Vatican declares its murderous hatred for Bible believers
[On August 24, 1572, Roman Catholics in France, by pre-arranged plan, under Jesuit influence, murdered 70,000 Protestants within the space of two months. The pope rejoiced when he heard the news of the successful outcome.
(Read Great Controversy, chapter 15 for the details.) [If you don’t
have a copy, write and we’ll send you one.] “Catholics say only 30,000
were slain. Protestants put the number at 70,000. We prefer the latter
figure. If there were 70,000 Huguenots [French Protestants] in Paris the
night of the massacre, so much the more justification for the slaughter
. . . We have heard ring out many times the very bells that called the
Catholics together on that fatal night. They always sounded sweetly in
our ears”–Western Watchman, Nov. 21, 1912 [Roman Catholic].
“There was no village of the Vaudois valleys but had its martyrs. The
Waldenses were burned; they were cast into damp and horrid dungeons;
they were smothered in crowds in mountain caverns, mothers and babes,
and old men and women together; they were sent out into exile in the
winter night, unclothed and unfed, to climb the snowy mountains; they
were hurled over the rocks; their houses and lands were taken from them;
their children were stolen to be indoctrinated with the religion which
they abhorred. Rapacious individuals were sent among them to strip them of their property, to persecute and exterminate them. Thousands of heretics” or Waldenses, “old
men, women and children, were hung, quartered, broken upon the wheel,
or burned alive and their property confiscated for the benefit of the
king, and Holy See.”-Thompson – The Papacy and the Civil Power
“The greatest of all the ecumenical Councils held in the West
previous to Trent had been Innocent III’s Fourth Lateran Council
(1215). In the 3rd Canon of that Council it is enacted that bishops
should inquire at least once a year in every parish, with power, if need
be, to compel the whole community on oath to name any heretics whom
they knew. An aider or abettor of a heretic is himself ipso facto
excommunicate; if discovered and publicly excommunicated, he incurs
civil death, and those who communicate with such abettors shall
themselves be excommunicated. For the heretics themselves, they
are to be ‘exterminated,’ and any prince neglecting to exterminate them
is to be deposed by the Pope, who will release his subjects from their
allegiance. Even, if we would otherwise have doubted what
‘extermination’ means in its final implications, the word is clearly
glossed by St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa 2-2, xi, 3) ‘remove from the world
by death.'” -Dr. G. G. Coulton – ANGLICAN ESSAYS:
“Experience teaches that there is no other remedy for the evil, but to put heretics (Protestants) to death; for the (Romish) church proceeded gradually and tried every remedy: at first she merely excommunicatied them; afterwards she added a fine; then she banished them; and finally she was constrained to put them to death.” –Cardinal Bellarmine famous champion of Romanism cited by Schumucker p. 76
“That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a competent knowledge of history . . . It is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no powers of imagination can adequately realize their sufferings.”–W. E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, vol. 2, p. 32, 1910 edition. (An excellent though lengthy article describing in detail the right of the Roman Catholic Church to do this, will be found in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 12, p. 266.)
“For professing faith contrary to the teachings of the Church of Rome, history records the martyrdom of more then one hundred million people. A million Waldenses and Albigenses [Swiss and French Protestants] perished during a crusade proclaimed by Pope Innocent III in 1208. Beginning from the establishment of the Jesuits in 1540 to 1580, nine hundred thousand were destroyed. One hundred and fifty thousand perished by the Inquisition in thirty years. Within the space of thirty-eight years after the edict of Charles V against the Protestants, fifty thousand persons were hanged, beheaded, or burned alive for heresy. Eighteen thousand more perished during the administration of the Duke of Alva in five and a half years.”–Brief Bible Readings, p. 16.
“You ask if he (the Roman Catholic) were lord in the land, and you were in a minority, if not in numbers yet in power, what would he do to you? That, we say, would entirely depend upon circumstances. If it would benefit the cause of Catholicism, he would tolerate you: If expedient, he would imprison you, banish you, fine you; possibly, he might even hang you. But be assured of one thing: He would never tolerate you for the sake of ‘the glorious principles of civil and religious liberty’ . . . Catholicism is the most intolerant of creeds. It is intolerance itself, for it is truth itself.”–“Civil and Religious Liberty,” in The Rambler, 8, Sept, 1851, pp. 174, 178. [“The Rambler” was an English Roman Catholic journal published from 1848 to 1862].
“From the birth of popery to the present time, it is estimated by careful and credible historians, that more than fifty millions of the human family, have been slaughtered for the crime of heresy by popish persecutors,–an average of more than 40,000 religious murders for every year of the existence of popery to the present day. Of course the average number of victims yearly, was vastly greater, during those gloomy ages when popery was in her glory and reigned despot of the world; and it has been much less since the power of the popes has diminished to tyrannize over the nations, and to compel the princes of the earth, by the terrors of excommunication, interdiction, and deposition, to butcher their heretical subjects.”–John Dowling, The History of Romanism, pp. 541-542.
” ‘The church,’ says [Martin] Luther, ‘has never burned a heretic.’ . . I reply that this argument proves not the opinion, but the ignorance or impudence of Luther. Since almost infinite numbers were either burned or otherwise killed, Luther either did not know it, and was therefore ignorant, or if he was not ignorant, he is convicted of impudence and falsehood,–for that heretics were often burned by the [Catholic Church may be proved from many examples.“–Robert Bellarmine, Disputationes de Controversiis, Tom. II, Lib. III, cap. XXII, 1628 edition [Bellarmine is one of the most respected Jesuit teachers in the history of the Gregorian University in Rome, the largest Jesuit training school in the world].
“There are many unquestionable cases of Protestants punished as heretics in nearly all the lands where Roman Catholics have had power, right down to the French Revolution [right down to 1798].”–G. G. Coulton, The Death-Penalty for Heresy, Medieval Studies, No. 18, 1924 edition, pp. 62 [The author was a well-known member of the French Academy and an enthusiastic champion of Catholicism].
“The Catholic Church has persecuted … when she thinks it is good to use physical force she will use it… Will the Catholic Church give bond that she will not persecute?… The Catholic Church gives no bonds for her good behaviour.” –Western Watchman, Dec. 24, 1908
“The church may by divine right confiscate the property of heretics, imprison their person, and condemn them to flames. In our age, the right to inflict the severest penalties, even death, belongs to the church. There is no graver offense than heresy, therefore it must be rooted out.” – Public Eccliastical, Vol. 2, p.142.
Mr. Raywood Frazier, in the booklet “Catholic Words and Actions,” presents documentary proof of the intensive persecution of Protestants and non-Catholics in Columbia, South America, between 1949 and 1953. The Catholic Church had the support of the Columbian government in the destruction of many churches, and the liquidation of more than 1,000 documented cases — some of whom were shot, drowned, or emasculated. He says there is evidence of over 60,000 killed. Pope Pius XII awarded the President of Columbia with one of the highest awards which the Church bestows, and praised Columbia for its example of the Catholic faith.” (Pp. 59,60)
The defense of Roman Catholics to this presentation is as follows: “Communists destroy churches because they are God’s enemies; Catholic’s destroy churches because they are God’s friends… Against such men-founded churches… Catholics in Latin America should arise and wipe them out with fire.” –John J. Oberlander, in The Voice of Freedom, 1954, p. 20.
The rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris, H.M.A. Baudrillart, revealed the attitude of the church and her leaders toward persecution. “When confronted with heresy,” he said, “she does not content herself with persuasion, arguments of an intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture.” The Catholic Church, The Renassance, and Protestantism, pp. 182-183
The following collection of quotes are cited from The American Textbook of Popery which in turn quotes from the Directory for the Inquisitors (page numbers listed are for the Directory)–
“He is a heretic who does not believe what the Roman Hierarchy teaches. —A heretic merits the pains of fire. –By the Gospel, the canons, civil law, and custom, heretics must be burned.”–148, 169
“All sects of heretics are condemned and various punishments are appointed for them and their accomplices.” –Pope Alexander IV, –p. 135
“Statutes that impede the execution of the duties which appertain to the office of Inquisitors are null and void.” –Pope Urban IV, p. 106
“They who bury persons knowing them to be excommunicated, or their receivers, defenders, or favourers, shall not be absolved unless they dig up the corpse; and the place shall be deprived of the usual immunities of sepulture.” –Pope Alexander IV, p. 104
“All defence is denied to heretics.” p. 153
“For the suspicion alone of heresy, purgation is demanded.” –p. 156
“Heretics are by right condemned.” –p. 157
“He who is without the church can neither be reconciled nor saved.” –p. 144
By the way… The BIBLE says… Luke 3:14, “…, Do violence to no man”
On the twenty second day of August, 1572, commenced this diabolical act of sanguinary brutality. It was intended to destroy at one stroke the root of the Protestant tree, which had only before partially suffered in its branches. The king of France had artfully proposed a marriage, between his sister and the prince of Navarrel, the captain and prince of the Protestants.
This imprudent marriage was publicly celebrated at Paris, August 18, by the cardinal of Bourbon, upon a high stage erected for the purpose. They dined in great pomp with the bishop, and supped with the king at Paris. Four days after this, the prince (Coligny), as he was coming from the Council, was shot in both arms; he then said to Maure, his deceased mother’s minister, “O my brother, I do now perceive that: I am indeed beloved of my God, since for His most holy sake I am wounded.” Although the Vidam advised him to fly, yet he abode in Paris, and was soon after slain by Bemjus, who afterward declared he never saw a man meet death more valiantly than the admiral.
The soldiers were appointed at a certain signal to burst out instantly to the slaughter in all parts of the city. When they had killed the admiral, they threw him out at a window into the street, where his head was cut off, and sent to the pope. The savage papists, still raging against him, cut off his
arms and private members, and, after dragging him three days through the streets, hung him by the heels without the city. After him they slew many great and honorable persons who were Protestants; as Count Rochfoucault, Telinius, the admiral’s son-in-law, Antonius, Clarimontus, marquis of Ravely, Lewes Bussius, Bandineus, Pluvialius, Burneius, etc., and falling upon the common people, they continued the slaughter for
many appeared presently like a stream of blood. So furious was their hellish rage, that they slew all papists whom they suspected to be not very staunch to their diabolical religion. From Paris the destruction spread to all quarters of the realm. At Orleans, a thousand were slain of men, women, and children, and six thousand at Rouen.
At Meldith, two hundred were put into prison, and later brought out by units, and cruelly murdered.
At Lyons, eight hundred were massacred. Here children hanging about their parents, and parents affectionately embracing their children, were pleasant food for the swords and bloodthirsty minds of those who call themselves the Catholic Church. Here three hundred were slain in the bishop’s house, and the impious monks would suffer none to be buried. At Augustobona, on the people hearing of the massacre at Paris, they shut their gates that no Protestants might escape, and searching diligently for every individual of the reformed Church, imprisoned and then barbarously
murdered them. The same cruelty they practiced at Avaricum, at Troys, at Toulouse, Rouen and many other places, running from city to city, towns, and villages, through the kingdom. As a corroboration of this horrid carnage, the following interesting
narrative, written by a sensible and learned Roman Catholic, appears in this place, with peculiar propriety. “The nuptials (says he) of the young king of Navarre with the French king’s sister, was solemnized with pomp; and all the endearments, all the assurances of friendship, all the oaths sacred among men, were profusely lavished by Catharine, the queen-mother, and by the king; during which, the rest of the court thought of nothing but festivities, plays, and masquerades. At last, at twelve o’clock at night, on the eve of St. Bartholomew, the signal was given. Immediately all the houses of the
Protestants were forced open at once. Admiral Coligny, alarmed by the uproar jumped out of bed, when a company of assassins rushed in his chamber. They were headed by one Besme, who had been bred up as a domestic in the family of the Guises. This wretch thrust his sword into the admiral’s breast, and also cut him in the face. Besme was a German, and being afterwards taken by the Protestants, the Rochellers would have brought him, in order to hang and quarter him; but he was killed by one Bretanville Henry, the young duke of Guise, who afterwards framed the Catholic league, and was murdered at Blois, standing at the door until the horrid butchery should be completed, called aloud, ‘Besme! is it done?
Immediately after this, the ruffians threw the body out of the window, and Coligny expired at Guise’s feet. “Count de Teligny also fell a sacrifice. He had married, about ten months before, Coligny’s daughter. His countenance was so engaging, that the ruffians, when they advanced in order to kill him, were struck with compassion; but others, more barbarous, rushing forward, murdered him. “In the meantime, all the friends of Coligny were assassinated throughout Paris; men, women, and children were promiscuously slaughtered and every street was strewed with expiring: bodies. Some priests, holding up a crucifix in one hand, and a dagger in the other, ran to the chiefs of the murderers, and strongly exhorted them to spare neither relations nor friends. “Tavannes, marshal of France, an ignorant, superstitious soldier
who joined the fury of religion to the rage of party, rode on horse-back through the streets of Paris, crying to his men, ‘Let blood! let blood! bleeding is as wholesome in August as in May.’ In the memories of the life of this enthusiastic, written by his son, we are told that the father, being on his deathbed, and making a general confession of his actions, the priest said to him, with surprise, ‘What! no mention of St. Bartholomew’s
massacre?’ to which Tavannes replied, ‘I consider it as a meritorious action, that will wash away all my sins.’ Such horrid sentiments can a false spirit of religion inspire!” The king’s palace was one of the chief scenes of
the butchery; the king of Navarre had his lodgings in the Louvre, and all his domestics were Protestants. Many of these were killed in bed with their wives, others, running away naked, were pursued by the soldiers through the several rooms of the palace, even to the king’s anti-chamber. The young wife of Henry of Navarre, awaked by the dreadful uproar, being afraid for her consort, and for her own life, seized with horror, and half dead, flew from her bed, in order to throw herself at the feet of the king her brother. But scarce had she opened her chamber door, when some of her Protestant domestics rushed in for refuge. The soldiers immediately followed, pursued them in sight of the princess, and killed one who crept under her bed. Two others, being wounded with halberds, fell at the queen’s feet, so that she was covered with blood.
“Count de la Rochefoucault, a young nobleman, greatly in the king’s favor for his comely air, his politeness, and a certain peculiar happiness in the turn of his conversation, had spent the evening until eleven o’clock with the monarch, in pleasant familiarity; and had given a loose, with the utmost mirth, to the sallies of his imagination. The monarch felt some remorse, and being touched with a kind of compassion, bid him, two or three times, not to go home, but lie in the Louvre. The count said he must go to his wife; upon which the king pressed him no farther, but said, ‘Let him go! I see God has decreed his death.’ And in two hours after he was murdered. “Very few of the Protestants escaped the fury of their enthusiastic persecutors. Among these was young La Force (afterwards the famous Marshal de la Force) a child about ten years of age, whose deliverance was exceedingly remarkable. His father, his elder brother and he himself were seized together by the Duke of Anjou’s soldiers. These murderers flew at all three, and struck them at random, when they all fell, and lay one upon another. The youngest did not receive a single blow, but appearing as if he
was dead, escaped the next day; and his life, thus wonderfully preserved, lasted four score and five years.
“Many of the wretched victims fled to the water side, and some swam
over the Seine to the suburbs of St. Germaine. The king saw them from his window, which looked upon the river, and fired upon them with a carbine that had been loaded for that purpose by one of his pages; while the queen-mother, undisturbed and serene in the midst of slaughter, looking down from a balcony, encouraged the murderers and laughed at the dying groans of the slaughtered. The barbarous queen was fired with a restless ambition, and she perpetually shifted her party in order to satiate it. “Some days after this horrid transaction, the French court endeavored to palliate it by forms of law. They pretended to justify the massacre by a calumny, and accused the admiral of a conspiracy, which no one believed. The parliament was commended to proceed against the memory of
Coligny; and his dead body was hanged in chains on Montfaucon gallows.
The king himself went to view the shocking spectacle. So one of his courtiers advised him to retire, and complaining of the stench of the corpse, he replied, ‘A dead enemy smells well.’ The massacres on St. Bartholomew’s day are painted in the royal saloon of the Vatican at Rome, with the following inscription: Pontifex, Coligny necem probat, i. e., ‘The pope approves of Coligny’s death.’”The young king of Navarre was spared through policy, rather than from the pity of the queen-mother, she
keeping him prisoner until the king’s death, in order that he might be as a security and pledge for the submission of such Protestants as might: effect their escape.
“This horrid butchery was not confined merely to the city of Paris. The like orders were issued from court to the governors of all the provinces in France; so that, in a week’s time, about one hundred thousand Protestants were cut to pieces in different parts of the kingdom! Two or three governors only refused to obey the king’s orders. One of these, named
Montmorrin, governor of Auvergne, wrote the king the following letter,
which deserves to be transmitted to the latest posterity. “SIRE: I have received an order, under your majesty’s seal, to put to death
all the Protestants in my province. I have too, much respect for your
majesty, not to believe the letter a forgery; but if (which God forbid) the order should be genuine, I have too much respect for your majesty to obey it.” At Rome the horrid joy, was so great, that they appointed a day of high festival, and all, with great indulgence to all who kept it and showed every expression of gladness they could devise! and the man who first carried the news received 1000 crowns of the cardinal of Lorraine for his ungodly message. The king also commanded the day to be kept with every demonstration of joy, concluding now that the whole race of Huguenots was extinct.
Many who gave great sums of money for their ransom were immediately after slain, and several towns, which were under the king’s promise of protection and safety, were cut off as soon as they delivered themselves up, on those promises, to his generals or captains. At Bordeaux, at the instigation of a villainous monk, who used to urge the papists to slaughter in his sermons, two hundred and sixty-four were
cruelly murdered; some of them senators..Another of the same pious fraternity produced a similar slaughter at Agendicum, Maine, where the populace at the holy inquisitors’ satanical suggestion, ran upon the Protestants, slew them, plundered their houses and pulled down their church.
The duke of Guise, entering into Blois, suffered his soldiers to fly upon the spoil, and slay or drown all the Protestants they could find. In this they spared neither age nor sex; defiling the women, and then murdering them; from whence he went to Mere, and committed the same outrages for many days together. Here they found a minister named Cassebonius, and
threw him into the river. At Anjou, they slew Albiacus, a minister, and many women were defiled and murdered there; among whom were two sisters, abused before their father, whom the assassins bound to a wall to see them, and then slew them and him.
The president of Turin, after giving a large sum for his life, was cruelly
beaten with clubs, stripped of his clothes, and hung feet upwards, with his head and breast in the river: before he was dead, they opened his belly, plucked out his entrails, and threw them into the river; and then carried his heart about the city upon a spear. At Barre great cruelty was used, even to young children, whom they cut open, pulled out their entrails, which through very rage they gnawed with their teeth. Those who had fled to the castle, when they yielded, were almost hanged.
Thus they did at the city of Matiscon; counting it sport to
cut off their arms and legs and afterward kill them; and for the
entertainment of their visitors, they often threw the Protestants from a
high bridge into the river, saying, “Did you ever see men leap so well?” At Penna, after promising them safety, three hundred were inhumanely butchered; and five and forty at Albia, on the Lord’s Day. At Nonne, though it yielded on conditions of safeguard, the most horrid spectacles were exhibited. Persons of both sexes and conditions were indiscriminately
murdered; the streets ringing with doleful cries, and flowing with blood; and the houses flaming with fire, which the abandoned soldiers had thrown in. One woman, being dragged from her hiding place with her husband, was first abused by the brutal soldiers, and then with a sword which they commanded her to draw, they forced it while in her hands into the bowels
of her husband.
At Samarobridge, they murdered above one hundred Protestants after promising them peace; and at Antisidor, one hundred were killed, and cast part into a lakes, and part into a river. One hundred put into a prison at Orleans, were destroyed by the furious multitude. The Protestants at Rochelle, who were such as had miraculously escaped
the rage of hell, and fled there, seeing how ill they fared who submitted to those holy devils, stood for their lives; and some other cities, encouraged thereby, did the like. Against Rochelle, the king sent almost the whole
power of France, which besieged it several months; though by their assaults, they did very little execution on the inhabitants, yet by famine, they destroyed eighteen thousand out of two and twenty. The dead, being too numerous for the living to bury, became food for vermin and carnivorous birds. Many took their coffins into the church yard, laid down in them, and breathed their last. Their diet had long been what the minds of
those in plenty shudder at; even human flesh, entrails, dung, and the most loathsome things, became at last the only food of those champions for that truth and liberty, of which the world was not worthy. At every attack, the besiegers met with such an intrepid reception, that they left one hundred and thirty-two captains, with a proportionate number of men, dead in the field. The siege at last was broken up at the request of the duke of Anjou, the king’s brother, who was proclaimed king of Poland, and the king, being wearied out, easily complied, whereupon honorable conditions were granted them.
It is a remarkable interference of Providence, that, in all this dreadful massacre, not more than two ministers of the Gospel were involved in it. The tragic sufferings of the Protestants are too numerous to detail; but the treatment of Philip de Deux will give an idea of the rest. After the
miscreants had slain this martyr in his bed, they went to his wife, who was then attended by the midwife, expecting every moment to be delivered.
The midwife entreated them to stay the murder, at least till the child which was the twentieth, should be born. Notwithstanding this, they thrust a dagger up to the hilt into the poor woman. Anxious to be delivered, she ran into a corn loft; but hither they pursued her, stabbed her in the belly, and then threw her into the street. By the fall, the child came from the dying mother, and being caught up by one of the Catholic ruffians, he stabbed the infant and then threw it into the river.
Foxe Book of Martyrs
In the eyes of the world these heroes have perished Without any recognition but God has inscribed their names immortally in His book of life. “Revelation 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 6:11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”
Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Revelation 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Revelation 7:13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? 7:14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 7:15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. 7:16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. 7:17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
“Experience teaches that there is no other remedy for the evil, but to put heretics (Protestants) to death; for the (Romish) church proceeded gradually and tried every remedy: at first she merely excommunicatied them; afterwards she added a fine; then she banished them; and finally she was constrained to put them to death.” –Cardinal Bellarmine famous champion of Romanism cited by Schumucker p. 76
Joh 16:1 These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended.March 12, 2000, Pope John Paul II ADMITTED the Roman Catholic Church KILLED the believers and does NOT know the Father or Jesus. To deny that, is to deny the very words of Jesus Christ. Pope asks pardon from Waldensian Protestants for past persecution
Joh 16:2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.
Joh 16:3 And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.
“That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a competent knowledge of history . . . It is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no powers of imagination can adequately realize their sufferings.”–W. E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, vol. 2, p. 32, 1910 edition. (An excellent though lengthy article describing in detail the right of the Roman Catholic Church to do this, will be found in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 12, p. 266.)
“For professing faith contrary to the teachings of the Church of Rome, history records the martyrdom of more then one hundred million people. A million Waldenses and Albigenses [Swiss and French Protestants] perished during a crusade proclaimed by Pope Innocent III in 1208. Beginning from the establishment of the Jesuits in 1540 to 1580, nine hundred thousand were destroyed. One hundred and fifty thousand perished by the Inquisition in thirty years. Within the space of thirty-eight years after the edict of Charles V against the Protestants, fifty thousand persons were hanged, beheaded, or burned alive for heresy. Eighteen thousand more perished during the administration of the Duke of Alva in five and a half years.”–Brief Bible Readings, p. 16.
“You ask if he (the Roman Catholic) were lord in the land, and you were in a minority, if not in numbers yet in power, what would he do to you? That, we say, would entirely depend upon circumstances. If it would benefit the cause of Catholicism, he would tolerate you: If expedient, he would imprison you, banish you, fine you; possibly, he might even hang you. But be assured of one thing: He would never tolerate you for the sake of ‘the glorious principles of civil and religious liberty’ . . . Catholicism is the most intolerant of creeds. It is intolerance itself, for it is truth itself.”–“Civil and Religious Liberty,” in The Rambler, 8, Sept, 1851, pp. 174, 178. [“The Rambler” was an English Roman Catholic journal published from 1848 to 1862].
“From the birth of popery to the present time, it is estimated by careful and credible historians, that more than fifty millions of the human family, have been slaughtered for the crime of heresy by popish persecutors,–an average of more than 40,000 religious murders for every year of the existence of popery to the present day. Of course the average number of victims yearly, was vastly greater, during those gloomy ages when popery was in her glory and reigned despot of the world; and it has been much less since the power of the popes has diminished to tyrannize over the nations, and to compel the princes of the earth, by the terrors of excommunication, interdiction, and deposition, to butcher their heretical subjects.”–John Dowling, The History of Romanism, pp. 541-542.
” ‘The church,’ says [Martin] Luther, ‘has never burned a heretic.’ . . I reply that this argument proves not the opinion, but the ignorance or impudence of Luther. Since almost infinite numbers were either burned or otherwise killed, Luther either did not know it, and was therefore ignorant, or if he was not ignorant, he is convicted of impudence and falsehood,–for that heretics were often burned by the [Catholic Church may be proved from many examples.“–Robert Bellarmine, Disputationes de Controversiis, Tom. II, Lib. III, cap. XXII, 1628 edition [Bellarmine is one of the most respected Jesuit teachers in the history of the Gregorian University in Rome, the largest Jesuit training school in the world].
“There are many unquestionable cases of Protestants punished as heretics in nearly all the lands where Roman Catholics have had power, right down to the French Revolution [right down to 1798].”–G. G. Coulton, The Death-Penalty for Heresy, Medieval Studies, No. 18, 1924 edition, pp. 62 [The author was a well-known member of the French Academy and an enthusiastic champion of Catholicism].
“The Catholic Church has persecuted … when she thinks it is good to use physical force she will use it… Will the Catholic Church give bond that she will not persecute?… The Catholic Church gives no bonds for her good behaviour.” –Western Watchman, Dec. 24, 1908
“The church may by divine right confiscate the property of heretics, imprison their person, and condemn them to flames. In our age, the right to inflict the severest penalties, even death, belongs to the church. There is no graver offense than heresy, therefore it must be rooted out.” – Public Eccliastical, Vol. 2, p.142.
Mr. Raywood Frazier, in the booklet “Catholic Words and Actions,” presents documentary proof of the intensive persecution of Protestants and non-Catholics in Columbia, South America, between 1949 and 1953. The Catholic Church had the support of the Columbian government in the destruction of many churches, and the liquidation of more than 1,000 documented cases — some of whom were shot, drowned, or emasculated. He says there is evidence of over 60,000 killed. Pope Pius XII awarded the President of Columbia with one of the highest awards which the Church bestows, and praised Columbia for its example of the Catholic faith.” (Pp. 59,60)
The defense of Roman Catholics to this presentation is as follows: “Communists destroy churches because they are God’s enemies; Catholic’s destroy churches because they are God’s friends… Against such men-founded churches… Catholics in Latin America should arise and wipe them out with fire.” –John J. Oberlander, in The Voice of Freedom, 1954, p. 20.
The rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris, H.M.A. Baudrillart, revealed the attitude of the church and her leaders toward persecution. “When confronted with heresy,” he said, “she does not content herself with persuasion, arguments of an intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture.” The Catholic Church, The Renassance, and Protestantism, pp. 182-183
The following collection of quotes are cited from The American Textbook of Popery which in turn quotes from the Directory for the Inquisitors (page numbers listed are for the Directory)–
“He is a heretic who does not believe what the Roman Hierarchy teaches. —A heretic merits the pains of fire. –By the Gospel, the canons, civil law, and custom, heretics must be burned.”–148, 169
“All sects of heretics are condemned and various punishments are appointed for them and their accomplices.” –Pope Alexander IV, –p. 135
“Statutes that impede the execution of the duties which appertain to the office of Inquisitors are null and void.” –Pope Urban IV, p. 106
“They who bury persons knowing them to be excommunicated, or their receivers, defenders, or favourers, shall not be absolved unless they dig up the corpse; and the place shall be deprived of the usual immunities of sepulture.” –Pope Alexander IV, p. 104
“All defence is denied to heretics.” p. 153
“For the suspicion alone of heresy, purgation is demanded.” –p. 156
“Heretics are by right condemned.” –p. 157
“He who is without the church can neither be reconciled nor saved.” –p. 144
By the way… The BIBLE says… Luke 3:14, “…, Do violence to no man”
Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.THE BARTHOLOMEW MASSACRE AT PARIS, ETC.
On the twenty second day of August, 1572, commenced this diabolical act of sanguinary brutality. It was intended to destroy at one stroke the root of the Protestant tree, which had only before partially suffered in its branches. The king of France had artfully proposed a marriage, between his sister and the prince of Navarrel, the captain and prince of the Protestants.
This imprudent marriage was publicly celebrated at Paris, August 18, by the cardinal of Bourbon, upon a high stage erected for the purpose. They dined in great pomp with the bishop, and supped with the king at Paris. Four days after this, the prince (Coligny), as he was coming from the Council, was shot in both arms; he then said to Maure, his deceased mother’s minister, “O my brother, I do now perceive that: I am indeed beloved of my God, since for His most holy sake I am wounded.” Although the Vidam advised him to fly, yet he abode in Paris, and was soon after slain by Bemjus, who afterward declared he never saw a man meet death more valiantly than the admiral.
The soldiers were appointed at a certain signal to burst out instantly to the slaughter in all parts of the city. When they had killed the admiral, they threw him out at a window into the street, where his head was cut off, and sent to the pope. The savage papists, still raging against him, cut off his
arms and private members, and, after dragging him three days through the streets, hung him by the heels without the city. After him they slew many great and honorable persons who were Protestants; as Count Rochfoucault, Telinius, the admiral’s son-in-law, Antonius, Clarimontus, marquis of Ravely, Lewes Bussius, Bandineus, Pluvialius, Burneius, etc., and falling upon the common people, they continued the slaughter for
many appeared presently like a stream of blood. So furious was their hellish rage, that they slew all papists whom they suspected to be not very staunch to their diabolical religion. From Paris the destruction spread to all quarters of the realm. At Orleans, a thousand were slain of men, women, and children, and six thousand at Rouen.
At Meldith, two hundred were put into prison, and later brought out by units, and cruelly murdered.
At Lyons, eight hundred were massacred. Here children hanging about their parents, and parents affectionately embracing their children, were pleasant food for the swords and bloodthirsty minds of those who call themselves the Catholic Church. Here three hundred were slain in the bishop’s house, and the impious monks would suffer none to be buried. At Augustobona, on the people hearing of the massacre at Paris, they shut their gates that no Protestants might escape, and searching diligently for every individual of the reformed Church, imprisoned and then barbarously
murdered them. The same cruelty they practiced at Avaricum, at Troys, at Toulouse, Rouen and many other places, running from city to city, towns, and villages, through the kingdom. As a corroboration of this horrid carnage, the following interesting
narrative, written by a sensible and learned Roman Catholic, appears in this place, with peculiar propriety. “The nuptials (says he) of the young king of Navarre with the French king’s sister, was solemnized with pomp; and all the endearments, all the assurances of friendship, all the oaths sacred among men, were profusely lavished by Catharine, the queen-mother, and by the king; during which, the rest of the court thought of nothing but festivities, plays, and masquerades. At last, at twelve o’clock at night, on the eve of St. Bartholomew, the signal was given. Immediately all the houses of the
Protestants were forced open at once. Admiral Coligny, alarmed by the uproar jumped out of bed, when a company of assassins rushed in his chamber. They were headed by one Besme, who had been bred up as a domestic in the family of the Guises. This wretch thrust his sword into the admiral’s breast, and also cut him in the face. Besme was a German, and being afterwards taken by the Protestants, the Rochellers would have brought him, in order to hang and quarter him; but he was killed by one Bretanville Henry, the young duke of Guise, who afterwards framed the Catholic league, and was murdered at Blois, standing at the door until the horrid butchery should be completed, called aloud, ‘Besme! is it done?
Immediately after this, the ruffians threw the body out of the window, and Coligny expired at Guise’s feet. “Count de Teligny also fell a sacrifice. He had married, about ten months before, Coligny’s daughter. His countenance was so engaging, that the ruffians, when they advanced in order to kill him, were struck with compassion; but others, more barbarous, rushing forward, murdered him. “In the meantime, all the friends of Coligny were assassinated throughout Paris; men, women, and children were promiscuously slaughtered and every street was strewed with expiring: bodies. Some priests, holding up a crucifix in one hand, and a dagger in the other, ran to the chiefs of the murderers, and strongly exhorted them to spare neither relations nor friends. “Tavannes, marshal of France, an ignorant, superstitious soldier
who joined the fury of religion to the rage of party, rode on horse-back through the streets of Paris, crying to his men, ‘Let blood! let blood! bleeding is as wholesome in August as in May.’ In the memories of the life of this enthusiastic, written by his son, we are told that the father, being on his deathbed, and making a general confession of his actions, the priest said to him, with surprise, ‘What! no mention of St. Bartholomew’s
massacre?’ to which Tavannes replied, ‘I consider it as a meritorious action, that will wash away all my sins.’ Such horrid sentiments can a false spirit of religion inspire!” The king’s palace was one of the chief scenes of
the butchery; the king of Navarre had his lodgings in the Louvre, and all his domestics were Protestants. Many of these were killed in bed with their wives, others, running away naked, were pursued by the soldiers through the several rooms of the palace, even to the king’s anti-chamber. The young wife of Henry of Navarre, awaked by the dreadful uproar, being afraid for her consort, and for her own life, seized with horror, and half dead, flew from her bed, in order to throw herself at the feet of the king her brother. But scarce had she opened her chamber door, when some of her Protestant domestics rushed in for refuge. The soldiers immediately followed, pursued them in sight of the princess, and killed one who crept under her bed. Two others, being wounded with halberds, fell at the queen’s feet, so that she was covered with blood.
“Count de la Rochefoucault, a young nobleman, greatly in the king’s favor for his comely air, his politeness, and a certain peculiar happiness in the turn of his conversation, had spent the evening until eleven o’clock with the monarch, in pleasant familiarity; and had given a loose, with the utmost mirth, to the sallies of his imagination. The monarch felt some remorse, and being touched with a kind of compassion, bid him, two or three times, not to go home, but lie in the Louvre. The count said he must go to his wife; upon which the king pressed him no farther, but said, ‘Let him go! I see God has decreed his death.’ And in two hours after he was murdered. “Very few of the Protestants escaped the fury of their enthusiastic persecutors. Among these was young La Force (afterwards the famous Marshal de la Force) a child about ten years of age, whose deliverance was exceedingly remarkable. His father, his elder brother and he himself were seized together by the Duke of Anjou’s soldiers. These murderers flew at all three, and struck them at random, when they all fell, and lay one upon another. The youngest did not receive a single blow, but appearing as if he
was dead, escaped the next day; and his life, thus wonderfully preserved, lasted four score and five years.
“Many of the wretched victims fled to the water side, and some swam
over the Seine to the suburbs of St. Germaine. The king saw them from his window, which looked upon the river, and fired upon them with a carbine that had been loaded for that purpose by one of his pages; while the queen-mother, undisturbed and serene in the midst of slaughter, looking down from a balcony, encouraged the murderers and laughed at the dying groans of the slaughtered. The barbarous queen was fired with a restless ambition, and she perpetually shifted her party in order to satiate it. “Some days after this horrid transaction, the French court endeavored to palliate it by forms of law. They pretended to justify the massacre by a calumny, and accused the admiral of a conspiracy, which no one believed. The parliament was commended to proceed against the memory of
Coligny; and his dead body was hanged in chains on Montfaucon gallows.
The king himself went to view the shocking spectacle. So one of his courtiers advised him to retire, and complaining of the stench of the corpse, he replied, ‘A dead enemy smells well.’ The massacres on St. Bartholomew’s day are painted in the royal saloon of the Vatican at Rome, with the following inscription: Pontifex, Coligny necem probat, i. e., ‘The pope approves of Coligny’s death.’”The young king of Navarre was spared through policy, rather than from the pity of the queen-mother, she
keeping him prisoner until the king’s death, in order that he might be as a security and pledge for the submission of such Protestants as might: effect their escape.
“This horrid butchery was not confined merely to the city of Paris. The like orders were issued from court to the governors of all the provinces in France; so that, in a week’s time, about one hundred thousand Protestants were cut to pieces in different parts of the kingdom! Two or three governors only refused to obey the king’s orders. One of these, named
Montmorrin, governor of Auvergne, wrote the king the following letter,
which deserves to be transmitted to the latest posterity. “SIRE: I have received an order, under your majesty’s seal, to put to death
all the Protestants in my province. I have too, much respect for your
majesty, not to believe the letter a forgery; but if (which God forbid) the order should be genuine, I have too much respect for your majesty to obey it.” At Rome the horrid joy, was so great, that they appointed a day of high festival, and all, with great indulgence to all who kept it and showed every expression of gladness they could devise! and the man who first carried the news received 1000 crowns of the cardinal of Lorraine for his ungodly message. The king also commanded the day to be kept with every demonstration of joy, concluding now that the whole race of Huguenots was extinct.
Many who gave great sums of money for their ransom were immediately after slain, and several towns, which were under the king’s promise of protection and safety, were cut off as soon as they delivered themselves up, on those promises, to his generals or captains. At Bordeaux, at the instigation of a villainous monk, who used to urge the papists to slaughter in his sermons, two hundred and sixty-four were
cruelly murdered; some of them senators..Another of the same pious fraternity produced a similar slaughter at Agendicum, Maine, where the populace at the holy inquisitors’ satanical suggestion, ran upon the Protestants, slew them, plundered their houses and pulled down their church.
The duke of Guise, entering into Blois, suffered his soldiers to fly upon the spoil, and slay or drown all the Protestants they could find. In this they spared neither age nor sex; defiling the women, and then murdering them; from whence he went to Mere, and committed the same outrages for many days together. Here they found a minister named Cassebonius, and
threw him into the river. At Anjou, they slew Albiacus, a minister, and many women were defiled and murdered there; among whom were two sisters, abused before their father, whom the assassins bound to a wall to see them, and then slew them and him.
The president of Turin, after giving a large sum for his life, was cruelly
beaten with clubs, stripped of his clothes, and hung feet upwards, with his head and breast in the river: before he was dead, they opened his belly, plucked out his entrails, and threw them into the river; and then carried his heart about the city upon a spear. At Barre great cruelty was used, even to young children, whom they cut open, pulled out their entrails, which through very rage they gnawed with their teeth. Those who had fled to the castle, when they yielded, were almost hanged.
Thus they did at the city of Matiscon; counting it sport to
cut off their arms and legs and afterward kill them; and for the
entertainment of their visitors, they often threw the Protestants from a
high bridge into the river, saying, “Did you ever see men leap so well?” At Penna, after promising them safety, three hundred were inhumanely butchered; and five and forty at Albia, on the Lord’s Day. At Nonne, though it yielded on conditions of safeguard, the most horrid spectacles were exhibited. Persons of both sexes and conditions were indiscriminately
murdered; the streets ringing with doleful cries, and flowing with blood; and the houses flaming with fire, which the abandoned soldiers had thrown in. One woman, being dragged from her hiding place with her husband, was first abused by the brutal soldiers, and then with a sword which they commanded her to draw, they forced it while in her hands into the bowels
of her husband.
At Samarobridge, they murdered above one hundred Protestants after promising them peace; and at Antisidor, one hundred were killed, and cast part into a lakes, and part into a river. One hundred put into a prison at Orleans, were destroyed by the furious multitude. The Protestants at Rochelle, who were such as had miraculously escaped
the rage of hell, and fled there, seeing how ill they fared who submitted to those holy devils, stood for their lives; and some other cities, encouraged thereby, did the like. Against Rochelle, the king sent almost the whole
power of France, which besieged it several months; though by their assaults, they did very little execution on the inhabitants, yet by famine, they destroyed eighteen thousand out of two and twenty. The dead, being too numerous for the living to bury, became food for vermin and carnivorous birds. Many took their coffins into the church yard, laid down in them, and breathed their last. Their diet had long been what the minds of
those in plenty shudder at; even human flesh, entrails, dung, and the most loathsome things, became at last the only food of those champions for that truth and liberty, of which the world was not worthy. At every attack, the besiegers met with such an intrepid reception, that they left one hundred and thirty-two captains, with a proportionate number of men, dead in the field. The siege at last was broken up at the request of the duke of Anjou, the king’s brother, who was proclaimed king of Poland, and the king, being wearied out, easily complied, whereupon honorable conditions were granted them.
It is a remarkable interference of Providence, that, in all this dreadful massacre, not more than two ministers of the Gospel were involved in it. The tragic sufferings of the Protestants are too numerous to detail; but the treatment of Philip de Deux will give an idea of the rest. After the
miscreants had slain this martyr in his bed, they went to his wife, who was then attended by the midwife, expecting every moment to be delivered.
The midwife entreated them to stay the murder, at least till the child which was the twentieth, should be born. Notwithstanding this, they thrust a dagger up to the hilt into the poor woman. Anxious to be delivered, she ran into a corn loft; but hither they pursued her, stabbed her in the belly, and then threw her into the street. By the fall, the child came from the dying mother, and being caught up by one of the Catholic ruffians, he stabbed the infant and then threw it into the river.
Foxe Book of Martyrs
In the eyes of the world these heroes have perished Without any recognition but God has inscribed their names immortally in His book of life. “Revelation 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 6:11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”
Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Revelation 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Revelation 7:13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? 7:14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 7:15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. 7:16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. 7:17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
The Murder Of Anna And The Waldensians By The Roman Catholic Church
Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
In the first century there was no heresy for the simple
reason that there was no orthodoxy. The “heresies” referred to in old
translations of the New Testament are merely differences of opinion*.
Small Christian communities believed what they wanted to and worshipped
as they chose. As we have seen, there were no central authorities, no
set rituals, no agreed canon of scripture, no Church hierarchy and no
established body of doctrine. In line with the toleration practised
throughout the Empire, each group of Christians was free to believe
whatever it wanted. The natural consequence of this state of affairs was
that ideas and practices in different communities diverged.
Towards the end of the second century Irenaeus,
Bishop of Lyons, saw the dangers of numerous opinions developing. He
attempted to establish an orthodox body of teaching. He wrote a
five-volume work against heresies, and it was he who compiled a canon of
the New Testament. He also claimed that there was only one proper
Church, outside of which there could be no salvation. Other Christians
were heretics and should be expelled, and if possible destroyed. The
first Christian Emperor agreed. Gibbon summarises the edict that
announced the destruction of various heretics:
After a preamble filled with passion and reproach, Constantine absolutely prohibits the assemblies of the heretics and confiscates their public property to the use either of the revenue or of the catholic church. The sects against whom the Imperial severity was directed appear to have been the adherents of Paul of Samosata; the Montanists of Phrygia, who maintained an enthusiastic succession of prophecy; the Novatians, who sternly rejected the temporal efficacy of repentance; the Marcionites and Valentinians, under whose leading banners the various Gnostics of Asia and Egypt had insensibly rallied; and perhaps the Manichæans who had recently imported from Persia a more artful composition of oriental and Christian theology.
The design of extirpating the name, or at least of restraining the progress, of these odious heretics was prosecuted with vigour and effect. Some of the penal regulations were copied from the edicts of Diocletian; and this method of conversion was applauded by the same bishops who had felt the hand of oppression and had pleaded for the rights of humanity*.
Further laws against heresy appeared in 380 under the Christian Emperor Theodosius I, who laid down the new rule:
We command that those persons who follow this rule shall embrace the name of Catholic Christians. The rest, however, whom we adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of our own initiative, which we shall assume in accordance with divine judgement*.
St Augustine taught that error has no rights. He cited
biblical texts to justify the use of compulsion, notably Luke 14:16-23
(especially Luke 14:23). Had not Christ himself blinded St Paul in order
to make him see the true light? According to Augustine, coercion using
“great violence” was justified. He made a distinction between
unbelievers, who persecuted because of cruelty, and Christians, who
persecuted because of love. A war to preserve or restore the unity of
the Church was a just war, a bellum Deo auctore, a war waged by God himself.
He also found a way to avoid churchmen getting blood on
their hands: dissension against the Church amounted to dissension
against the State, so anyone condemned by the Church should be punished
by the State. Centuries in the future such ideas would culminate in the
activities of the Inquisition, which also required the secular authority
to execute its judgements of blood. Augustine is often recognised
explicitly as the father of the Inquisition, since he was responsible
for adopting Roman methods of torture for the purposes of the Church in
order to ensure uniformity. Already, in 385, the first recorded
executions for heresy had been carried out under Emperor Maximus at the
request of Spanish bishops. Priscillian, Bishop of Ávila, had been
charged with witchcraft, although his real crime seems to have been
agreeing with Gnostic opinions. Along with his companions he was tried
and tortured. They confessed and were executed. The Church now had
precedents for both witch-hunting and for persecuting heretics , with a
moral unpinning provided by St Augustine.
The Murder Of The Waldensians
The Waldensians, or Vaudois, followers of Peter Waldo of
Lyon, provided the next major target. They gave their money to the poor
and preached the Christian gospel. Waldo attracted the hatred of the
clergy when he commissioned a translation of the Bible into Occitan, the
language of what is now southern France. The Waldensians started off as
perfectly orthodox Roman Catholics, but after reading the bible their
heresies mushroomed. They denied the temporal authority of priests and
objected to papal corruption. They rejected numerous accretions,
including the Mass, prayers for the dead, indulgences, confessions,
penance, church music, the reciting of prayers in Latin, the adoration
of saints, the adoration of the sacrament, killing, and the swearing of
oaths. They also allowed women to preach. They were excommunicated as
heretics in 1184 at the Council of Verona, and persecuted with zeal for
centuries.
In a single day in 1393, 150 Waldensians were burned at Grenoble. Survivors fled to remote valleys in the Alps.
As usual, the Catholic propaganda machine swung into action
to prove the satanic nature of the Church’s enemies. Waldensians were
accused of various enormities identical to those supposedly committed by
Cathars and witches. All of them worshipped black cats. They milked the
handles of brooms into buckets. They used the brooms to fly – churchmen
drew pictures of them doing it (see right)
In 1487 Pope Innocent VIII issued a bull for the
extermination of the Vaudois. In response, Alberto de’ Capitanei,
archdeacon of Cremona, organized a crusade and launched offensives in
the provinces of Dauphine and Piedmont. The areas were devasted and
survivers fled to Provence and to southern Italy. On 1 January 1545 King
Francis I of France issued an order called the “Arrêt de Mérindol”. He
assembled an army against the Waldensians of Provence, which carried out
another series of massacres. Deaths in the Massacre of Mérindol ranged
from hundreds to thousands, depending on the estimates, and several
villages were devastated
