FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - Crusaders are back!

Rant Number 433 23 March 2011

Yes, from East to West crusaders are on people’s lips. The West’s intervention in Libya reminds Russia’s Putin of ‘a medieval crusade’ – guess he is worried about what might happen next time he wants to butcher the Chechens. Colonel Qaddafi, that distinguished statesman, concurs, blasting ‘the crusader enemy’. Bin Laden of course patented the brand first – his shadowy outfit is called ‘Jihad against Jews and Crusaders’. Funny, though. Because Qaddafi precisely accuses his rebel opponents of being part of Bin Laden’s invisible empire. Maybe someone should tell old Osama the unpleasant news: he himself is now fighting for the Cross! Hmmm...I fear he won’t be pleased.

Stuff and nonsense! Rubbish. Because ‘crusade’ has a clear meaning. Totally, utterly at odds with current rhetorical and ignorant and imbecilic attributions. Pray, hear the priest out.

First, a crusade was from the beginning first and foremost a pilgrimage. The words used to designate it - iter, voyage, passagium generale, peregrinatio, Reise – all express the idea of a religious journey, a pilgrimage to a holy shrine. In the Middle Ages Rome, Santiago de Compostela and Jerusalem stood out as pilgrims’ goals. A pilgrimage was an act of devotion or penance. Sometimes it meant atonement for grave sins. But pilgrims did not need to bear arms to visit Rome and Santiago. Jerusalem, however, was different...

Second, the first and most subsequent crusades were aimed at the holy city of Jerusalem. Pope Urban II at Clermont in 1095 highlighted the conditions of Eastern Christians. The charismatic preacher Peter the Hermit had reported his experience of harassment of pilgrims to the holy places in Palestine. (Egypt’s mad Sultan Hakim had even destroyed Christ’s Holy Sepulchre.) As bellicose Turks poured into Anatolia and threatened Constantinople, the Byzantines had asked the Pope for help. Anyway, the point is that a crusade became from then on not any pilgrimage but properly ‘an armed expedition, proclaimed at the instigation of the Pope, aimed at the recovery of Jerusalem’. The Pope, and the Pope alone, has the authority to call a crusade, geddit?

Third, Jerusalem. The city holy to the children of Abraham. Christ suffered, died and rose again there. From Jerusalem the Apostles spread out to convert the world. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre rose over the cave where Christ’s body was placed after the crucifixion. But Jerusalem is sacred to Islam too. The city of the firstqibla, or direction of prayer. Alluded to in the Qur’an. Surat Bani Israil, verse 1. A miraculous night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem by the Prophet Muhammad. Mentioned also in various hadiths, or traditions.

Jerusalem, yes, the problem. An unholy bone of contention between kindred religions. Not just political but theological strife is built right into it. Professor Shlomo Goiten claims that an Arabic inscription inside the mosque of the Dome of the Rock spells out a polemical intent aimed at Christians under Muslim rule. No doubt crusaders repaid in kind when they turned the mosque into a church. But the real tragedy is that the city of God’s peace became a ghastly place of warfare, bloodshed and massacre. God’s curse on both our houses.

Eventually, the small states the crusaders established in Palestine were gradually snuffed out by the Muslimreconquista. Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil drew the last Christian warriors out of Acre in 1291. The crusades ended in failure.

Armed with this brief account – itself polemical, no doubt - let me address the tiresome voices that blab away about ‘crusaders’. A crusade was an armed pilgrimage, a military expedition authorised by the Pope. No merely political, secular ruler, from Sarkozy to Obama, could possibly boast such an authority. The Holy Father, who alone would fill the required role, would never dream of calling the faithful to a war of religion. Indeed, religion as cause of a just war has been ruled out by Christian theologians since the 16^th century. Whatever the historical and religious justifications for the wars of the cross, today there are none.

Sadly, the passion for pilgrimages has somewhat declined amongst Christians, though I am proud to say that I made it, with my boon companion Leo, to Santiago de Compostela, in 1991. But, even with the wildest imagination, no one could call the Western raids over Libya, ‘pilgrimages’. Wishful tourists to Leptis Magna, like my friend Helen, will have to wait till the cessation of the hostilities.

As to Jerusalem, neither Muslims nor Christians control now it but the Jews. (You can’t imagine Western armies launching an attack on Israel, can you? Not even crazy Lady X would suggest that.) Still, I suppose the Jews could claim the original right of inheritance amongst Abe’s descendants. Unfortunately the State of Israel’s claim to the whole city is somewhat controversial, to say the least. What that means is that trouble and strife will go on. God must be getting a little tired of us, his squabbling creatures. Maybe a new flood would fix things for a while?

However, I do understand what is going on in the minds of many Muslims. As the West has invaded two Islamic nations in the last 10 years, the spectacle of yet another Muslim land under attack disturbs them. They would be less than believers if they did not feel that way. The presence of tiny Qatar amongst the coalition can hardly suffice to allay their fears. At bottom, Muslims feel humiliated, angry. The priest, powerful though he is, cannot change that. However, I would still beg my Abrahamic cousins to pause and reflect that: A) the West today is no longer identical with Christianity. In fact, it is largely hostile to the ancient faith. The crusaders of old are turning over in their graves at the sight of the ungodly mess Europe is now. B) Afghanistan and Iraq are liberal-democratic affairs, voted and backed by secular parliaments, not wars of the Cross, proclaimed by the Pope and aimed at the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre. C) The Arabs cannot eternally blame the West, never mind how wicked, for their woes. They must bear some guilt, too.

Fair, no?

Revd Frank Julian Gelli