When good men do nothing

When God’s people grow proud, divided or morally lax; He allows them to be humbled by outside forces.

This post is not about the virtue or vice of any other country. It’s about the spiritual state of our 250-year-old country. IMO, we find our ourselves bickering with the pope and fighting dubious wars. Ergo, it’s flashback time. Let's revisit some history.

Let us compare and contrast one specific battle whose anniversary happens to be today. Coincidence? The Battle of Hattin on July 4, 1187, stands as one of the most consequential defeats in Catholic Crusade history.

• Catholic historians such as Hilaire Belloc and the Catholic Encyclopedia call it “the catastrophe that led to Jerusalem’s fall.”
• This medieval battle's outcome was determined by strategy long before boots on the ground and clashing swords.
• It too, occurred in the Middle East.

Who was the victor? Saladin was the 12th century Muslim ruler, who used terrain, water, and psychological pressure. Saladin engineered a situation where the Crusaders were doomed before marching. Sound familiar?

The 1187 A.D. Muslims’ Strategy

1. Force the Crusaders to march across waterless terrain in July
2. Cut them off from the only water source (Lake Tiberias)
3. Harass them constantly with mounted archers, especially during meals and rest
4. Drive them into a volcanic basin called the Horns of Hattin
5. Destroy them when exhausted, dehydrated and disorganized

It was not a clash of armies; it was a brilliantly designed trap.

The 1187 A.D. Muslims’ Strike

The sun rose over the parched hills west of the Sea of Galilee. The Crusader army—knights, infantry, priests carrying relics—moved across the dry plain. Butler’s Lives of the Saints notes that the clergy carried the relic of the True Cross “held aloft as a banner of hope.” The air shimmered with heat, dust clung to armor, the smell of sweat and scorched earth; filled the air.

The Muslims burned the fields deliberately. Smoke drifted across the Crusader line, stinging eyes and throats. Crusaders marched without water. Canteens were empty. Horses stumbled. The sound of hooves on brittle ground echoed like cracking pottery. From the hills came the whistle of arrows. Saladin’s mounted archers circled like hawks, loosing volleys before serially-retreating. The storm of arrows “fell like rain upon the weary.” The Crusaders tried to form ranks, but the heat and smoke blurred vision. The clang of arrows on shields mixed with the moans of wounded men and animals.

By midday, the Crusaders reached the volcanic outcrop known as the Horns of Hattin. Belloc calls it “a prison of stone,” a place where the army became trapped between two peaks. The ground was black and sharp underfoot. The priests raised the True Cross higher, chanting the Kyrie Eleison. Saladin’s forces tightened their circle. Shields grew hot to the touch. The Crusaders attempted a charge, but the slope was steep, and the horses exhausted. The cavalry could not break the ring. As the sun reached its zenith, the Crusader line collapsed. Survivors spoke of the heat as “a second enemy,” and of the silence afterward as “judgment.”

The Holy Land falls

The ramifications were immediate and devastating. With the Crusader army destroyed, Saladin advanced unopposed. City after city fell—Tiberias, Acre, Nablus, Jaffa. By October, Jerusalem surrendered. Pope Urban III, upon hearing the news, was said to have died of grief. Newly elected Pope Gregory VIII (1187) wrote a papal bull of defeat and chastisement. After Jerusalem fell, the pope issued; Audita Tremendi, “The Lord has struck His people because of their sins.”

The focus here, is Christian repentance, not opponent identity. The loss of the Holy Land shocked Europe into launching the Third Crusade, drawing figures such as Richard the Lionheart into the struggle.

Lessons Learned

Pope Gregory VIII wrote, the Muslim victory was permitted by God to correct Christian arrogance. It was not the endorsement of a false religion.

• Christian writers saw Hattin as a spiritual lesson. Butler notes that the defeat “humbled the pride of princes” and reminded Christians that “victory is not in the multitude of an army, but in the grace of God.” The Catholic Encyclopedia frames the event as a moment when the Church recognized the need for unity, discipline and renewed devotion.

• The Battle of Hattin stands in history as a military disaster and turning point—a moment when earthly and spiritual dimensions collided. The smoke, the heat, the cries of the faithful, the fall of the True Cross: all became symbols of a call for repentance.

When good men do nothing, we get what we deserve. God allows the proud to be humbled through adversaries so we and “our princes” return to humility and grace. Does America’s future involve a Hattin-event in response to our government’s continuous war, crime, corruption and unbridled pride? Are these the "freedoms" for which our forefathers fought?

When Pride Forgets

When pride forgets the way of peace, God lets man’s comforts desist and cease.

 He targets arrogant hearts & makes them lose, through foes or trials they would not choose.

He calls His people to His Face; to crawl in mercy, back to grace.

Sources

Belloc, H (1937). The Crusades: The World’s Debate. London: Cassell.

Butler, A (1956). Butler’s Lives of the Saints (Rev. ed.). Christian Classics.

Gregory VIII. (1187). Audita Tremendi [Papal bull]. In Catholic Church: Papal Letters and Bulls (English translation). (Original work published 1187).

Herbermann, CG (Ed.) (1913). The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

Saffran, M. (2026, July 1). Trump, the Pope and “New TDS.” Catholic365.