Popes

The Church, finally, after years of being able to do nothing, was able to turn her attention to the embattled Christians in the Holy Land and send aid. She hoped to be able to save the survivors and liberate the Holy Land from its destroyers.

The Muslims invaded the Holy Land and killed people by the thousands, they killed all the men, and enslaved the women and children. They burned the Churches and shrines. The Crusades were formed for the task of rescuing the survivors from the brutal conditions that they were barely surviving under, and to liberate the Holy Land itself. Pope Urban II made a very public and urgent plea in 1095 to all of Christendom after receiving a letter from the Byzantine Emperor Alexis describing the increasing danger from the Seljuk Turks, Tartars from Asia, who had already conquered the caliphate of Baghdad in 1055 and now were seeking to expand their empire into the Holy Land.

from Modern Catholic Dictionary by John A. Hardon,

S.J.

Doubleday & Co., Inc. Garden City, NY 1980

Crusades. The military expeditions undertaken by Christians in the eleventh through fourteenth centuries to recover the Holy Land from the Moslems.

The name comes from the cross that the crusaders bore on their clothing. There were eight principal Crusades: the first (1096-99) and the eight (1270). However, the term is also applied in a wider sense to all expeditions blessed by the Church against heretics and infidels. (Etym.

French croisade;

Spanish cruzada

; Latin cruciata

, a marking with the cross.)

All of the history you have heard about the Crusades is so much hogwash:

from Seven Lies About Catholic History, by Diane Moczar

Unprovoked Muslim aggression in the seventh century brought large parts of the southern Byzantine Empire, including Syria, the Holy Land, and Egypt under Arab rule. Christians who survived the conquests found themselves subject to a special poll tax and discriminated against as an inferior class known as dhimmi.

Often their churches were destroyed and other harsh conditions imposed. For centuries their complaints had been reaching Rome, but Europe was having its own Dark Age of massive invasion, and nothing could be done to relieve the plight of eastern Christians.

By the eleventh century, under the rule of a new Muslim dynasty, conditions worsened. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, site of the Crucifixion was destroyed, along with a large number of other churches, and Christian pilgrims were massacred. In 1067 a group of seven thousand peaceful German pilgrims lost two-thirds

of their number to Muslim assaults. By this time the popes, including St. Gregory VII, were actively trying to rally support for relief of eastern Christians, though without success. It was not until the very end of the century, in 1095, that Pope Urban's address at Clermont

in France met with a response-though

not quite the one he had hoped for. But the response was what we now call the First Crusade.

"The general consensus of opinion among medievalists . . . is that the Crusades were military expeditions organized by the peoples of Western Christendom, notably the Normans and the French, under the leadership of the Roman Popes, for the recover of the Holy Places from their Muslim masters." This seems to sum up most neatly what the Crusades really were and how their participants actually viewed them. The Crusades were not colonialist or commercial ventures, they were not intended to force Christianity on Jews and Muslims, and they were not the projects of individual warlords. Their primary goal, in addition to the defense of the Eastern Empire, was the recovery of the Holy Land for Christendom, and they acknowledged the leadership of the Popes. As French historian Louis Brehier

wrote, 'the popes alone understood the menace of Islam's progress for christian civilization.'"

15 days after the previous Pope has died, or in this case resigned, the Camerlingo assembles the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City. There are usually 4 "favourites" known as the prefereti. And although any male from the Catholic Church can be elected it is usually reserved for Cardinals.

All potentials MUST be under 80. The offcial voting is done in a process called conclave liturally meaning "with key". The Cardinals (also non-voting cardinals and assistants to the cardinals may be inside conclave they are sworn to absolute secrecy) vote by secret ballot. Should the electoral process take more than a day, the cardinals have lodging at St. Martha's house. They are "sequestered" like a jury however, and have no contact with the outside world.

All ballots are burned and if the vote has elected a new pope, this burning causes white smoke to float above the Vatican, signifying the world has a new pope. If the vote is unsuccessful, water or a chemical is added to the burning ballots to cause gray smoke to appear. This signifies a vote without an election.

How a Papal Conclave works:

• A pope dies and is buried (or in the case of Benedict, resigns)

• The cardinals come to Rome for the conclave that will elect the new pope. The word conclave (Latin, cum • clavis, literally, "locked with the key") designates:

• The place in a locked section of the Vatican where the cardinals under the age of eighty elect a new pope.

• The actual gathering of the cardinals.

• The conclave begins 15 to 20 days after the pope's death.

• The cardinals pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit during a Mass

• The cardinals, sealed in the Sistine Chapel, vote every morning and afternoon.

• A two-thirds majority plus one is required for election for the first 30 ballots. After that, a simple majority is required.

• After each vote, they burn the ballots and add special chemicals to make the smoke white or black.

• Black smoke means no new pope yet.

• White smoke announces the election of a new pope.

• The cardinals may elect any fully initiated Catholic male over the age of 18.

• They ask the one elected if he accepts. If he is already a bishop, then the moment he accepts, he is pope. If he is not yet a bishop (ie, if he is only a priest, deacon, or layman) he will be ordained bishop and at that moment be pope.

• The pope chooses his "Papal" name.

• Then the new pope is announced to the world.

Tradition tells us that he died about the year 64 by being crucified upside-down on a cross under the reign of Roman Emperor Nero.