AHC: Crusades in Americas

With a POD after 1492, create a situation in which the Pope in Rome declares a Crusade against some sort of native American society in the Americas. Requirements are that Europe must be recognizable (no Mongol Sultanates of Brito-Francia) and that the Pope must still control a roughly OTL Roman Catholic population, although anti-Popes may be around.
 
With a POD after 1492, create a situation in which the Pope in Rome declares a Crusade against some sort of native American society in the Americas. Requirements are that Europe must be recognizable (no Mongol Sultanates of Brito-Francia) and that the Pope must still control a roughly OTL Roman Catholic population, although anti-Popes may be around.
Nigh Impossible.The means of transportation to America safely is avaliable on the era where nobody gave a fuck about what the Pope saiys
 
Stronger, more unified Natives would be a first PoD of quite a few ... otherwise they'll most likely be weak enough to fall to somewhat random and but insistent pushes into America just as OTL

Furthermore the Papacy would have to be stronger so they actually have a reasonable say over in which direction armies should move ...

I'd guess that the best we can get (without to many PoD's) would be something in the lines of Pecari Rex, Equus Regina pushed further into the future and prehaps rolled out slightly differently than twovultures are planing (with stronger urbanized cultures at time of contact)
 
How about Cortez gets beaten by the Aztecs but word gets back to the Vatican about great empires built on jewels and gold and the Pope just finds it too alluring to resist. Maybe he intends to use some of it to rebuild the Armada or something.
 
How about Cortez gets beaten by the Aztecs but word gets back to the Vatican about great empires built on jewels and gold and the Pope just finds it too alluring to resist. Maybe he intends to use some of it to rebuild the Armada or something.
Errr...the Armada was 1588; Cortes conquered the Aztecs in 1521. England hadn't even gone Protestant by that point. Moreover, that's not going to give the impetus for a Crusade; rather that would just encourage the Spanish to try invading again (which they would, long before 1588).

The Pope isn't going to call a random crusade across the ocean (although he might officially sanction the Spanish conquest, but he effectively did that already). The 1500s have much, much larger threats to Catholic Christendom running around, even if he wanted to go all Crusadey (the Ottomans are still making gains, and the Protestant Reformation is in full bloom).

Nor would the Spanish want him to do so: they exerted as much control as they could over who and what could be transported to the New World (partially to prevent "contaminating" the natives with heathen or heretical ideas, partially to prevent smuggling); the last thing any Spanish monarch would want would be a horde of foreigners coming over on crusade. The same goes for any other colonial power.
 
If it's just a crusade with no actual relevance at all the Pope could just call one against the Aztecs. Maybe the Spanish try to convert them first but Montezuma sacrifices him or something.

Alternatively - and this might be a stretch - have Cortez temporarily fail to conquer Mexico (maybe a worse La Noche Triste). Then have word of Aztec gold filter back to Europe, generating massive interest and also a fear that Spain is best-positioned to get all that money for war. Charles V gets more aggressive in Italy in the wake of his victory in the Italian Wars and an earlier League of Cognac is formed.

So with the HRE actively threatening Italy - and the fear of the consequences of the addition of Aztec gold to Spain - have the Pope send a message to England, France and Portugal declaring a secret crusade against the Aztecs. Winner takes all the gold and denies it to Spain.

A far-fetched plan, but stranger things have happened.
 
Isn't this OTL? Though not feclared such, the Spanish conquest of Latin America featured many characteristics of earlier crusades, with the difference being that only the armies of nations under a single dynast were involved.
 
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