I had a "religion" class at college the teacher used the Crusades, Inquisition, and Holocaust (yes this was somehow our fault) as sort of an "AHA take that Catholicism!"

Any time I tried to defend the Crsuades I was reminded that even the Pope "apologized for them." Not true!

I say long live the memory of the Crusades. When else in history did the noble and powerful risk their lives and money so readily for an ideal?

Great Post!

This will be useful, I think, in another rebuttal I have to publish against a prof on campus. Thanks for the info!

Also, you might appreciate this -- the full text of Chesterton's "The Catholic Church and Conversion" is available online.

If you’re willing to “brave” a traditionalist web site, there’s a good write-up about defending the Crusades here:

http://fisheaters.com/crusades.html

Thank you for posting this; I linked it from my blog.

FD, Kenneth K, and Cantor,

Thanks for those kind comments. I wanted to say more but I know there are many who read the blog who would have not understand many of the details about the Crusades. That is why I tried my best to 'briefly' capsulate the truth about our history.

God bless you all.

The Pope was well within bounds when he apologized for "sins" committed by the somewhat overzealous Christians of the 3rd (4th?) crusade.

But he did NOT "apologize" for the Crusades, per se...

Dad29,

That is right Dad29.

Too many people, including Catholics and the mainstream media, continue to mischaracterize JPII's non-apology.