I don't know whether the pope has denounced those things, with the exception of at least one of the Crusades (the 4th), which I know that Pope John Paul II apologized for to the Eastern Orthodox. In any event, I'm not a Roman Catholic, so I can't presume to speak for that communion. I can say, though, that your suggestion that Pope Benedict is some sort of Inquisitor is really quite unfair. Yes, the Inquisition and the Congregation for the Faith are insitutionally the same body, but when was the last time you heard of anyone getting burned at the stake by them? The men who did that have been dead for centuries. Do you think that it's wrong for the Vatican to have an agency to try to preserve doctrine within the Roman Catholic Church? I can guarantee you that their methods have changed.
Regardings wars over what a book says, I think perhaps that is an oversimplification and perhaps even an obfuscation. Most wars were started by kings, not bishops, and I'm pretty certain that most of them weren't over scriptural hermeneutics but rather over the things wars are usually fought for (land, honor, revenge, etc.). If religion is brought in, it's usually only an "inspiring" excuse, which is certainly the case with most of the Crusaders, who were looking to carve out their own kingdoms over in the Middle East.
The difference I was highlighting, though, is that there are fundamentally different theologies at play between Islam and Christianity (though, of course, with the variations in Christianity, one can always come up with a counter-example). You write "we have no record of Jesus taking up arms to promote Christianity," as though perhaps he might really have done so and the records got lost, erased, or never written. Despite the subtle accusation, what he really did is not the point here. What the faith which looks to him as its founder believes about him is the key element. That is, there are basic theological questions at stake.
(The Essenes, by the way, were Jews, not Christians.)
The Christian "core," if you will, has no tradition of holy wars of conquest. Though the pope may not have criticized the Conquistadors (I don't know), one can mount a good argument against them from the New Testament. Jihaddi, on the other hand, are much, much tougher to refute from the Qur'an. In other words, Christians who criticize those who kill in the name of Christ have much, much firmer ground on which to stand than Muslims who criticize those who kill in the name of Muhammad's Allah.
That is what makes Islam fundamentally special with regard to the question of holy war. When talking about religion, theology really does matter. If one is not religious himself, it is easy to regard all theologies as essentially equivalent (and false, of course), look at a history of religious people who fight wars, and then assess that history as showing that religions are almost necessarily bloody. It of course then makes sense to question whether singling one of those religions out is really fair. But it is unfair to those religious people to examine them in such a way. What a Muslim as a Muslim is trying to accomplish is quite different from what a Christian is pursuing. That difference is theology.
(And just so you know my own set of biases, I'm an Eastern/Greek Orthodox Christian clergyman. Our Church's history has a strong tradition of criticism for those who take up the sword in the name of Christ.)
no subject
Regardings wars over what a book says, I think perhaps that is an oversimplification and perhaps even an obfuscation. Most wars were started by kings, not bishops, and I'm pretty certain that most of them weren't over scriptural hermeneutics but rather over the things wars are usually fought for (land, honor, revenge, etc.). If religion is brought in, it's usually only an "inspiring" excuse, which is certainly the case with most of the Crusaders, who were looking to carve out their own kingdoms over in the Middle East.
The difference I was highlighting, though, is that there are fundamentally different theologies at play between Islam and Christianity (though, of course, with the variations in Christianity, one can always come up with a counter-example). You write "we have no record of Jesus taking up arms to promote Christianity," as though perhaps he might really have done so and the records got lost, erased, or never written. Despite the subtle accusation, what he really did is not the point here. What the faith which looks to him as its founder believes about him is the key element. That is, there are basic theological questions at stake.
(The Essenes, by the way, were Jews, not Christians.)
The Christian "core," if you will, has no tradition of holy wars of conquest. Though the pope may not have criticized the Conquistadors (I don't know), one can mount a good argument against them from the New Testament. Jihaddi, on the other hand, are much, much tougher to refute from the Qur'an. In other words, Christians who criticize those who kill in the name of Christ have much, much firmer ground on which to stand than Muslims who criticize those who kill in the name of Muhammad's Allah.
That is what makes Islam fundamentally special with regard to the question of holy war. When talking about religion, theology really does matter. If one is not religious himself, it is easy to regard all theologies as essentially equivalent (and false, of course), look at a history of religious people who fight wars, and then assess that history as showing that religions are almost necessarily bloody. It of course then makes sense to question whether singling one of those religions out is really fair. But it is unfair to those religious people to examine them in such a way. What a Muslim as a Muslim is trying to accomplish is quite different from what a Christian is pursuing. That difference is theology.
(And just so you know my own set of biases, I'm an Eastern/Greek Orthodox Christian clergyman. Our Church's history has a strong tradition of criticism for those who take up the sword in the name of Christ.)