To Moshe

Submitted by Ron (United States), Jul 14, 2006 at 08:58

NOTE: my response is in no way meant to criticize or discriminate against any particular religion, but to present documented facts about them..

It is absolutely critical that people NOT equate the Catholic Church with Christiandom a s a whole. Historically, Catholicism was (and still is) a religious entity all unto its own. We need to remember that it was the Spanish Catholic Church (and not the Episcopalian Church) that gave the world the Inquisition and the Crusades. However, to treat the :Crusades" as a single incident is wrong as there were several Crusades caried out over a long period of time. Many of those who joined the Crusade into Jerusalem were not exactly peace-loving Catholics, but cold-blooded mercenaries. There has been anti-Semitism in the Catholic church for almost as long as the church has been around, but the same is not true for all Christians.

Long after most other Christians acknowledged that the Jewish people were not to blame for Jesus's death, the Catholic Church continued to hold that view up until the reign of Pope John Paul in our time . He was the first pope to offer an apology for how the Catholic church had treated Jews over the centures, and recognized that calling them "Christ-killers" is historially and theologicall wrong. During the Holocaust, thousands of Jews were rescued by non-Catholic Christians while the Catholic church itself turned a blind eye.

I say again that it is pointless to bring up one or two of the Crusades as a way to demonstrate moral equivalence. The Western world in the 21st Century is not the same world as it was 600 years ago. The Catholic Church is definitely not the same now. Coinversely, there are parts of the world and other religious groups that are living in the past and who desire to turn the clock back for everyone.

I think that Christianity has fully absolved itself of its past wrongdoings. However, do not expect Islam to do the same.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".