www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Just War Doctrine

PeterPan, could you give us the source for the information that 50,000 French citizens convert to Islam each year? We're in France now and surely we see no signs of this. It is easy to call Europe "senile" but in fact there is a great deal of thoughtful and insightful debate and concerted effort to deal with the issues raised by the Islamic populations in Europe.

Perhaps a closer look at what is being done in Europe may give us insights into how we deal with our own issues in the United States.

It is more likely that 50,000 Muslims become French citizens each year, mostly former citizens of Algeria and various French colonies. The rate of nationalization has been a major concern of a number of French nationalist political parties.

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Indeed, the worm may have turned as Muslim extremists go just a bit too far, alienating ordinary European citizens and alarming (at last) the politicians who have to answer to them. The strength of right-wing nationalist parties in elections all across Europe was a wake-up call to leaders of the mainstream conservative and socialist parties, and has resulted in the first few hesitant steps towards forcing Muslims to comply with European social and political norms (you know, all that free speech, freedom of conscience and equality for women stuff). With Switzerland banning minarets and France banning the burqa--both mainly symbolic actions--we may be seeing Europe begin to take back its culture.

Nicole,

It was an estimate of the French Interior Ministry.

StuartK,

Thank you for your extensive answer. Of course, I am grateful for the preservation of a large part of the classical culture thanks to Christianity.I'd rather say that warfare was one of the duties of the feudal lords, but they were more than warriors/soldiers. But this is understandable given the Western circumstances, viz. lack of strong central authority and barbarian influx which ended up in partial delegation of sovereignity to the lower ranks of noblemen. As far as I understand, Haldon argues that something similar happened on the Byzantine frontier.Were these churchmen really priests? I was taught that the "fighting branch" of Christian military orders were at best professed brothers, monks, friars (whatever), and that the members of the military orders who were ordained priests did not participate in armed struggle as warriors. Of course there were always some irregular situations (even in the 20th century), but nevertheless, it was irregular.

On the contrary, feudal lords were warriors first and foremost--military service was the basis of the entire feudal system, and one became a great lord only through military prowess. Kings and princes who were not warriors soon found themselves stripped of power by their over-mighty subjects.


Oh, indubitably. Some were bishops, in fact. The most famous of the warrior bishops, though, was Odo of Bayeux, half-brother of William the Conqueror, who is depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry in full panoply, wielding a spike-studded club (because, technically, clerics were not allowed to shed blood, so beating someone to death was OK). There were, in Western Europe, a number of bishops who held their principalities as military fiefs, and regularly went to war. In England, the Bishop of Durham was one of the great Marcher Lords, who regularly fought with his array against the Scots. And, of course, there were several warrior-Popes who led their armies in battle against the enemies of the Papal States, the most famous of these being Julius II.

The whole warrior-bishop routine survives in popular culture only in the names of chess pieces, and to a much lesser extent in role-playing games.