Tag Archives: Christendom

Irish Language Mass

Presbyter Brendan Fitzgerald said the Gaelic Mass at St. Barnabas in the Bronx

On Saturday September 12, 2020, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and other Irish communities and organizations hosted their annual Irish language Mass at St. Barnabas Church in the Bronx.  The “Mass” was celebrated by presbyter Brendan Fitzgerald and streamed across the country and in Ireland on the St. Barnabas Parish Facebook Page. 

A press release of the event stated:

Dedicated to those who kept Irish language

and culture alive, the Irish Mass takes on

added meaning this year for an Irish

community overcoming Covid in the spirit

our ancestors overcame being denied [the]

Church and Mass by British Penal Laws.*

The response to the event was quite enthusiastic as expressed by the Bronx County Ancient Order of Hibernians, President Martin Galvin:

The Irish language is an important

and indestructible part of our Irish

heritage. . . .  we can think of no more

fitting way for AOH members to honor

Irish heritage than an Irish Mass

embodying all of these themes.

There has been a great response from

AOH leaders nationally, Gaelic clubs,

Woodlawn Irish community groups,

musicians and individuals who would

just like to hear the Mass said in the

language of our ancestors.

While the “Irish Mass” may have been a success for its organizers and participants, it shows the ignorance of many contemporary Irishmen about their country’s history and its religion and explains why the Faith has sunk to such a low level on the Emerald Island.

Apparently, Mr. Galvin does not know it, but the Irish ancestors which he thinks he is honoring did not celebrate the Mass in the Irish language, but in LATIN!  While the Irish language is an important and integral part of the country’s history, it pales in comparison to what the Mass and Sacraments did for the Irish.  The Mass of Western Christendom, which Ireland is an important part, is the Roman Rite, the language of which is Latin.

 While it is all well and good, and certainly necessary, to keep alive a people’s heritage and language, especially in these times where the Occidental peoples’ symbols, statutes, and reminders of the past are being systematically destroyed by neo-Marxists all over the globe, it is an abomination to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in a vernacular/pagan tongue – a blasphemy long condemned by the Church. 

Since the wretched Second Vatican Council and the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Mass by Paul VI, Masses in the vernacular tongues are now the norm.  While the celebration of an “Irish language Mass” is supposed to commemorate the nation’s heritage, Mr. Galvin’s ancestors would be horrified at such a display.

Latin was the great unifier of Christendom.  As the universal language, it bonded different peoples and cultures together not only in religious practices, but in secular matters.  The eclipse of Latin led, in part, to the breakup of Christendom and the rise of national rivalries and warfare.

All of the saints, doctors and theologians, including Irish ones, spoke of the importance of retaining Latin as the language of the Church.  They keenly understood that translations no matter how faithful contain errors and change meanings of the original texts. 

Volumes could be cited by Catholic Churchmen insisting on the necessity of Latin for the preservation of the Faith, a few will suffice:

For the Church, precisely because it embraces

all nations and is destined to endure until the

end of time … OF ITS VERY NATURE requires

a language that is universal, immutable, and

non-vernacular.  –Pope Pius XI, Officiorum

Omnium, 1922

The day the Church abandons her universal

tongue [Latin] is the day before she returns to

the catacombs.  –Pope Pius XII 

The use of the Latin language prevailing in

a great part of the Church affords at once

an imposing sign of unity and an effective

safeguard against the corruptions of true

doctrine.   –Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei,

1947, Sec. 60 

*Quoted in The Irish Echo: The USA’s most widely read Irish-American newspaper, vol. 92, No. 37, 9-15 September 2020, p. 3. 

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Demonocracy: The Great Human Scourge!



Review: Christophe Buffin de Chosal, The End of Democracy, Translated by Ryan P. Plummer.  Printed in the U.S.A.: Tumblar House, 2017.

Introduction

One cannot speak too highly of Christophe Buffin de Chosal’s The End of Democracy.  In a fast paced, readable, yet scholarly fashion, Professor Buffin de Chosal* demolishes the ideological justification in which modern democracy rests while he describes the disastrous effects that democratic rule has had on Western societies.  He explodes the myth of Democracy as a protector of individual liberty, a prerequisite for economic progress, and a promoter of the higher arts.  Once Democracy is seen in this light, a far more accurate interpretation of modern history can be undertaken.  The book is a very suitable companion to Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s iconoclastic take down of democracy in Democracy: The God That Failed, released at the beginning of this century.  Buffin de Chosal has spoken of a follow up which will be eagerly awaited for.

Democratic Governance

The idea of rule by the people is a scam, one perpetuated by those who, in actuality, are in control of the government.  Through the “democratic process” of voting and elections, a small, determined minority can impose its will despite majority opposition:

We often hear it said that ‘in a democracy,

it is the people who rule. . . .’  Rule by the

people is a myth which loses all substance

once confronted with the real practice in

democracy.  [13]

Quoting from a Russian philosopher, Buffin de Chosal continues his criticism:

    The best definition [of democracy] was

given by the Russian philosopher Vasily Rozanov. 

‘Democracy is the system by which an

organized minority governs an unorganized

majority.’  This ‘unorganized majority’ is the

people, aggregated and individualistic,

incapable of reaction because disjointed.  [28]

He expands upon Rozanov’s theme:

. . . [C]ontrary to what [democracy’s] principles

proclaim: one can say that the majority

almost never wins.  Democracy is not the

system of the majority, but that of the most

powerful minority, and it has this power

not simply due to its numbers, but also and

above all due to its organization. [31]

Power does not reside in “the people” and certainly not in the individual.  In democracy, the only way to express one’s preference or protect one’s rights is through the ballot box every so often. “Each voter,” writes Buffin de Chosal, “in a democracy, is the depositary of a tiny particle of sovereignty, in itself unusable. His sole power consists in dropping a ballot into a box, whereby he is immediately dispossessed of his particle of sovereignty at the profit of those who are going to represent him.”  [Ibid.]

Popular democracy has always been condemned and feared by most thinkers since the beginning of human societies.  It was not until intellectuals saw democracy as a way they could attain power that they began to advocate it as a system of social order.  Prior to the democratic age, most of the learned understood that democracy would result in mob rule and the displacement of natural authority with demagogues.  In short, the worst would rise to the top as the author describes the characteristics of a contemporary politician:

The ideal politician, on the other hand, is

pliable, convincing, and a liar by instinct.  He is

not attached to any platform and has no

ideological objective.  The single thing to which

he is truly committed is power.  He wants its

prestige and advantages, and seeks above all

to be personally enriched by it.  Any politician

who presents this aspect is recognized as fit for

power in a democracy. . .  .  It is therefore not

surprising that democratically elected assemblies

are almost exclusively comprised of

these kinds of men and women.  Elected

heads of state almost always fit this profile,

and international institutions, such as the

European Union, consider it the only

acceptable profile. . . .  [35]

Democracy and the State

Since the advent of modern democracy, the principle benefactor of its rule has been the State and the politically-connected financial elites who are in actuality the true rulers of societies.  Instead of putting an end to the supposedly despotic rule of the Ancien Régime, which Democracy’s proponents claim to have existed throughout the monarchial and aristocratic age, governance by the people, has instead witnessed an increase in state power and control of individual lives to an unprecedented level in human history. Few, if any, pope, emperor, king, prince, or duke have ever possessed such suzerainty.

In contrast to what has been taught in classrooms, on university campuses, and espoused throughout the media, individual rights and freedoms were far better guarded in the age prior to Democracy’s ascendancy.  Pre-revolutionary Europe had social structures which insulated individuals from State power far more effectively than under modern democracy:

    The concept of an organic society was abolished at

the time of the French Revolution.  The corps and

orders were suppressed, the privileges were abolished,

and everything which allowed the people to protect

themselves from the power of the state was banished

in the name of liberty.  [24]

And in return for giving up the order that protected them from state depredations, the people received “sovereignty:”

They were given the false promise that they

would no longer need to defend themselves

from the state since they themselves were the

state.  But if a people organized into corps and

orders are incapable of exercising sovereignty,

how much more so a people comprising a formless

mass of individuals!  [Ibid.] 

Historically, all of the democratic movements which supposedly stemmed from the people were, in fact, a falsehood, perpetuated largely by revolutionaries who sought to replace the established order with themselves.  While legislatures, congresses, and democratic bodies of all sorts have been interpreted as the fruition of the masses’ desire for representation, the reality was quite different:

    Democracy is not, in its origin, a system of

the people.  In England with the advent of the

parliamentary system just as in France during the

Revolution, it was not the people who were seen

at work.  Even the Russian Revolution was not a

phenomenon of the people.  To regard the people

or what the communist elegantly call the ‘masses’

as the agent of change or political upheaval is purely

a theoretical view, a historical myth, of which

one sees no trace in reality.  The ‘people’ were

the pretext, the dupes, and almost always the

victims of the revolutions, not the engines.  [13]

Not only was propagation of the myth of popular support for democratic ideals propounded for the survival of the new social order, but putting these tenets into practice was accomplished, in large part, by the role of the “intellectual” an often neglected feature of standard historical analysis and the reason behind much social transformation:  

The ‘nation’ met the desires of the philosophers

who wanted to transfer power from the monarch

to an enlightened, philosophical, and philanthropic

class who, moreover, ought to be financially

comfortable.  The educated bourgeoisie of the

time were the protagonists of this idea, and a

portion of the nobility formed their audience.  [13-14]

The intellectuals promoted Democracy because it would open up for them considerable opportunities for position and income in the nation state.  It must be remembered that it was the intellectuals who justified the idea of Absolutism.  Later, the intellectuals turned on the monarchies and sided with the emerging republican classes rightly believing that democratic governance would give them greater opportunities for power in the emerging nation states.

Democracy and Modern History

While most historians see the advancement of democracy and the development of legislative bodies over the course of the last centuries as an advancement in the human condition and one that has emanated from the people’s desire for greater political representation, Buffin de Chosal presents a far different and more accurate interpretation.  “Democracy,” he asserts, “is not, in its origin a system of the people.” [13] All of the social movements which eventually led to the destruction of Christendom did not come from the people seeking a greater “voice” in their governance.

“The ‘people,’” he argues, “were the pretext, the dupes, and almost always the victims of the revolutions, not the engines.” [Ibid.]  Liberty, Equality and Fraternity was not a popular cry, but one coined and used by the “enlightened” classes to mobilize and justify their overthrow of the French monarchy and with it the destruction of the Church. 

    The French Revolution was built on the

idea of the ‘nation,’ which claimed to bring

together the intellectual, social, and financial

elite of the country.  It was on this foundation

that democracy was established and that it

functioned during almost all of the nineteenth

century.  [Ibid.]

A similar historical narrative can be seen in England.

The rise and eventual triumph of representative democracy in England was not one that percolated from the masses itching for more freedom.  “The appearance of the parliamentary system in England,” Buffin de Chosal contends, “was tied to the great movement of Church property confiscation begun under Henry VIII and continuing until the coming of the Stuarts.” [14] 

After Henry gorged himself on the Church’s wealth, he sought to bribe as much of the nobility as possible with his ill-gotten gains to insure his power.  An envious Parliament, however, wanted its cut of the loot which led to the great internecine struggle between Crown and Parliament which eventually ended in the suzerainty of the latter with the Glorious Revolution of 1688.  The real power from then on rested with an oligarchical legislative branch:

The families who had thus helped themselves

to the Church’s goods, morally justified by

Protestant ethics, formed the gentry, the class

of landowners who sat in Parliament.  Parliament

was not then, as one might believe today, an organ

of poplar representation.  It was an instrument

in the hands of the gentry to defend its own class

interests. [16-17]

That Parliament and the monarchy would become the two dominant ruling structures was the result of the breakdown of the feudal structure which was taking place not only in England, but across Europe.  European monarchs continued to gain more and more power at the expense of the feudal landed elite.  The gentry’s power and wealth was also on the wane with the rise of commercial centers which most of the time aligned themselves first with the kings and then later with Parliament.  The eventual triumph of Parliament, however, did not mean greater democracy for the people:

The financial incentives for England’s adoption

of the Protestant Reformation are therefore

intimately connected with the bolstering of

Parliamentary power. The Parliament in England

was used to put the monarchy in check and to

replace it with an oligarchic class of wealthy

Protestants to whom the kings were required to

submit.  This is why the overthrow of James II

in 1688 was a true revolution.  It was not a

popular revolution or the overthrowing of a

tyranny, but it was the rebellion of a class

implementing the transfer of sovereign power

for its own profit. [17]

The Market Economy

The author takes a refreshing look at the market economy that sets straight the inaccurate and often times hostile analysis of it that frequently comes from conservative circles.  He distinguishes and rightly points out that “pure capitalism” or the “unhampered market” is an “excellent thing” [123].  The free market is intimately tied with private property which is a prerequisite for a just society:

[Capitalism] proceeds from respect for private property.

As capitalism is the reinvestment or saved money for the

purpose of making new profits, it presupposes respect for

property rights and free enterprise.   It has existed in Europe

since the Middle Ages and has contributed significantly to

the development of Western society.  [Ibid.]

He insightfully notes that “bad capitalism” often gets lumped in with its “good form” while the latter gets the blame for the baneful excesses of the former.  “Monopoly capitalism,” “corporatism,” “the mixed economy,” and “crony capitalism” are not the result of the market process, but stem from “intervention” brought about by the State in favor of its business favorites through participatory democracy.  In a truly free market, entrenched wealth is rarely maintained but is constantly subjected to challenges by competitors:

But what one ought to designate as bad

capitalism is the concentration of wealth and

power this wealth procures.  This danger does

not stem from capitalism itself but rather from

parliamentary democracy, for it is democracy

that enables money powers to dominate the

political realm.  [Ibid.]

The “monied interest” did not exist under “traditional monarchy,” but was a product of Democracy and the protection and extension of the “bad capitalistic” paradigm that came into being and was expanded by the rise of popular representative bodies.  Assemblies, legislatures, and congresses, which emerged, became aligned with the banking and financial interests to bring about the downfall of the monarchies. 

The concentration of political power could only be attained after the control of money and credit were centralized in the form of central banking and the gold standard was eliminated.  Central banks have been an instrumental part of the democratic age, funding the nation state’s initiatives and enriching the politically- tied financial elites at the expense of everyone else.   

Wealth concentration is not a by-product of the free market.  Rarely are firms able to maintain their dominance for long periods of time.  Many turn to the State to get protection and monopoly grants to ensure their position in the economy:

. . . capitalism only becomes harmful when

it grants political power to the money powers.

This was only made possible thanks to the advent

of parliamentary democracy, which was an

invention of liberalism.  It is therefore the

foundational principles of political liberalism

(equality before the law, suppression of privileges,

centralization of political power, censitary suffrage,

and the accountability of ministers to the legislative

houses) which have enabled the rise of a wealthy class

and its power over society.  [124]

Such sound economic analysis abounds throughout his tome.

Future Prospects

The author rightly sees that because of its nature and the type of personalities that it attracts, modern democracy cannot reform itself, but will eventually collapse from financial stress, war, and/or civil strife:

    Parliamentary democracy rarely produces true

statesmen, as its party system more often

promotes ambitious and self-interested persons,

demagogues, and even communication experts. 

These are generally superficial and egocentric

individuals with a very limited understanding

of society and man.  These politicians do not      

have the makings of statesmen.  They are

adventurers who use the state to satiate their

hunger for power and money or to benefit

their party.  [147]

Efforts to reform it, however, should not be totally dismissed since they could lead to more fundamental change and ultimately the creation of a new political paradigm for Western governance.  Populism and the various movements around the globe which fall into that category should be encouraged.  Populism, because of is lack of definite ideological underpinnings, has meant different things at different times to different people.  Most populists, however, do not want to get rid of democratic forms of government, but want the system to be more “responsive” of its constituents instead of favoring entrenched political elites.  Populism is a symptom of the growing failure of modern democracy’s inability to “deliver the goods” that it promises to a now growing dependency class. 

As a means of getting rid of totalitarian democracy, populist movements and themes should always be encouraged:

In Europe, the only political forces today

which could, in the more extreme of circumstances

assume this rescue role are found on the side of

populism.  Conservative in its values, sometimes

classically liberal when it is a matter of opposing

the stifling interventionism of the state, and yet ready

to defend social gains . . .  populism is the only

political current which comes to the defense of

those interests of the population denied or ignored

by the parties in power. [148]

He adds:

Populist parties, from the simple fact that they

can bring together voters from both the left

and the right, have a chance of coming to power

in the near enough future.  The deterioration of

security conditions in Europe due to mass

immigration plays in their favor.  [148-49]    

While he does not explicitly discuss it, a more concrete and ideological coherent idea and one of historical precedent, is that of secession.  For all those who oppose the democratic order, secession is the most justifiable, logical, and practical strategy for the dissolution of the nation state.  Secession movements, therefore, whether they do not outwardly condemn parliamentary democracy and only seek to establish a “better run” system, should always be supported. 

Conclusion

The most likely scenario if there is to be a change in Western democratic life will be from a world-wide economic crisis and collapse of the financial system which will render the nation states unable to meet their financial obligations to their citizens.  All economies are hopelessly indebted from their welfare state excesses and can never hope to meet their promises which now runs in the trillions.  What will emerge in the aftermath of a collapse is hard to predict, but some form of authoritarianism is likely which will be centered on a one-world state with a single, irredeemable currency.

While the financial demise of Western-styled democracy will be evident for all to see, its ideological underpinnings which have justified its existence needs to be extirpated.  Any hope of it being reconstituted to better serve “the people” needs to be shot down.  There is no better place to start the de-mystification of Democracy than with Christophe Buffin de Chosal’s magnificent, The End of Democracy.  

*Professor Christophe Buffin de Chosal teaches economic history at the United Business Institutes. 

Buffin-de-Chosal

 

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.comhttps://antoniusaquinas.com

Pope Francis Wants Even More Islamic Invasion of Europe

Pope Francis (C) speaks to migrants during his visit to the island of Lampedusa, a key destination of tens of thousands of would-be immigrants from Africa, on July 8, 2013. Pope Francis called for an end to 'indifference' to the plight of refugees on Monday on a visit to an Italian island where tens of thousands of migrants from Africa and the Middle East first reach Europe. AFP PHOTO / ANDREAS SOLARO (Photo credit should read ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images)

Not surprisingly, the purported head of the Catholic Church, Jorge Bergoglio, a.k.a Pope Francis, has ushered in 2018 with another denunciation of those who want to preserve what is left of Western Civilization.  In a New Year’s address that the Church now calls “World Day of Peace,” instead of the traditional feast day of the Circumcision, Bergoglio once again labeled those who want to curb the coercive migration of Third World peoples into Occidental cultures as “sowers of violence,” “xenophobic,” and they “racially discriminate.”*

Francis continued his criticism of immigration opponents as being “guilty” of “demeaning the human dignity due to all as sons and daughters of God.”

A reality check is in order for Francis: the vast majority of migrants are Muslim who are mostly young males.  They are not “sons and daughters” of the Christian God and would be, to say the least, a little bit offended as being categorized as such!

Of course, for those who actually pay attention to this cretin, this is nothing new.  Since the beginning of his abominable “papacy,” Bergoglio has repeatedly pushed far-out left wing and green causes.   What is worse, however, is that Bergoglio is a heretic who has uttered a mind-blowing string of heresies that have disqualified him from being pope of the Catholic Church.  Not only has he demonstrated beyond a doubt that he is a heretic, but he cannot be pope on theological grounds.  The Argentine Apostate was ordained in the invalid post-Vatican II orders which confer no sacramental grace.  He is not a true bishop either since he also was consecrated in the new rite.  Bergoglio is simply a layman masquerading as a pope.

Nevertheless, “Pope Francis” has been cheerleading for even greater amounts of immigration, excoriating anyone who opposes him suggesting that such thoughts are “sinful.”  He has used the Chair which he illegitimately sits in both an immoral and unhistorical fashion.

In case Bergoglio is unaware, the popes were the main bulwark against the repeated Muslim attacks upon Christendom in the past.  It was the popes that encouraged and inspired the Western princes and powers to take up arms and repel the Mohammedans and reclaim Christian territory, most importantly the Holy Land during the Crusading era.  Had it not been for the popes, Europe may have already been overrun by the Infidel or at least had most of its lands compromised.

While it is imperative that enemies of the West of the likes of Bergoglio should be rebuked and, if possible, removed from their positions of power, mass migration opponents must likewise address the demographic nightmare that Europe faces. European birth rates have fallen to unsustainable levels and if trends are not reversed, Western man is headed for extinction if not marginalization in global affairs.

Declines in native European birth rates stem from factors both economic and cultural: (1) real income have continually fallen in the West which has now required many women to enter the workplace in greater numbers to offset the decline; (2) the Establishment has vigorously pushed the idea of women in professional roles and the nonsensical idea of “working mothers.” Women working during their most fertile years would naturally decrease the number of child births. There are, of course, other cultural factors – divorce, contraception, abortion – that have effects on low birth rates, all of which need to be taken in account before there can be a return to a more populous European Continent.

Foreign policy has contributed to the migration crisis. The US policy of regime change in Iraq, Libya, and its attempts to do so in Syria and now Iran has dislodged millions, making it easier for the powers that be to orchestrate their coercive mass migration schemes.  

There can be no compromise on mass immigration, the future of the European peoples and their glorious past accomplishments hang in the balance. While the enemies of Western Civilization such as “Pope Francis” want to eradicate this legacy, there is still significant numbers that understand the importance of preserving its past and the promise of its future.

For those who seek Western man’s survival, the heroic attitude of the Roman statesman, Cato the Elder, should be adopted who, after every speech, called for Rome’s lethal enemy’s destruction, “Carthago delenda est.” Hopefully, the proponents of mass migration will share the same fate as the Carthaginians did.

*Thomas D. Williams, “Pope Francis: Opponents of Mass Migration Sow ‘Violence, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia.'”  Breitbart.  1 January 2018.  http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/01/01/pope-francis-opponents-of-mass-migration-sow-violence-racial-discrimination-and-xenophobia/

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

 

 

 

 

 

On the 80th Anniversary of Belloc’s, THE CRUSADES

belloc-crusades-e1514264663512.jpeg    Belloc

Review: Hilaire Belloc: The Crusades: The World’s Debate, Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1937; Republished Tan Books: Rockford, Illinois, 1992.

INTRODUCTION

As millions of Muslim refugees continue to swarm mostly unopposed into Europe’s heartland, it would be instructive to review Hilaire Belloc’s book, The Crusades: The World’s Debate.  Written eighty years ago, the work not only gives a unique analysis of the Crusading Era, but addresses what remains today a fundamental issue in global politics, hence, the subtext of the book, The World’s Debate.

The Crusades were inspired by the Catholic Church and Papacy which rightly saw the threat that Islam posed to the West and encouraged military action to counter it.  The Mohammedans had taken over vast parts of the eastern half of the Roman Empire and with it control of the Holy Land which they increasingly made tougher to access for pilgrims.

The Novus Ordo Church and its current pope have repeatedly encouraged Muslim migration into Europe and have scolded those who raise even the tiniest of protests against this orchestrated event with smears of “lack of charity,” “intolerance,” and “xenophobic” among other denigrations.  Such action would have been considered heretical by the Crusaders and the popes of the past who called and helped organize the expeditions.  In fact, one does not have to go back that far to know that “Pope Francis’”[1] pro-immigration stance would have been considered treasonous a little over a half century ago.  Under the radical changes that occurred at the Second Vatican Anti-Council (1962-65), however, acceptance of false religions and heretical sects are now part of the New Creed.

For Western man, the migrant crisis has accentuated a more fundamental problem which threatens his ultimate survival – demographics.  European birthrates have plunged to unsustainable levels which, if trends continue, will mean, if not extinction, at least the marginalization of the white populations, the institutions and cultures which those peoples have built.  Most analysts of the demographic implosion and migrant crises, however, do not see that their source is ultimately a religious struggle.  The unwanted migratory invasion and the failure of Europeans to reproduce to at least replacement levels are the result of Western man’s rejection of the One True Faith.

The alarming demographic trends had not yet surfaced when Belloc penned The Crusades although the start of another global conflagration was on the horizon as the West would once again plunged itself into civilization suicide with the outbreak of World War II.  Nor had the state of Israel been created at the time of its publication, although the troubling Balfour Doctrine had been mandated which would eventually lead to a Zionist homeland in Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel which would become a constant source of conflict in the decades that followed.

For Belloc, “the world’s debate” centered on the conflict between the future of a militarily and economically dominant secularized West against a religiously fervent, although economically stagnant, Islam.  To this day, the West still holds these advantages, but its vibrancy and spirit are on the wane due to its abandonment of the Faith and the adoption of social democracy.

The Crusades were an expression of Christendom’s highest ideals which contemporary Europeans could not hope to grasp or understand.  If the West is ever going to defeat Islam, it must be spiritually revitalized which can only come about if the Church becomes once again Catholic and overthrows neo-Modernism which it adopted at Vatican II.  Military victories will never be lasting unless they are backed by a religiously committed populace.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Smith Crusades

Belloc takes a unique perspective on a number of aspects of the Crusading Era which differ, in some cases, quite significantly from most modern scholarship.  Almost all contemporary historians are of the school of thought that the Crusades lasted until at least the campaign of 1295 (the Fourth Crusade) while some, like the late J. Riley Smith, see “crusading activity” going well beyond that time.[1]  For Belloc, the First Crusade from its “calling” in 1095 by Pope Urban II, to its improbable and truly miraculous capture[2] of Jerusalem in 1099, was the most important.  It not only accomplished its odds-defying goal of freeing the Holy Land for pilgrimage, but in its wake the Latin Kingdoms were established in the Levant.

With the view that only the First Crusade mattered, since it accomplished its objectives, the vast majority of the book covers the years between 1095 and 1187 as Belloc asserts:

There was . . .  but one Crusade . . . it was the

great breaking out of all western Europe into

the Orient for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre,

and within one very long lifetime it had failed;

For with Jerusalem in the hands of the Infidel

the purpose of the original great campaign was

gone, its fruits were lost. [244]

Everything that came in the wake of the first Christian triumph in Asia Minor was something different:

That historical episode, 1095-1187, was the true

Crusade, from its inception to its final failure.  All

that followed was of another kind. [244]

Yet, within their initial success, the seed of the Latin Kingdoms’ ultimate downfall was laid.  While other factors certainly played a role, Belloc, over and over again, stresses the crusaders’ failure to secure Damascus that proved fatal and would eventually allow the Mohammedans to re-conquer and end the Latin presence in the Levant.  Without Damascus, the later expeditions were never a serious threat to the Muslim strongholds and were in the historian’s words “rearguard action[s] of a defeat.” [4]

While the West failed to hold and extend the First Crusade’s success and later having suffered the tragic fall of Constantinople, it would eventually return and reclaim most of what it had lost.  The Muslim victory at Hattin appeared permanent until the end of time; yet within a few centuries, during which Europe had repelled several lethal Islamic assaults to its heartland, it returned to the Middle East, but this time the conquerors were of a different breed religiously.

The ending of Muslim rule and the colonization of the Middle East throughout the course of the 19th century up to the time of Belloc’s book (1937) was accomplished by a secularized West under the guidance and inspiration of religiously pluralistic nation states.  Christendom had long been dissolved and although the Middle East’s new overlords were superior in resources, technology, and skill their religious vitality was on the wane and would continue to evaporate as the years rolled on.  “We have returned to the Levant,” Belloc writes, “we have returned apparently more as masters than ever we were during the struggle of the Crusades – but we have returned bankrupt in that spiritual wealth which was the glory of the Crusades. . . . [N]or is the Levant held as one whole [Christian dominion], but divided between separate nations to whom the unity of Europe has ceased to be sacred.” [249]

RACE

In the modern era of Political Correctness, one can no longer speak of race, ethnicity, kinship, or “blood” unless one is disparaging Occidental people or their ancestors while at the same time trumpeting the virtues of the assorted brown and colored peoples of the globe.  Not so with Belloc, who was far from alone among historians of his generation who understood the significance of race and blood in the episodes of the human past and how important these factors were in the creation of societies and civilizations.

To scholars like Belloc, race and religion did matter, and in his view it was a significant reason why the Crusades ultimately failed to hold their possessions.  Of course, there were other factors that Belloc duly notes – the failure to control the strategically vital city of Damascus; the lack of reinforcements both in arms and people from the West; the refusal of Byzantium to ally with the Crusaders; the lack of a strong monarchy in the Latin states.  Race, however, in this instance, the mixture of French blood with the local population, was critical in the eventual defeat.  The “mixing of blood” between the Franks and the Near East population especially among the leadership proved fatal.  Few, if any academics of today could write such things.

The miscegenation among the nobility and the subsequent generations in the newly formed Latin jurisdictions proved to be “inferior” in talent, ability, and leadership to build the type of society necessary for the Crusaders’ initial victories to be turned into a permanent civilization.

A stark example of this among the nobility can be seen in the loss of Edessa:

We have seen among other causes the mixture of Western

with Oriental blood, especially in the case of the rulers,

played a chief part.  Now, it was precisely to this that the

first of the great disasters was due.  [T]he loss of Edessa. . .

was mainly due to the character of its ruler, the second

Jocelyn. . .  The mother of the second Jocelyn was an

Armenian. . . .  [T]he mixture of blood did here what it

so often does; it gave a certain brilliance to the character

of the second generation, but that brilliance was accompanied

by instability.  [192]

Belloc continues:

[I]t must be emphasized, for it underlay not

only the tragedy of Edessa but all that followed,

up to the loss of Jerusalem itself.  . . .  it was Jocelyn

the Second, who with his contemporary, the

half breed Queen Melisande, so conspicuously

typifies that new and too-sudden mixtures of races

which was largely responsible for the catastrophe. [193]

Outnumbered and with inferior leadership qualities compared to the first wave of Crusaders, the Latin Kingdoms were eventually doomed especially after the Muslims had politically united.  Yet, had the Western kings and princes addressed this matter, things may have been different and, as Belloc maintains, the Infidel may have been permanently relegated to the Arabian Peninsula.

 

Asia Minor

 

Crusader States

[1] Jorge Bergoglio cannot be head of the Catholic Church for several reasons: (1) he is a manifest heretic whose seemingly endless string of heretical acts, words, and “teachings” disqualify him for the post – a heretic is necessarily outside the Church; (2) Bergoglio is not a “priest” on “technical grounds,” but was “ordained” in the invalid Novus Ordo rite of orders which came into being at the time of Vatican II.  Nor is he a bishop since he was also “consecrated” under these non-Catholic rites.  Only the bishop of Rome can become pope and since Bergoglio is neither a priest or bishop, he cannot, therefore, be pope.

[2] Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A History. 3rd ed., London: Bloomsbury, 1987; 2014.

[3] While Belloc does not stress it, the First Crusade was aided by heavenly intervention which has been attested to by the Crusaders as well as modern secular historians in their narratives.  See, Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History, (Oxford: University Press, 2004).

 

To be continued…

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com