Pope Eugene III was not enjoying a peaceful papacy. He was struggling with a continuing schism and attempts to set up antipopes against him. Communards had been rioting in the streets of Rome. Heretic preachers were reported to be stirring up anticlerical feeling in France. This was a worrying set of problems, and, like Urban II before him, Eugene felt he needed a cause around which to build his papacy and rally political support. He found it in the Second Crusade.
