Hans Georg Lundahl

@ADobbin1 Why exactly is it that my answer to your false allegation has been deleted?

The Bohemian Protestants started the Thirty Years' War by rebelling against Habsburg rule. Bohemia had been Habsburg territory since Rudolf von Habsburg got the loots from the rebel Ottokar after the 13th C. Interregnum.

4:59 No, vainglory is not enough to make almsgiving an evil act.

Almsgiving with vainglory, we are told in the Gospels, are naturally good acts, but which are rewarded already in this life.

That is, you become evil, your act of almsgiving doesn't.

Supposing obviously that almsgiving with vainglory is all Jesus was talking about.

If you know something about the codes of gratitude in Roman Antiquity and gather there could be something similar ongoing in Jewry, there is another thing that fits the bill. Giving alms with the intention of instrumentalising the receiver. And shaming him if he refuses to be instrumentalised. In that case, the alms as such would still be a good act, but the instrumentalisation wouldn't.

7:05 "not to use violence in self defense against the state"

I think this is in fact somewhat overdone as a formulation.

In parts of the period, we are still dealing with violent insurrection in Judaea, and violent anti-Christian pogroms, and the Roman state, even up to end of the book of Acts, had a role as relative protector. The Holy Family fled from the Semi-Independent Protectorate Judaea to Roman Occupied Egypt. St. Paul takes refuge from Jewish mobs in Roman officials.

I think parts of the texts you think of are telling Christians "don't blow this" and in many cases it actually paid. I don't think the texts state that we have no authority to defend ourselves against a state finally and ultimately determined on our destruction. Or, which is similar, modification, with the destruction of those who refuse to modify.

St. Paul was not writing under Nero, as far as I can tell, but under Claudius.

St. Paul had not been at Rome when he wrote this epistle, which was in the year fifty-seven or fifty-eight, when he was preparing to go to Jerusalem with the charitable contributions and alms, collected in Achaia and Macedonia, for the benefit and relief of the poor Christians in Judea, and at Jerusalem; and after he had preached in almost all places from Jerusalem even to Illyris, Illyrium, or Illyricum.

(Haydock comment, intro).

Wait, sorry, I was wrong, Nero came to power already in 54. However, I still think this was before the persecution.

But obviously, in Rome, Christians had no means to defend themselves against Nero's persecution, except by fleeing. St. Peter was more or less told by Jesus to turn back, but we are not sure that all others who fled were so told.

7:44 Please note, both Romans 13 and I Peter 2, they speak of submission to legitimate state authority.

There are according to the functions of the state mentioned in Romans 13 things the state cannot do. And I would argue, resisting psychiatry, when one has sufficient consciousness of the situation to see this as an agression, which clearly involves being not what has previously been taken as mad, is not resisting legitimate state function.

The state has no authority to place an idol in the temple of God, confer Maccabees, and the state also has no authority to change the soul of someone, even an evil-doer.

8:40 And* to make the kind of laws according to which some revolutions that came in later, whether from mobs or from nobles' militias or from the state (like the Deformation) simply made the state so doing, or the product of that revolution, illegitimate as a state.

Ireland had under the army of Strongbow ceased to be a Schismatic and Sovereign nation, to become a nation in communion with Rome, and obedience under the King of England who was also King of Ireland.

Nevertheless, the Catholic Church did judge the Irish Confederacy, also known as Kilkenny Confederacy, as legitimate.

Furthermore, if no parts of the state had any right to reject the misrule of it, Constantinople would still have the right to rule Venice and Southern Italy, US would have the duty to return to the Commonwealth, Ireland would also have that, well, no.

The article "Insurrection légitime" in Dictionnaire Apologétique de la Foi catholique, actually states this, and also states that sometimes such a righteous insurrection begins with individual self defense against a misruling state. The outcome should obviously normally be that the state in question returns to some sanity and a just judge relieves the agressed citizen from the necessity of defending himself against the state. But if this doesn't happen, obviously the scale of the defense may escalate.

Part of the point is, modern states in traditionally Christian countries are heirs, sometimes continuing states, sometimes successor states, of Christendom. They therefore lack the excuses of ignorance that Nero had.

9:07 On this issue, one must also recall, some Protestants dispute the licitness of Christians being in authority.

They could for instance pretend, very unduly, that Romans 13 tells "the Christians" (i e all of them) to be "subject to" (and supposedly therefore different from) the one in authority, who therefore cannot be a real Christian.

They could also misuse passages pretending that Satan is still the Prince of this World. This was certainly the view of Albigensians, probably of at least some Waldensians. I obviously disagree, Satan lost rule over Adam's race on Good Friday.

This is obviously against the Great Commission. Jesus did not say "make disciples of people within the nations" as if Christian clubs were necessary, but Christian countries impossible, as the Watchtower Society believes and mistranslates. The correct text is:

teach ye all nations

Not just individuals within the nations, but the nations as a whole, themselves.

The Deformers took a different view, but a similar principle, they basically said that Gustav or Harry could act as Satanists while ruling, they only were obliged to be Christians in their "personal life" or privacy (whatever that is, in a ruler).

We Catholics hold, a ruler has to act as a Christian as ruler (and the ruler is subject to authority of for instance already existing and not obviously unjust laws, of precedent if not obviously unjust, tradition, the Church, and ultimately to Christ the King). Even if he were a Satanist in his private life, in public duties, he must uphold the laws of God. He can for instance not force someone to consult the oracle of Delphi, or a shrink.

10:42 Pope Michael I would seem to have agreed.**

10:42 Your response on why** the Church does not call a Crusade is also the correct response on why Pius XII didn't call Germans to open insurrection against Hitler.

Too few would have obeyed him. They would have put themselves in harm's way. They would have decreased their capacity to help at least some Jews. Or gipsies. Or others innocently under the malevolent radars of Hitler. They would also have decreased their capacity for doing at least some good things Hitler was doing, like opposing the Red Army. As it was, Germany was divided in "half" ...

At least, this is pretty certainly how Pius XII saw things. I reconnected with the Assisi Underground the first Vesper of St. Nicolas, and, well, the Church in Assisi in some ways acted as Rahab. One could with a highly optimistic view of Jews say, the Church acted as when the High Priest allowed King David a normally unauthorised stay in the Temple. But King David had the same faith as the High Priest. So, perhaps Rahab would be a better comparison. However, getting stuck in a Rahab hides the spies role is not all that good. If you used the internal search engine in Vulgate online, you may find that the second last*** "meretrix" of the Bible is Rahab. The last is sth very different.

Similiter et Rahab meretrix, nonne ex operibus justificata est, suscipiens nuntios, et alia via ejiciens?
[James 2:25]

Et dixit mihi: Aquae, quas vidisti ubi meretrix sedet, populi sunt, et gentes, et linguae.
[Apocalypse (Revelation) 17:15]

And note, the main problem isn't Islamic extremism. The main problem is a state where, you know Russian laws against "extremism"? LGBT movement has been labelled as extremist, but so have house churches. The main problem is a paranoia about religious extremism, which allows for anti-Christian actual extremism.

* In response to:

therefore the 8:24 circumstances that determined the 8:26 morality of their actions had changed 8:29 which meant that those verses of 8:30 scripture had to be applied differently 8:33 because now the Christians were the 8:34 authorities charged with the 8:36 responsibility of of wielding the sword 8:38 to punish evildoers which didn't just 8:40 mean that they had the right to use 8:42 violence if necessary

** In response to:

well I 10:23 think the answer is because the church 10:25 has since lost its influence with the 10:28 state again the pope and Bishops no 10:31 longer play what used to be an 10:33 indispensable role as instructors and 10:35 directors of Christian Governors instead 10:36 today the church has a sort of Fragile 10:39 coexistence with a modernist 10:41 non-Christian State

*** I only searched the nominative singular, so far.