Roscoe, I have great respect for your smarts.  But I don't think I can bear any more bad mouthing of long dead people.  

How can it be that people who have had a good reputation for many, many years are suddenly exposed as evil?  At some point one should just upchuck the whole smear campaign.

O great, detraction and / or calumny against a saint.

Do you have any fear of the wrath of God? Did you know that many people believe that saints intercede not only to help those who pray to them, but also to punish those who insult them, just as God rewards his friends and punishes his enemies? Are you looking to live under a curse from Saint Bernard? Do you realize that by insulting Saint Bernard, you are earning a great enemy in Heaven who will remember your insults and may even testify against you on the day of your judgment?

Remember O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left forsaken. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful O Mother of the Word incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.

Saint Bernard, pray for us.

It's not Roscoe's fault.  He is not the source of this stuff.

People who spread lies and blaspheme saints are culpable. If they are gullible fools perhaps they are not as culpable as the ones who manufacture the lies.

Roman Catholic said:

People who spread lies and blaspheme saints are culpable.

He's not blaspheming a saint, he's questioning his involvement in the Crusades, which I don't know much about at the moment.  Saints are not perfect; they can make mistakes.  Plus modern times have given us a kind of paranoia about everything.  You can start to trace the seeds of Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ back too far, to the point where you're so paranoid that St. Thomas Aquinas drawing on Aristotle and Averroes can seem like a plot against the Church.  You have to fight through it.

His argument doesn't make much sense, though, as usual.  If I understand him correctly, St. Bernard preached a Crusade, and because it ended in defeat and Eleanor of Aquitaine was divorced from Louis VII of France and married Henry II of England, St. Bernard somehow must take the blame for starting French-English conflict...  It's a welter of false premises from which he draws some silly conclusion against St. Bernard.  

False premise #1:  That Louis VII's divorce happened because of the Crusades.  Eleanor of Aquitaine and Louis VII had an unhappy marriage that I will delicately ascribe to her headstrong nature.  Luckily for him, the Church was able to dissolve the marriage on the basis of a violation of consanguinity.  

False premise # 2:  That this divorce is what caused French-English conflict.  Louis VII did not have any resentment against Henry II for marrying Eleanor, who he had no interest in at this point.  Louis VII also fought a war with Henry II before the divorce.  Like most kings and nobles at the period, they drifted from periods of conflict to those of truce.  

False premise # 3:  That St. Bernard has anything to do with all of this, or that he is responsible for either ( a ) Ill-effects of the Crusades or ( b ) Ill-effects that aren't related in any way to the Crusades except that they served as a backdrop.  If Eleanor and Louis decided to go on holiday to Maui instead of to the Holy Land, they still could have fallen afoul of each other for the same reasons.

Roscoe is being silly rather than blasphemous.  Still think roscoe's a troll though with all that "green herb" business.

For once I agree with you, Raoul.  They  also connect St. Bernard to the Knights Templar. They have been so discredited that you can almost discredit anyone connected to them.  You made a good point there.

I've read enough history to think that St. Bernard was correct.  It ended badly because the Crusaders acted badly. It is one long stretch to think that St. Bernard had anything to do with that divorce/re-marriage.

Is this, by any chance, revisionist history.  What was said at his canonization?

Roscoe, I have great respect for your smarts.  But I don't think I can bear any more bad mouthing of long dead people.  

How can it be that people who have had a good reputation for many, many years are suddenly exposed as evil?  At some point one should just upchuck the whole smear campaign.

Where in my post did I describe St Bernard as 'evil'?-- I did not and the accusation that I did shows a lack of grace.