I have an atheist friend who’s mother is a Wiccan who claims that the Church is responsible for the forced conversion/genocide of the Celts, Wiccans and Native Americans. He claims this was the case with the Spanish Inquisition as well. How do I respond?
A Jewish perspective:
While it is easier for a Gentile than for a Jew to get into the world to come as they have only to follow the seven Noahide commandments, any Jew who breaks his/her eternal covenant between God and the Jewish people, and adopts Gentile beliefs, is caught off forever from God and the Jewish people and loses his/her portion in the world to come.
That is not to say that there is any efficacy to the act. No amount of water and no Gentile prayers can break the eternal bond between God and the Jewish people. It has no meaning whatsoever outside of the minds of the Gentile believers.
For centuries upon centuries Catholics mobs would rampage through Jewish neighborhoods screaming “convert or die”. Jews invariably chose death rather than to denounce God.
The Crusaders murdered between one quarter and one half of European Jewry. These horrific acts have been recorded. We see how these Jews, men, women and children, went to their deaths, holding steadfast in their faith in God and refusing to convert.
On the other hand, we have an excellent example of the Spanish Inquisition and of what happens when Jews through fear or through lack of faith, decide to follow other gods. Beginning on March 15th, 1391 in Spain, Catholic mobs began the first of a series of Catholic pogroms against Jews shouting “convert or die”. Over the course of the year, thousands of Jews would be murdered. However, in the aftermath of these riots and mass murders, tens of thousands of Jews, instead of remaining steadfast to God, decided to convert to Christianity. Divine punishment came to the Jews, as it always does, and as always, poetically meted out by those same Gentiles whose beliefs these Jews had adopted. In the end, every single Jew on the Iberian peninsula will have been murdered, expelled or converted, the 1000 year old Jewish community totally destroyed.
A famous case of forced conversion which had international repercussions was the Mortara case.
The last massive forced conversion of Jews was perpetrated on those Jewish children rescued by the worthy efforts of the Catholic Church during the Shoah. Rather than allowing the reunification of these children with their surviving Jewish families, many of these children were baptized and the Church did everything in its power to prevent reunification. Some sources refer to a 1946 directive by Pope Pius XII. The most famous case, which thankfully ended with two brothers being reunited with their Jewish families, is the Finaly affair. For details of this affair see:
isurvived.org/2Postings/Finaly-affair.html
The second was how to respond. Obviously I feel a personal burn when I hear of Catholic/Christian persecution for the sake of their religious beliefs, but that doesn’t invalidate the arguments or demonize the people who belong to these groups…