This article involves exploring the history involving the Pope’s comments.
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BY
ROBERT SPENCER NOVEMBER 23, 2019
The indefatigable apologist for Islam
Pope Francis on Monday issued yet another mea culpa to Muslims, saying: “A scene from
The Song of Roland comes to me as a symbol, when the Christians defeat the Muslims and line them up in front of the baptismal font, with one holding a sword. And the Muslims had to choose between baptism or the sword. That is what we Christians did.”
Was it really?
The Song of Roland is actually a work of fiction, a French epic poem loosely based on the Battle of Roncevaux Pass between Muslim invaders and Christian defenders in the year 778. As
The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS shows, in the eleventh century, three hundred years after the battle,
The Song of Roland appeared, describing the heroism of Charlemagne’s nephew Roland, who is leading the rear guard of Charlemagne’s forces and is caught up in the Muslim ambush.
Roland has an
oliphant, a horn made of an elephant’s tusk, which he can use to call for help, but he initially declines to do so, thinking it would be cowardly. Finally, Roland does blow his horn. Charlemagne, way ahead of the rear guard, nonetheless hears Roland’s horn and hurries back, but it is too late: Roland and his men are dead, and the Muslims victorious. Charlemagne, however, pursues and vanquishes the Muslims, and captures Saragossa.
Thus the legend.
The Song of Roland was enormously popular and inculcated in the Christians who sang and celebrated it what came to be known (in the European Middle Ages) as knightly virtues: loyalty, courage, and perseverance, even in the face of overwhelming odds. These were virtues that would be needed if Europe was to hold out against the ever-advancing jihad.
But those days are long gone, and Europe is no longer holding out against the jihad. Now the pope is much more interested in defending Islam than Christianity. In September 2017, Pope Francis met in the Vatican with Dr. Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa, the secretary-general of the Muslim World League (MWL), a group that has been linked to the financing of jihad terror. During the meeting, al-Issa
thanked the pope for his “fair positions” on what he called the “false claims that link extremism and violence to Islam.”
Why had there been this “five-year lull”? Because “the Cairo-based Al-Azhar froze talks with the Vatican to protest comments by then-Pope Benedict XVI.” What did Benedict say? Andrea Gagliarducci of the Catholic News Agency explains that after a jihad terrorist murdered 23 Christians in a church in Alexandria 2011, Benedict decried “terrorism” and the “strategy of violence” against Christians, and called for the Christians of the Middle East to be protected.
Al-Tayeb was furious. He railed Benedict for his “interference” in Egypt’s affairs and warned of a “negative political reaction” to the Pope’s remarks. In a statement, Al-Azhar
denouncedthe pope’s “repeated negative references to Islam and his claims that Muslims persecute those living among them in the Middle East.”
Benedict stood his ground, and that was that. But in September 2013, al-Azhar announced that Pope Francis had sent a personal message to al-Tayeb. In it, according to al-Azhar, Francis declared his respect for Islam and his desire to achieve “mutual understanding between the world’s Christians and Muslims in order to build peace and justice.” At the same time, Al Tayyeb met with the Apostolic Nuncio to Egypt, Mgr. Jean-Paul Gobel, and told him in no uncertain terms that speaking about Islam in a negative manner was a “red line” that must not be crossed.
Much more at the link:
Pope Cites French Epic Poem to Prove Christianity Is as Violent as Islam
I haven't found any reference to the Song of Roland lately, but it wouldn't surprise me. It's like a kid who puts catsup on anything. The last time he used it, to my knowledge, was in one of his interviews on board Vatican I, the airplane, after his visit to the US in 2015. He applied the Song of Roland to conscientious objectors. I will keep watching to see where this claim comes from...
The excerpt from his state visit to the US went like this:
Terry Moran, ABC News: Holy Father, thank you, thank you very much and thank you to the Vatican staff as well. Holy Father, you visited the Little Sisters of the Poor and we were told that you wanted to show your support for them and their case in the courts. And, Holy Father, do you also support those individuals, including government officials, who say they cannot in good conscience, their own personal conscience, abide by some laws or discharge their duties as government officials, for example in issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples? Do you support those kinds of claims of religious liberty?
Pope Francis: I can’t have in mind all cases that can exist about conscientious objection. But, yes, I can say conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right. It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right. Conscientious objection must enter into every juridical structure because it is a right, a human right. Otherwise we would end up in a situation where we select what is a right, saying ‘this right that has merit, this one does not.’ It (conscientious objection) is a human right. It always moved me when I read, and I read it many times, when I read the Chancon Roland, when the people were all in line and before them was the baptismal font — the baptismal font or the sword. And, they had to choose. They weren’t permitted conscientious objection. It is a right and if we want to make peace we have to respect all rights.
(Editor’s note: The Pope was referencing the Provencal poem, Song of Roland, in which Crusaders forced Muslims to choose between being baptized or being killed by the sword. The Pope says they were not allowed to choose conscientious objection)
Terry Moran, ABC News: Would that include government officials as well?
Pope Francis: It is a human right and if a government official is a human person, he has that right. It is a human right.
Update, I clicked the Breitbart link and although the author is an ex-priest, he reports pretty faithfully. I found the below quote telling of what the Holy Father was trying to convey:
The
Song of Roland was indeed inspired in part by a historical event, namely Charlemagne’s expedition to Spain in 778, Ganimara observes, but this expedition to Spain was actually undertaken at the request of several Muslim governors of Spain, in rebellion against the Emir of Cordova.
Moreover, the invasion was unsuccessful, and is recounted as such in the poem.
“The memory of Pope Francis evoking the victory of the Franks over Muslims is therefore confused, because the expedition was not a victory,” Ganimara observes.
“The fictitious case of the forced baptism of Muslims supposedly defeated after the capture of Zaragoza — which did not take place — is not historical, but is a pure imagination of the poet,” he adds, noting that contrary to the pope’s account, there is not even a Christian holding a sword in the original work.
“How then can he affirm that ‘this is what we Christians did’?” he concludes.
In his address, Pope Francis was attempting to show that it is not just Islamic extremists who practice violent fanaticism, but that Christians are equally guilty of religiously motivated violence.
“Beware of the fundamentalist groups: everyone has his own,” Francis said. In Argentina too there is a little fundamentalist corner,” the pope told his hearers.
“Fundamentalism is a scourge and all religions have some kind of fundamentalist first cousin there, which forms a group,” he said.
In asserting that all religions are equally prone to violence, the pope was reiterating a personal conviction that he has shared on several other occasions."
The thing the Holy Father fails to see is that, even in the fictitious poem, it wasn't the Church doing it, it was Charlemagne's Army. And the baptism there was meant to be degrading to the Muslims.
The other thing Pope Francis often confuses is that it is usually not 'the Church' that enters such things, but people acting on behalf of the Church, often unsanctioned. So when he says 'We did that', he's right in an odd way. But then again, we're all sinners. We all killed Jesus , too.
