declared September 12 the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary in
thanksgiving for Our Lady’s intercession.
Zenta (1697): As the years progressed the Turks suffered further
defeats: Buda, Neuhausel, Gran, Mohacs, Athens, Belgrade; in
1697, the Turks reinvaded Transylvania at Zenta; a Catholic army
led by Prince Eugene of Savoy met them on September 11; the
battle was engaged and ended with 20,000 Turks killed and only
300 Christians dead; on January 26, 1699, the Turks signed the
Treaty of Carlowitz, restoring Transylvania and most of Hungary
to the Holy Roman Empire; it was the first time that the Turks had
negotiated with Christian forces; the Turks had made their last
attack on Europe.
Other Christian military campaigns possessing the Crusader spirit can also
be mentioned, including the war against the Albigensians launched by Pope
Innocent III in the thirteenth century and the final stages of the Spanish
Reconquista under Queen Isabella in the late fifteenth century. All the
above wars and battles were fought in ages when the character of European
states were Christian, and so their armies were also. It is not illegitimate for
a nation, Christian or otherwise, to possess an army and to employ it in
self-defense.
The secularisation of the Western world in the past two centuries has only
resulted in more frequent wars and greater atrocities. Modern attacks
launched against the Crusades are generally one-sided affairs which fail to
take into account the history of Islamic aggression against Christianity, and
which are more motivated not out of love of Christ’s message of “peace,
love and forgiveness” but by a broader anti-Catholic secularist agenda. If
Christendom existed today and it faced imperilment from an external
enemy, the cry of “onward Christian soldiers!” would still be a noble call to
answer.
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