'Pope canonises 800 martyrs killed
by Turks.' It's an eye-catching headline that appeared in the
Australian ABC news on May 14. Well, first let's be clear that Pope Francis did
not, in fact, pound said martyrs bodies into dust with papal artillery. The process
of canonisation refers to an arcane medieval process by which human beings are
said to be elevated to sainthood[1].
Well
and good – but I’m more concerned about what those dreadful Turks have been up
to. More slaughtering and massacring, it seems. When did this heinous crime
take place? Not all that recently, it turns out. If you are a devout Catholic
and in the habit of commemorating such events, you'll be able to polish up your
rosary beads prior to the 533rd anniversary on August 11 this year.
The
clan of Osman, one of many Muslim Turkish principalities dotted around
Anatolia, began its rise to prominence towards the end of the 13th century.
1299 is generally accepted as the year they achieved supremacy over their
contemporaries, emerging as an entity which rapidly grew into a major empire.
By the early 15th century Ottoman armies had made major inroads into
continental Europe, and in 1453, their young Sultan Mehmet II conquered
Constantinople, capital city of the 1000-year-old Eastern Roman (Byzantine)
Empire.
Now,
in case you're wondering what right those Turkish Ottomans had to be in Italy
murdering Christians, you have to realise that Mehmet had a reputation to
uphold. He had earned the sobriquet of ‘The Conqueror’ after that business with
Constantinople - and anyway, conquering is what empires do; it's in the
definition. Ask the British, the Russians, or a nearby historian. Sultan
Mehmet's target was Rome. Having conquered the Eastern Roman Empire (in fact
the only one left since the Western one had fallen to barbarians in the 5th
century), Mehmet felt he had a right to add ‘Emperor of the Romans’ to his royal
CV. Nevertheless, it would clearly increase the credibility of his claim if he
also added the actual city of Rome to his dominions.
Evidently
the Romans themselves felt the imminence of the threat. When a largish Ottoman
force landed at Otranto in
July 1480 and began a siege of the city, plans were made for evacuation. Now
one thing we should understand at this point is that besieging other people's
cities was perfectly normal practice in those days. A Christian crusading army
from Western Europe had done it to Constantinople in the 13th century
before that imperial capital ever fell into Muslim hands. Their successful
siege was followed by three days of raping, murdering and pillaging, which is
another important concept to grasp. Capturing a walled city by siege without
the cooperation of the inhabitants was often a long drawn-out process. The
usual procedure was to give the local citizens a chance to surrender and be let
off lightly. If they chose to resist, however, the consequences were pretty
much as you would expect. The victorious general would reward the efforts of
his troops with license to let off steam and seize what booty they could, in
the ancient and modern senses of the word. Members of the losing side would
expect to be killed or sold into slavery as a matter of course. If the Ottoman
general Gedik Ahmet Pasha gave the Otrantan males the option of saving their
bacon by converting to Islam, he was probably being more generous than most of
his contemporaries. Let's not forget
that, a decade or so after this event, thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing the
attentions of the Inquisition in Spain took sanctuary in Ottoman domains on the
invitation of Sultan Mehmet's son and successor, Bayezid II.
Still,
the first casualty of war is truth, they say. In the ongoing civil war in
Syria, the first, I am informed, to be waged in the age of social media, we are
seeing the use of Twitter, Facebook and Youtube for propaganda purposes. It is in the interests of both
sides to demonise the other, and, as we are reminded by a certain
well-publicised incident involving a rebel leader, an enemy corpse, a knife and
some internal organs, to intimidate the opposition with demonstrations of their
own ferocity.
It
was definitely not in the interests of the Ottoman besiegers of Otranto to deal
leniently with defenders who had put them to considerable trouble. On the other
hand, it might well suit the Italian authorities to portray
the invading foe as inhuman beasts. So, we are told, 813 men of Otranto,
steadfastly refusing to accept the Prophet Mohammed into their lives, were duly
beheaded. Incidentally, you might want to ask what the total population of the
city was at the time. Estimates range from 8,000 to 20,000. Even if you run
with the lower figure, that raises the question of what happened to the other
7,187 citizens Did they convert to save their own lives?
Leaving
that question aside, thereafter, by some process not entirely clear, the bones
of some of those steadfast gentlemen were installed in the cathedral of Otranto
and others in the church of Santa Caterina a Formiello in Naples, where,
apparently, they can be seen today, providing a gruesome reminder of, exactly
what, I'm not sure - the price of too strict adherence to the Catholic faith?
The monstrous inhumanity of Muslims? A general memento mori warning against too great an attachment to things of
the world?
 |
| Saintly remains in Otranto Cathedral |
Whatever,
it's an impressive display, I'm sure you'll agree. Apparently it provided a
focal point for the prayers of a nun, sister Francesca Levote who, diagnosed
with terminal ovarian cancer, was miraculously cured by the intercession of one
(or maybe all) of the 813 Otranto martyrs. Hard for the Almighty to turn down a
deputation like that, I guess. Certainly that was the feeling of the Holy
Vatican Fathers, who decided to count the nun's cure as one of the two miracles
required for canonisation. In the absence of a second one, it was apparently
further decided that that requirement could be waived in view of the fact that
the Blessed martyrs had been killed 'in
hatred of the faith'. Once again, it's not easy to know how church
authorities established the exact motivation of the Ottoman victors back in
1480, but perhaps they too had divine assistance.
Anyway,
it seemed the Otranto 800 were headed at last for sainthood and glory - and not
before time, you might think, given that the first step, beatification[2],
had actually been taken way back in 1771. In retrospect, it's a pity that Pope
Clement IV couldn't have moved things along a little faster at the time, since he probably didn't have to contend with the level of scientific and news media scrutiny that bedevils miracle-workers in the 21st century. Now, apparently, an Italian doctor by the name of Salvatore
Toma has challenged the efficacy of the nun's miraculous cure with a
counter claim that he had been treating Sister Francesca with a special mix of
chemo and radiotherapy, and was attributing her recovery to his own less divine
ministrations.
Well,
I have to say, I'm with Hamlet on this one. ‘There
are more things in heaven and earth, Salvatore, than are dreamt of in your
philosophy.’ The Roman Catholic Church has a long tradition of working
miracles, and I wouldn't want to get into debating the mysteries of divine
intervention with their new Pope or any lesser cardinals. As Tristram Shandy
remarks in the novel by Lawrence Sterne, ‘So
long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King’s
highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him – pray, Sir, what
have either you or I to do with it?’
What
does disturb me a little, however, is a feeling that, despite Papal
protestations to the contrary, there’s a bit of an anti-Islamic thing going on
here. Coming at a time when news media in Western societies seem only too ready
to stir up the flames of Islamophobia, it ill-behoves leaders of a religion of
peace to fan hot coals. I hope it’s not a pre-meditated ploy to distract media
attention from persistent accusations of sexual misconduct by priests, and
high-level cover-ups.
On
the other hand, maybe I’ve got it wrong. I read that Pope John Paul II and his
successor Benedict have considerably simplified the procedure for beatification
(more or less a guaranteed ticket to heaven). In fact, John Paul is said to
have handed out more Papal
passes than all his predecessors combined since 1590. Maybe those guys know something we don’t. Is
it possible they’ve been given a date for the Second Coming? Maybe they’re working on getting a bunch of Catholics
into heaven early to avoid the rush when all those American Pentecostals get
Raptured.
Incidentally,
Osman, the second Ottoman Sultan, married a Greek Byzantine princess, making
their son Murad I no more than half Turkish. He in turn fathered his successor
with another Byzantine lady, making Bayezid I at least 75 percent Greek. This
was pretty much standard procedure for Ottoman sultans, as was the appointment
of non-Turks to the role of Grand Vizier, or chief minister, and other high
military and civilian positions. To equate ‘Ottoman’ and ‘Turk’ is as much of a
nonsense as identifying ‘English’ with ‘German’.
[1] A person officially recognized, especially
by canonization, as being entitled to public veneration and capable of
interceding for people on earth.
[2] Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead
person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals
who pray in his or her name (intercession of saints). Beatification is the
third of the four steps in the canonization process. A person who is beatified
is in English given the title "Blessed".
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