Deus Vult.

THE Vatican has begun moves to rehabilitate the Crusaders by sponsoring a conference at the weekend 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 Vatican 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, who is 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, Roberto De Mattei, an Italian historian, recalled that the Crusades were “a response to the Muslim invasion of Christian lands and the Muslim devastation of the Holy Places”...

Comment: This information comes from Dhimmi Watch and is very interesting. We live in an era when two major historical misrepresentations are firmly rooted in the common mind: the Cusades were a completely unprovoked attack by crazed savage Christians on angelic and peaceful muslims living in a Garden of Eden in the Middle East; and the Christians and Jews lived in seraphic joy and contentment under the 'soft as kisses'Sharia rule of genius muslim caliphs in Spain, before 1492. Both stories are widely inaccurate and basically motivated by anti-christian sentiment from the 19th century.

This conference in Rome is laying the groundwork for an historical campaign against these two notions. The Vatican, which houses a pro-Islam faction and an anti-Islam faction, is increasingly active in the growing intellectual struggle against the ideology of Islamism. Benedict XIV gives every indication that he is the leader of the anti-Islam faction.

It is always nice to have a German Field Marshal in command of your side in a battle.