Lula, you take much upon yourself and your calling for credit where credit is not due. Because of your blindness, you cannot comprehend common sense or the ability of humankind to figure out shit stinks ... but I am not ... see you later, hehehe

oh my.  Been gone a long time and can see you have been busy Lula.   

awwwww been wondering how you've been.  We've got to catch up soon.  

Not quite ready yet, sorry.

I separate the historical understanding of the Crusades from the popular myths used by many as a handy stick with which to engage in Catholic bashing.

For medieval people in medieval times, the Crusade was a means of defending their world, their culture and their way of life.

Have you read Robert Spencer's "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades"? In it, he definitively refutes 29 politically correct myths about Islam and the Crusades.

Guess what? The Crusades weren't acts of unprovoked agression, but were a delayed response to militant Mohammedan Turkish aggression which grew fiercer than ever in the 11th century.

Have you ever studied the hostility that began with Mohammad and was issued by Muslims upon Christendom during the course of 4 centuries (400 years) from 650 to when Pope Urban II called the First Crusade in 1095 upon the appeals of the Emperor of Constantinople and the Christians of the East?

It was the Muslims that stoked the hostility, profaned the Holy places of Palestine, seized Christian lands which amounted to 2/3 of what had formerly been the Christian world and massacred and enslaved thousands of Catholics.  Have you ever asked how difficult the sword had made life for them?

The role of the Catholic Church in the Crusades was not imperialistic, but rather the Crusaders (all 140,000 of them) fought to maintain the right of Christians to safe pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to recapture Christian lands and free those who had been enslaved by the Mohammedans.

In defense of the Christian faith, had the Church through the Crusaders failed to hold back the Muslims and Islamic Jihad, there would have been no Christian Europe. It would have been Islamic Europe.

Think about it.  What kind of world would we live in had the Christians not resisted Islamic jihad and escaped from Muslim dhimmitude? Certainly not the lofty ideals of freedom and dignity for all people which grew out of European Christianity.

 So, I must ask...

Why BT, is the fact that the Holy Land had been invaded and that Christian pilgrims, who had been going there peacefully for generations, were then being robbed and slaughtered never brought up? 

Why BT, is the focus only on the failings that befell many of the Crusading elements? I mean, even we know that in modern times, in war, there will always be "collateral damage" and misdeeds. That is certainly true in medieval times as well. 

Why BT, is there no consideration of the defensive nature of the Crusades?

Last Point.

Today, Christians are suffering atrocities are being enslaved, and killed at the hands of Islamic tyrants in the Sudan.Yes, ethnic cleansing is being perpetrated against Catholics in southern Sudan....When have you railed against that?

In almost every department of life, the world has benefited greatly by Christianity, the one, true Christian religion established by Christ in 33AD, also called Catholicism.

The world is in distress and full of troubles because people, nations and state governments, are unwilling to put Christian principles, such as Christ's command to love thy neighbor as thyself, into practice. Let all men live up to Christian principles,  and then if the world is not  better, you can blame Christianity. 

Mizzi writes:

Mizzi is a foolish man. Catholicism  IS  Christianity, Christ's true Christian religion; so there is not/can not be a difference between them.

There is, however, a difference between Christianity and Protestantism though. A big difference. Christianity was established by Christ in 33AD. Protestantism was established in 1517 by Luther and its thousands of different sects churches are not recorded in the Holy Bible. Christ said, "I will build My Church" (singular), not thousands of different "churches". As a matter of fact, the Bible denounces non-Catholic, Protestant "churches" with their different faiths and doctrines. St. Paul said, "There is one body, and one Spirit...one hope..one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all..." He also said, "...that you all speak the same thing, ...no schisms among you, but that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment." 

Mizzi writes:

Mizzi is wrong again....talking quite simply a fantasy that depends entirely on a sustained ignorance of history. 

Catholicism IS Biblical Christianity.

The reality is that Christ's Gospel was complex and hierarchical from the beginning and that the reason bishops and priests took over the Church after the death of the Apostles is that the Apostles, specifically and carefully designed the Chruch to be hierarchical and run by bishops whom they themselves chose. That is why 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus were written (to instruct bishops running the Church in the Apostles' stead) and that is why we find the Apostles already appointing (by the laying on of hands) such successors way back in Acts 14:23.

The official beginning of Catholicism was on the day of the First Pentecost, 50 days after the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, not somewhere in the 4th century as Protestants claim.

Mizzi writes:

Catholicism is Biblical Christianity whose foundation is Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself.

Protestants such as Mizzi refuse to understand what St.Matt. 16:13-20 means.

The exchange between Christ and Simon is deeply moving.

Christ, speaking in Aramaic, gives Simon the name Kepha or Rock, being Petra in Greek and Peter in English. Christ said to Simon, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build My Church and the powers of Hell will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven."

Mizzi writes:

Poor Mizzi. He's still Wrong. 

In principle, Christianity is life in Christ.

Of course, Catholics acknowledge the Holy Bible is the written Word of God. They also know and acknowledge that Jesus Christ did not leave us a Bible.

So, BT, how did the early CHristians learn the Faith? How was the Faith communicated to them? How did Our Lord tell the Apostles to communicate the one true Faith, the truths which must be believed for salvation? 

He commanded them, "go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.". He said to Simon, "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church." And Saint Paul clearly taught that the Church is the pillar and mainstay of truth." Our Lord gave Peter His authority and He commissioned the Apostles to preach in His Name. "AS the Father hath sent Me, I also send you."

As I said, Our Lord wrote no books nor did He tell His Apostles to write Bibles and scatter them all over the world and let everyone read them and decide for himself what it means which is the essence of Protestantism ---each individual reads the Bible and decides for himself what are the truths of Christianity. 

No, no, no. Our Lord established a Church to teach in His name. He left us a Pope (Simon renamed Peter) and an Apostolic teaching office, (the Magisterium). He said, "He that heareth you, heareth Me, he that despiseth you, despiseth Me."   And,

"If he will not hear the Church, let him  be to thee as the heathen and the publican."

The Church and Christianity (the one, true Christian Faith of Christ) existed BEFORE  the New Testament. The Church was spreading the Catholic Faith throughout the whole Roman Empire before a single word of the New Testament was written.

So how did the Jews and pagans become Christians? By reading the Bible? NO.

For over 300 years, the Church didn't have all the Books of the Bible compiled into one Book. So, BT, how does Mizzi know the Bible is the infallible written Word of God? This brings us to the question of authority. Books by multiple authors don't write themselves and compile themselves into one big book and proclaim itself to be the written Word of God.

NO,it was someone which God Himself gave the authority to teach infallibly in His name that told us which books were the infallilble written Words of God. It was the Catholic Church, her bishops at the Council of Carthage in 397AD through the guidance of the Holy Ghost, that settled once and for all which books were divinely inspired and which ones were not. 

It was the Catholic Church that joined the 27 Books of the New Testament with the 46 Books of the Old Testament and gave the Holy Bible to the world. It was the Catholic Church that produced the Bible, and not the Bible that produced the Church or Christianity.

Mizzi writes:

Not true.

But, let's go with it and think it through......IF it were true, then it would be necessary to read the Bible for people to be saved if faith cometh by reading the Bible only.

But the printing press was invented in the middle of the 15th century by Gutenberg (a Catholic btw!). Before that Bibles were few and far between for they were all hand copied, a laborious time-consuming venture. And then there was the problem of literacy. No many of them could even read.  We've only had Bibles widely distributed for a little more than 400 years. So, what about the millions of Christians who lived before that, who went through their entire lives without ever seeing a Bible? 

So, the Protestant idea of following the Bible alone as the path of salvation presupposes that the Bible should have been in the hands of all men from the foundation of Christianity. Well....sorry, not the case.

The Books of the New Testament weren't even written until 65 years after Our Lord ascended into Heaven. The Bible wasn't compiled until 397 and it wasn't widely available until the printing press was invented in the 15th century. So, the Protestant principle of "the Bible alone as our only infallible rule of faith" has no basis whatsoever in history. 

Thrid point..

Mizzi's confirmation that the Protestant principle of "the Bible alone is our only infallible rule of faith" is contrary with reason.

Yup, this is the Protestant system....give someone the Bible, tell him to read it and believe the Bible alone is his only guide to salvation. That person reads it and decides his own interpretation for himself.

What's the inherent problem with the Protestant doctrine of the Bible alone?

Even though they all read the Bible and claim it's their only guide, each Protestant comes up with his own ideas on the rules of faith and thus that's why there are tens of thousands of conflicting ideas of competing Protestant sects and why so many of them are mutually exclusive. 

Go to the Lutherans, and you're buying into Luther's private interpretation of the Bible. The Methodists subscribe to John Wesley's private interpretation. Presbyterians go by John Knox's interpretation.

And some Protestants who disagree with their forefathers read the Bible and come up with their own interpretation. If they are zealous an d eloquent enough they could start to preach and start their own Protestant sect...becasue this is how they all started! 

This is the sad consequence of the Bible only private interpretation of Scripture. This isn't Bible Christianity. The logical conclusion is that there could be as many Protestant religions as there as individuals. 

In Protestantism, there is no Church established for them by Christ to teach in His Holy Name. In Protestantism, there is no authority by God to tell them they may have made a mistake. 

So perhgaps you should think twice before you agree with Mizzi.  His idea of the Bible alone is contrary to Scripture, not supported by history, and is contrary to reason for it ends up with thousands of conflicting interpretations of Scripture, and is contrary to what Our Lord established His one, true, catholic , holy and Apostolic Church to be.

Interpretation of Scripture is not left to individuals, but to those given the authority and the ability to interpret by Christ Himself while He was on earth present among us.

Actually, Copernicus was induced by his clerical friends to put his works into print.

Nicolaus Copernicus dedicated his most famous work, On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs, in which he gave an excellent account of heliocentricity, to Pope Paul III. Copernicus entrusted this work to Andreas Osiander, a Lutheran clergyman who knew that Protestant reaction to it would be negative, since Martin Luther seemed to have condemned the new theory, and, as a result, the book would be condemned. Osiander wrote a preface to the book, in which heliocentrism was presented only as a theory that would account for the movements of the planets more simply than geocentrism did—something Copernicus did not intend.

Ten years prior to Galileo, Johannes Kepler
published a heliocentric work that expanded on Copernicus’ work. As a result, Kepler also found opposition among his fellow Protestants for his heliocentric views and found a welcome reception among some Jesuits who were known for their scientific achievements.

But do you give those others equal time, as it were, in bashing?  

Depends what you mean by "enlightenment"! 

The Church in all its majesty and infallibility was directly responsible for the ‘Dark Ages’ throughout the known world. You know, the time when humankind was the most uneducated. They also decimated other cultures around the world with their benevolence.  While Europe was in the dark ages, the Americas were unknown (sort of like the universe was unknown) and in their full bloom isolated from the contamination overseas. Then the Church and the Spanish (among others) set about bringing the rest of the world down to the standards set forth by The Catholic Church. Complete cultures like the Mayans as well as most of their written word were deliberately destroyed. But of course, you have a myriad of “excuses” justifying these types of exercises done by, for or in the name of The Church (not God) … your masters. Is it your opinion that Catholics always do good or is it just advantageous to pretend that it is so?

Re: the highlighted....What do you mean? Catholics are Christ's Fold...Mizzi left for Protestantism and you left for secular/atheistic humanism.

Read Mizzi again. Isn't he as a Protestant, as you say, "hell-bent on my destruction (which is the destruction of the Catholic Church and Faith)?

That whole piece he wrote is all hogwash, but I guess it tickled/s your fancy.

You see the world isn't afraid of Protestantism which has always been ready to water down down Christian obligations to suit it. But instinctively the world hates and fears the Catholic Church which will make no compromise but insists upon the fullness of Christian doctrine as Christ presented it, comfortable or uncomfortable.

Scripture teaches "the Church is the pillar and mainstay of truth". The CC insists upon obedience of Faith, and not a picking and choosing of one's personal likes and whims. The Church's repitition of Christ's axiom, "Deny thyself; take up the cross and follow Me." interferes too much with the comfort of men.

If Christianity demanded merely the admission of a few religious doctrines, men wouldn't object to it. But since it imposes moral obligations difficult for human nature, I'm not surprised that people like Mizzi, refuse it in its austere form when they are offered a less exacting substitute with the assurance (albeit a false One) that it is just as good or better.

I  “glossed over” nothing.

There are so many fables about the Crusades; it’s difficult to know where to begin. All this tells me is that repeating misinformation will always be with us.

Evil, wicked, merciless Catholic crusaders vs. wonderful, warm and loving, humanitarian Seljuk Turk leader, Saladin. Indoctrination by liberal revisionist history.   Of course, Hollywood helped on that score as well.

During the first century, the Church was established in Jerusalem and in the Book of Acts, the Apostle St.James is  her first bishop. According to Eusebius, St.James died in 63AD, he was succeeded by the Apostle St.Simon who lived until 107. He lists 13 successive bishops through 135, all were Judeo-Christians. From Mark of Caesarea on all of Jerusalem’s bishops were non-Jewish. During the 2^nd century, the Church developed throughout Mesopotamia. In 312, Jerusalem acquired great importance because of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher (Our Lord Jesus Christ’s tomb) was  built by Constantine the Great and his mother, St. Helena. This led to a great influx of pilgrims, by the thousands, as well as the building of more churches and monasteries.    

Islam originated in Arabia in the 7^th century and at that time, Egypt, Libya, and all of North Africa were Catholic and had been so for hundreds of years. So were Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Asia Minor.

 In 614, Christian Jerusalem was taken by Persians who destroyed all the churches, monasteries, including the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. They massacred thousands of its inhabitants and the Christians capitulated to living under the rule of the Fatimad Arabs. In 1072, these Arabs were displaced by the Seljuk Turks who reinvigorated the jihadist spirit of Islam in Jerusalem which had as its goal the imposition of its religion and Mohammedan law on all the Middle East and Europe.

The resultant wave of indignation against this was the main cause of the Crusades.

The dreadful tales finally got to Pope Urban II and in 1095, he stressed the outrages suffered by Catholics at the hands of the militant Muslim Turks who had invaded their land, depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire, and kept them as captives, etc. etc. etc.

Convinced that the menace of Islam threatened the existence of Western civilization, and that he alone had the power to organize a large expeditionary force (to call a Crusade) to defend Christianity from Muslim advance, Pope Urban made a call to the nobility of Western Europe.

Do you understand just wars from unjust wars? The Crusades were just wars. From 650 to 1095, after 400 years of Muslim assault and aggression, the Crusades were called as a defense of Christendom and Christianity. The goals were very clearly laid out ...the liberation of the Holy Land and the deliverance of Catholics of the East from Arab and Turkish rule. This was a defensive reaction against the Islamic threat that burst out of Arabia and took control of these lands in obedience to the words of the Qur’an and the Prophet Mohammed.

The response came and hundreds of knights, the Crusaders, after a 5 week siege, retook Jerusalem on July 15, 1099 establishing several Crusaders states that would last for almost 2 centuries.

Balderic, a bishop and 12^th century historian wrote that the Crusaders killed between 20 and 30 thousand. However, Ibn al-Jawzi wrote a hundred years later that 70, 000 Muslims were killed. By the 15^th century, the number had grown to over 100,000. So, the story of the massacre has grown.

The Crusaders sack of Jerusalem went by the military standards of the medieval day. In those times, it was the accepted principle of warfare that if the city under siege resisted, it was the ordinary thing to do.

In 1148, the Muslims killed every Catholic in Aleppo. In 1268, the jihad forces took Antioch and that city was pillaged, looted, ransacked, set on fire and the women were sold. The Church of St. Paul and the Cathedral of St. Peter  were destroyed; the priests, monks and deacons had their throats cut.

The most notorious one may be the jihadists’ entry into Constantinople on May 29, 1453. By then, after the pillaging was finished and all the property was in ruin, instead of killing everybody, the jihadists’ realized the captives and precious objects could bring them greater profit. The Catholic churches were turned into mosques, and the Catholics were either martyred, enslaved or turned into the rank of dhimmis.

 As far as the Jews, neither Pope Urban nor any subsequent pope who called for a crusade ever directed the Crusaders against the Jews. It was a German nobleman, Count Emicho and his marauders who targeted the Jewish populations and killed them for their wealth. The bishops of Mainz, Speyer and Worms and Catholic families tried to save the Jews by sheltering them. It worked, their lives were spared but their property and goods were stolen. Count Emicho and his band finally got their due when they reached the Hungarian border.

Now, let’s get back to your hero, Saladin, who inflicted great damage on the Crusaders. He treated those Catholic infidels with full honors, huh?

Nope. When Saladin defeated the Crusaders at Hattin on July 4, 1187, he ordered the mass execution of them all in accordance with Qur’an 47:4. However, the Catholic commander, Balian of Ibelin, threaten to destroy Jerusalem and kill the Muslims before Saladin could get inside so Saladin relented…but only until he got inside.

The Inquisition, as a tribunal dealing with religious heresy, had jurisdiction only over baptized Catholics.

The Inquisition was the most just and benign tribunal of its time, in the opinion of historians. It protected the rights of defendants and established a level of Christian jurisprudence.

More false information has been circulated against the Church on the topic of the Papal Inquisition than on any other topic. 

The Inquisition, a system of ecclesiastical courts for trying and punishing heresy, was established in 1230, with jurisdiction over Catholics and fallen-away Catholics only. These courts were commissioned to seek first the reformation of the heretics by warnings or slight penances, which most accepted.

Their scrupulous rules of procedures protected the accused with more safeguards than defendants in modern courts receive today. Only relapsed or intransigent heretics were eventually found guilty and, as the ecclesiastical courts' authority ended there, were turned over to the state, which at that time considered heresy a crime of anarchy and high treason, undermining the state.

The Inquisition was revived in the 15th century to deal with false conversions of Jews and Mohammedans (the so- called conversos), and in the 16th century to deal with the virulent Protestant heresy that was sweeping Europe.

Even the Spanish Inquisition did not proceed against sincere followers of any religion, but only against those Spaniards, Jews, and Moors who, having once been members of the Catholic Faith, pretended to be Catholics, but had actually given up their faith and become involved in treacheries against Spain.

Circa 1492, the top Jews in Spain had wormed their way into high positions of Church and State by pretending to be Christians. These false Marrano Jews, as they were called, were working with the Muslims across the strait of Gibraltar to overthrow Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, and turn a Christian country into a Moslem country.

I assume too much? really? YOu didn't say that not only Crusaders but Catholics in general were the scourge of the earth?

Hmmm? Let's look at post 167.

and post 187:

In my reply 174, I said it's always been acknowledged that Catholics have killed and brought violence to others...even today with the violence and death to innocent babes in the womb brought about by votes from "Catholic" politicians like Biden and Pelosi.When Catholics don't act like Catholics and don't practice the Faith (and there is a lot of that out there), it's scandalous and woe to them. 

I also asked a real thinking question......what does the sorry fact that Catholics have brought death and violence and destruction to others prove? 

Certainly not what you and other anti-Catholics think it proves. Certainly not that the Catholic Church and Catholiciism is the cause, is therefore evil and must be completely eradicated as one of the chief propagandists for atheism, Christopher Hitchens, asserts.

What must be grapsed is that no account of sins by Catholics can undue the Divine foundation of the Church and Catholic Faith which on Christ's own promise will continue in perpetuity until the end of the world and time.

I also asked that you take a good look around you and acknowledge that it's not Catholics practicing Christianity who are responsible for the most wars, killing and destruction around the world. There is no comparison with the atheistic slaughter in the name of religion free and godless utopias by tyrants......the figure is over 169 million.

You are free to look at what atheistic regimes have done and are doing....yet, that has gone without your notice or rebuttal.

Ok. Good point. I went too far...maybe he's not your hero.