The Pope’s recent speech in which he warned against “unbridled capitalism” caused quite a stir from both ends of a very polarized political spectrum. Any “unbridled” passion or act is bad – at least according to the only known perfect person to have walked the earth. By all accounts the current Catholic boss is to be commended for crusading for the poor as his background in Latin America attests. Interestingly, as head of the Catholic Church he has more connection with the Crusaders of the Middle Ages than probably even he knows – or if he does, he prefers – justifiably- to focus on current events. One can’t completely understand the history of Western Civilization (and who does these days?) without reading “A Brief History of the Crusades: Islam and Christianity in the Struggle for World Supremacy” by Geoffrey Hindley.
It is commonly known among historians that during the beginning of the Middle Ages a Pope issued an encyclical forbidding members of the “Christian” church at that time to engage in moneylending. Engaging in it was considered a sin because Jesus chased the moneylenders out of the Temple (an act also used by Liberation Theologists justifying violence to achieve political aims). Or perhaps unregulated (aka free enterprise) moneylending was competition with an organization renowned for sending adventurers abroad in search of gold – and, oh yes, spreading the faith (ironically by the sword in lieu of a whip to chase the sinners into church!). The Levant – as the littoral area adjoining the Mediterranean Sea was known at the time – had recently become the geographic/economic nexus of trade between the Orient in the East and Europe to the West (thank you Marco Polo).
Europe had just gone through the Bubonic Plague. The tiny germ carried by fleas killed one out of every four Europeans (bathing had been considered unhealthy for several hundred years – and in the 1960s). Nobles’ peasants were either dead or emaciated leaving land uncultivated. Nobles not actually bankrupt felt the wolf at the door. It was then that successive Pope’s began issuing “indulgences” (forgiveness of sins) if they volunteered to recapture the Holy City of Jerusalem – and, by the way, the shipping ports as well. Kind of like invading Iraq and Afghanistan to export freedom…and NOT, I repeat, NOT for the oil. Jerusalem was a convenient geographically located icon located smack dab in the middle of it all. But more important than Jerusalem were the coastal towns with deep harbors. It was much quicker (ergo cheaper) and safer to transport spices, silks and other exotica by sea than continue plodding for months overland through Turkey and the Balkans. Whoever controlled the shipping ports made big bank in the Middle Ages by collecting import/export taxes. Portmaster nobles lived better than their sovereigns back home.
At one point Sultan Saladin actually offered the Pope Jerusalem free of charge to avoid further conflict. The Pope said Nope! Nobles saw the opportunity to obtain riches beyond their wildest dreams. The peasants who tail-shirted the nobles wreaked unimagined rape, pillage and plunder along the way. Along the way the Crusaders stripped almost all the beautiful Florentine marble off the ancient Roman buildings and sent it back to their decrepit castles while marching righteously toward redemption.
We can thank the Popes of that era for creating our current banking system. Crusaders had entrusted what money they had left back home with local priests who hid it in their churches. Crusaders began sending letters to the priests requesting the cleric transfer funds to other nobles’ with whom they had financial dealings in Jerusalem. Churches were the original banks. Hey, if you can’t trust someone in a hooded robe who can you trust? They’ve done away with the robes today – except maybe at the Bohemian Grove and Skull and Bones…and that’s by invitation only – if they existed.
So, the convenient excuse “religion has been the cause of more wars than anything” in order to avoid a sincere effort at spiritual enlightenment lacks merit. The facade of religion in the pursuit of unbridled capitalism has justified war at times is more accurate. Control of this economic mother lode was so important to one Pope that when Crusaders asked how to distinguish between Muslims and the thousands of Christians still living there during the expected slaughter one Pope allegedly replied “Kill them all and let God sort them out.” The concept seems extreme to many today until one visits various churches and hears the same self-serving bias against other religions in more (or less) subtle terminology.
In the 1850s, European governments were deeply concerned about the creation of a new banking idea called the Credit Mobilier. Business barons could now legally conduct large transactions based on extended credit. Karl Marx was ecstatic hoping the ludicrous financial philosophy would collapse European governments and create the long sought second European revolution began by the French. This would pave the way for world Socialism. Today we have the euro, derivatives, Mad Men Crusaders in thousand dollar suits and a president demanding income redistribution. They say imitation is the best form of flattery. Marx’ would be proud.
