Chesterton on the Crusades

The critic of the Crusade talks as if it had det out to fight some inoffensive tribe or temple in the interior of Tibet, which was never discovered until it was invaded. They seem entirely to forget that long before the Crusaders had dreamed of riding to Jerusalem, the Moslems had almost ridden into Paris. They seem to forget that if the Crusaders nearly conquered Palestine, it was but a return upon the Moslems who had nearly conquered Europe.

G. K. Chesterton, The New Jerusalem, AD 1920

Corduba (Córdoba) in Roman Baetica

The South of Spain is rich with Roman sites, from hidden paths to entire towns. As part of the Roman struggle against Carthage, the Romans invaded the Iberian peninsula in 206 BC. Scipio Africanus was victorious at Alcalá del Rio near present day Seville and founded the city Italica and his army crushed the resistance of the native Iberians and soon transformed Andalucia into one of Rome's richest and best organized colonies. Cadiz became Roman in 200 BC. The Romans remained for 700 years.

In 169 BC Roman consul M. Claudius Marcellus, grandson of Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who had governed both Further and Hither Spain (Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior, respectively), founded a Latin colony alongside the pre-existing Iberian settlement of Corduba.

The cities walls had been built after the Romans captured the city in 206 BC, making it part of the Roman Republic. The walls now form part of the historic center of Córdoba, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Between 143 and 141 BC the town was besieged by Viriatus. The famous Cordoba Treasure, with mixed local and Roman artistic traditions, was buried in the city at this time; it is now in the British Museum.

It became a colonia with the title Patricia, between 46 and 45 BC. It was sacked by Caesar in 45 due to its Pompeian allegiance, and resettled with veterans by Augustus. Many veterans were settled in this area (from the Sixth and Tenth legions).

It became capital of Baetica and had a colonial and provincial forum and many temples. It was the chief center of Roman intellectual life in Hispania Ulterior (Further Spain). Its republican poets were succeeded by Seneca and Lucan.

At the time of Julius Caesar, Córdoba was the capital of the Roman province of Hispania Baetica. The great Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger, his father, the orator Seneca the Elder, and his nephew, the poet Lucan came from Roman Cordoba.

In the late Roman period, its bishop Hosius was the dominant figure of the western Church throughout the earlier 4th cent. Later, it occupied an important place in the Provincia Hispaniae of the Byzantine Empire (552–572) and under the Visigoths, who conquered it in the late 6th century.

Text and picture from Facebook group Roman and Byzantine History.

Corduba Roman forum by Arturo Redondo

List of Massacres During the Greek Genocide in Turkey

Article in www.greek-genocide.net 
(See also in https://www.greecehighdefinition.com/blog/2019/5/18/list-of-massacres-during-the-greek-genocide-in-turkey)

Cdl. Burke: It’s ‘responsible’ for Christian nations to resist ‘large-scale Muslim immigration’

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cdl.-burke-its-responsible-for-christian-nations-to-resist-large-scale-muslim-immigration

ROME, May 17, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― Resisting “large-scale Muslim immigration” is “a responsible exercise of one’s patriotism," Cardinal Raymond Burke said today.

The Cardinal made the remark at this afternoon’s Question and Answer session at the Rome Life Forum in Rome. The session immediately followed Burke’s address on filial piety and national patriotism.  

Burke had been asked, presumably apropos of Pope Francis’ refusal to grant an audience to Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, if a politician who resists large-scale Muslim immigration should be refused a papal blessing.

The Cardinal indicated that he wouldn’t comment on papal blessings, but that he thought the “fundamental question” was regarding the morality of resisting Islamic mass migration. 

“I think the fundamental question here is: is someone who resists large-scale Muslim immigration committing an immoral act, and therefore should be, let’s say, denied Holy Communion or in some way recognized as a public sinner,” he said. 

Burke responded by saying that the Church’s teaching on immigration, which he had discussed in his speech, supported individuals who are “not able to find a way of living in their own country.” 

“And this is not true of immigrants who are opportunists, in particular in the case of Islam, which by its definition believes itself to be destined to rule the world, coming in large numbers to countries,” he said. 

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see what’s happened, for instance, in Europe, in countries like France and Germany and also here in Italy. And it’s also happening in the United States.”

Burke cited a book called No Go Zones which, he said,  “records places in the United States where, in fact, Muslim immigrants have set up their own legal order.” 

“In other words, they resist the legitimate authority of the state,” he continued. 

This suggests to the cardinal, then, that resisting mass immigration by Muslims into one’s country is a laudable act of patriotism. 

“So to be opposed to large-scale Muslim immigration is …  a responsible exercise of one’s patriotism,” he said. 

“Yes, [some] people are true refugees. We must receive them and help them in every way, but this is not the case when you have simply a large scale immigration.”

In his talk prior to the Q&A session, the Cardinal had quoted the 1992 Catholic Catechism regarding immigration, citing passages that said countries should prudently discriminate regarding migration and also outlined the duty of immigrants to respect the customs and laws of their host nations: 

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church then takes up the obligations of 'more prosperous nations … , to the extent that they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin,”'Burke said.  "Such welcome, as is clear from the text, is not indiscriminate, for it depends on the capacity of nations to accept such refugees from their homelands and on the impossibility of the refugees to find the means to live in their homelands."

Burke noted that the Catechism also says immigrants must  “respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.”