“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
Joh 16:1 These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended.
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.
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
“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