Posted on 05/12/2013 4:46:13 AM PDT by BarnacleCenturion
The 800 men of Otranto – whose names are lost, except for that of Antonio Primaldo, an old tailor – were rounded up and killed because they refused to convert to Islam. In 2007, Pope Benedict recognised them as martyrs “killed out of hatred for the faith”. That is no exaggeration. Earlier, the Archbishop of Otranto had been cut to pieces with a scimitar.
Some accounts of the martyrdoms will raise a sceptical eyebrow: Primaldo reportedly remained standing after he was decapitated, a Pythonesque miracle that stretches credulity.
But the murders really happened, and their significance is immense. The Turks had been sent by Mohammed II, who captured the “second Rome” of Constantinople and planned to do the same to the first. His fleet landed in Otranto, Italy’s easternmost city, and laid siege. The citizens held out for two weeks, allowing the King of Naples to muster his forces. Rome did not fall.
“All of this took place because of the indifference of the political leaders of Europe to the Ottoman menace,” wrote the conservative Italian senator Alfredo Mantovano in an article about the martyrdoms in 2007. You can guess where his argument was heading. “In Otranto, no one displayed rainbow pacifist flags, nor invoked international resolutions… Today Europe is under attack, not by an institutionally organised Muslim phalanx but by a patchwork of non-governmental organisations of fundamentalist Muslims.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Thank You.
Excellently terse summary of Mohammed’s bilious infective obsession. Easy to remember and rehearse with naive audiences leaning toward credulous acceptance of Islamic pillars.
Your Bible says “saints”, mine says “holy ones”.
I have a bible, you have a bible ... is that God’s plan ?
The Bible wasn’t complete until about 70-90 years after Jesus’ death. There were hundreds of books floating around for hundreds of years after Jesus’ death, until a Coucil defined the 72 books of the Bible. What I’m trying to say is that for many hundreds of years and maybe for the most part until the invention of the printing press, many Christians didn’t have a Bible. They followed the leadership of the Church. Is this just to be ignored?
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