You know I kind of don’t want to read it because well I’m no fan of Gendron. Some Catholics are killers so are some Muslims and some Buddhists and Hindus and some atheists, and Protestants don’t have their hands clean on this one either. There’s not a people in the world that’s never been wronged or wronged another
Well neither am I. but your response is only marginally relevant. The charge is that the Catholic Church killed people and not individuals who professed Catholicism and acted sinfully. Certainly as with most generalizations we see the flaws.
Okay, first, let’s remove all biases whatsoever, either for or against anyone
. Historians, regardless of their religion or irreligion, do not look at things directly through biased eyes. (The writer of that, obviously, does.) Now, there were a great many European wars of religion post-Reformation:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion
Let us allow for, say, the most infamous and arguably most religious of the wars: the Thirty Years’ War. It lasted for
thirty years, so obviously is was long, bloody, and intense.
From one reliable, secular source, 7 1/2 (seven and a half) million Europeans died in the war
[Source]. That makes it the seventeenth most deadly conflict in world history, and it would’ve looked far worse in their day with less of a population and less weaponry. Because many nations were involved, Protestant and Catholic alike, they all died on the field of battle as enemies.
We cannot throw pointless accusations of “Catholics did this!” or “Protestants did this!” Yes, both of the groups committed horrible acts with political goals in mind and used religion as their justification. If you want individual examples, see the Protestant
German Peasants’ War (death toll: over 100,000) and the Catholic-led
persecutions of French Hugenots .
Luckily, we’re behind those days! Protestants and Catholics can at least be on the same online forums together, right?From one of your own sources…
Although it was ostensibly a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics, the rivalry between the Habsburg dynasty and other powers was a more central motive, as shown by the fact that Catholic France under the de facto
rule of Cardinal Richelieu supported the Protestant side in order to weaken the Habsburgs, thereby furthering France’s position as the pre-eminent European power. This increased the France-Habsburg rivalry which led later to direct war between France and Spain. The major impact of the Thirty Years’ War, in which mercenary armies were extensively used, was the devastation of entire regions scavenged bare by the foraging armies.Moreover, rehashing the violence and persecutions on both sides serves no good end since my own Irish ancestors were persecuted for their Catholic faith and even after many of us Irish came to America we faced prejudice and persecution here as well. No one wants to talk about the
Know Nothings so let’s just not go there.
The important thing is to examine what this a-C propagandist has put forth and see if it’s historically accurate. I submit that it is not.
That’s how he makes his living…
