And I Was There...

DENVER SCHOLAR DEFENDS CRUSADES IN LIGHT OF NEW FILM.

The lecture room was indeed packed. Professor Reyes was a bit too enthusiastic about the righteousness of the crusades, even in the eyes of one such as myself. Curiously enough, he failed to mention the Battle of Manzikert, the 9/11 of the eleventh century. Still, he gave a good introduction to the material, along with the curious factoid that Martin Luther for a time believed that the Turks should not be fought because they were a punishment from God.

During the Q&A period, which was happily free of people who wanted to add an unscheduled lecture of their own, one middle-aged gentleman asked if a crusade could happen because of the current mistreatment of Christians in the Middle East. A nice sign that the Church Militant isn't dead yet. Many young people present, including all those beautiful young Catholic women I haven't had the pleasure of dating yet.