Protestant persecution of Catholics

[Contarini]

“radical Protestants?” The religious wars (not theological, but with weapons) rammed down Europe’s throat by Luther saw no consistency.

Further illogic. Luther condemned religious war, and *reluctantly *gave his sanction to the Protestant princes forming a league for defensive purposes. It is not accident that the religious war in Germany did not break out till after his death–he was a strong influence holding back the Protestant rulers from taking up arms. He sanctioned the suppression of the peasants because he thought they were robbing, murdering raping hordes of savages. Whether or not he was right (on the whole he was relying on self-serving government propaganda), he acted according to the information he had. If you heard that American Muslims had risen up and were slaughtering and raping their Christian neighbors on a vast scale, you might be tempted to propose some rather violent responses yourself.

He killed indiscriminantly.

Bunk. He didn’t kill anyone. He was basically a “law and order” guy, and he backed up the government in doing what he thought it had to do to keep order in society. Catholics did exactly the same.

The Peasant Wars in particular were his excuse to exterminate the mob (Catholic and Protestant alike)

Provide one shred of evidence for this.

and at the same time cripple the leadership of the Catholic Church-- all the while without costing him a penny, and at the expense of all of Europe.

How killing peasants was going to cripple the leadership of the Catholic Church, I don’t know. Are you trying to tell me that you think Luther deliberately encouraged the revolt and then encouraged its suppression so that he could hurt both sides? Have you thought for one minute about what an uncharitable accusation this is, when Luther’s actions can be quite easily accounted for on less paranoid grounds? From the point of view of a historian, a Christian, or simply a rational human being your theory is repellent and ridiculous. You are making up a bizarre conspiracy that historians do not accept and that is completely unnecessary to explain the evidence.

Even further and often overlooked, in one fell swoop, he killed the Rennaisance.

It’s overlooked for the very good reason that he did nothing of the sort. You can argue that the religious conflicts confessionalized the Renaissance and took away some of its bloom, but they didn’t kill it. It’s also simply wrong to blame Luther single-handedly for the confessional conflicts of the sixteenth century. I agree that he bears much of the blame, but not all of it.

What a guy.

Indeed. A great villain of fantasy literature. You should be a novelist. But your skills as a reader of history leave a great deal to be desired.

You could also look on NewAdvent under England, Ireland, Scotland and, perhaps most directly, under Penal Laws.

Why, given that this has nothing directly to do with Luther? These laws long postdated Luther and Luther’s influence in England was only indirect.

Edwin

 

[shirleytowers]

why the hostility? I guess I am thinking of the suffering caused by this. words fail me. I get upset, yeah. I feel the pain. So should we all, lest this kind of thing happen again.

 

[Gunger]

Your claim that Luther had “hundreds of thousands of Catholics” killed isn’t even bad history–it’s pure absurdist fantasy on a level with the claim of fundamentalist Protestants that the Catholic Church killed millions of “Protestants” in the Middle Ages.

---

A further level of dishonesty and hypocrisy in your argument is your insistence that Luther is responsible for the acts of the secular government just because he approved of them. Would you then disagree with your Catholic compatriots and admit that the Catholic Church is responsible for the deaths of those killed by secular rulers with the approval of the Church? Church courts actually condemned heretics and handed them over to the secular courts, yet Catholics on this board make a great deal out of the fact that the Catholic Church didn’t actually execute them. Yet when Luther, at a moment of national crisis and based on lurid stories he had been fed, writes an intemperate pamphlet encouraging the rulers to do what they were going to do anyway, he is somehow the primary one responsible!

Fair enough. Luther didn’t personally pull the trigger. Neither did Hitler. And while I certainly do NOT mean to equate Luther to Hitler (though some historians, like Crocker, are less restrained), you get the point. Luther’s pen most certainly commanded (as opposed to simply “approved,” as you suggest) the death of hundreds of thousands. As the excerpt from my previous post illustrates, he not only demanded those deaths, he celebrated in them-- don’t take my word for it…take his.

In terms of the Church’s history in condemning heresy, while admittedly imperfect, that was not the subject of the original post. We were specifically asked to provide historical examples of Catholics being persecuted by Protestants. I hardly mean to suggest that Catholic hands are not bloodied as well…I simply stuck to the topic. Regardless, thanks for the words you put in my mouth about wanting it “both ways”-- something I never suggested let alone argued. Though I would challenge you to provide one example of the Church celebrating in the slaughter of innocents. In any case, that’s where my additional references to NewAdvent were targeted: the topic of the thread.

In terms of Luther needing government to keep order (as you say, well, of course he needed it-- he destroyed the only foundational order in a loosely held Germany, the Catholic Church. As I said before, he pulled the rug out from under the idea of Church being the authority. In doing so, Luther gave birth to the moral relativism (or the “social contract” Protestantism) that permeates to this day…along with the need for people with guns to keep the mob in line. It is not a stretch to say that, not long before Luther, the mob (as opposed to the nobles) were kept in line by faith…the Catholic faith, the command of the Apostolic Church. What results when you undermine that authority? NOW we can talk about Hitler. Or Stalin.

Finally, we could debate Luther all day, but I think one thing is absolutely true: the man lived too long. It is his own inconsistency…amazing and fetished as it is…that undermines literally anything the man wrote, taught, believed or passed down, no matter how brilliant it may have seemed when originally authored.

I much prefer Peter as the founder of my Church.

 

[colliric]

Because **More was dead.
**
Stay on target. Links, please. I haven’t gotten any information from you about my opening question. I brought up Tyndale to illustrate the kind of persecution I was looking for, but from Protestants to Catholics.

Yes and he was being pursued by Henry. So you see you were wrong to assert it was only the Catholic church.

In england there was much persecution of holders of the Rheims version, just look it up on the net.

 

[Taliesin]

Yes and he was being pursued by Henry. So you see you were wrong to assert it was only the Catholic church.

In england there was much persecution of holders of the Rheims version, just look it up on the net.

Who asserted anything of the kind? Didn’t you read my original question? I’m looking for information–I was hoping for more than “just look it up.”

Thanks to all who have provided links . I am reading them.

 

[Liberian]

Taliesin,

I see you’ve gotten a bunch of responses already. I’d just like to welcome you to the Catholic Answers Forums. I hope you have a blessed and fruitful time here.

• Liberian

 

[Catholic29]

Then there was the attempted 17th century re-conquest of Ireland by Oliver Cromwell.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwellian_conquest_of_Ireland

 

[Zooey]

Two words: Irish history

Google it yourself, I am not going to give you links, it’s a big double duh.

Oh, and did you know thousands, perhaps as many as 100,000, Irish Catholics were kidnapped from Ireland by the English and sold into slavery in the Americas?

I found out about it when doing research for a paper with my daughter.

kavanaghfamily.com/articles/2003/20030618jfc.htm

us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/test_irish_slave.html

http://www.btpale.com/15x.htm

scoilgaeilge.org/academics/slaves.htm

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/78714

rootsweb.com/~fianna/history/

republican-news.org/archive/1997/February20/20stkt.html

There are more, but I assume this is sufficient.

I had not heard of it before a few years ago.

It is just part of the persecution of the Catholic Irish by the Protestants from across the Irish Sea. In Ireland they are now calling it genocide, which is certainly was.

why the hostility? I guess I am thinking of the suffering caused by this. words fail me. I get upset, yeah. I feel the pain. So should we all, lest this kind of thing happen again.

I have an Irish Penal Rosary, made in Ireland…It is a poignant reminder of those terrible days…The Irish invented the penal rosary, because there was a sentence of death or deportation attached to owning a rosary.
I suspect that my Irish forebears, Catholic & Protestant alike, must smile down a little when I pray on it.

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A suggestion: Try googling “the seige of Drogheda”…
At the end of WW2, there was a group of journalists from all over the free world who were asked to visit the sites of the Nazi death camps. One of them was a representative of a large Irish newspaper. His article began something like this:
“When I was a little boy, I remember hearing people talk of Drogheda, & I could not ever imagine what it was or what they meant by it. It was beyond a child’s imaginings.
As an adult, I felt the same. I could not put a face to such horrors.
Yesterday, I visited Drogheda. Today, they call it Auschwitz.”

The Irish Catholics were as hated & despised by their British oppressors as the Jews were hated & despised by the Nazis. The Germans simply had “better” technology to suit their bloodlust…:crying: :crying: :crying: :crying:

 

[Church_Militant]

I have an Irish Penal Rosary

, made in Ireland…It is a poignant reminder of those terrible days…The Irish invented the penal rosary, because there was a sentence of death or deportation attached to owning a rosary.
I suspect that my Irish forebears, Catholic & Protestant alike, must smile down a little when I pray on it.

---

A suggestion: Try googling “the seige of Drogheda”…
At the end of WW2, there was a group of journalists from all over the free world who were asked to visit the sites of the Nazi death camps. One of them was a representative of a large Irish newspaper. His article began something like this:
“When I was a little boy, I remember hearing people talk of Drogheda, & I could not ever imagine what it was or what they meant by it. It was beyond a child’s imaginings.
As an adult, I felt the same. I could not put a face to such horrors.
Yesterday, I visited Drogheda. Today, they call it Auschwitz.”

The Irish Catholics were as hated & despised by their British oppressors as the Jews were hated & despised by the Nazis. The Germans simply had “better” technology to suit their blood lust…:crying: :crying: :crying: :crying:Could you ever post us a scan of that Rosary, My friend? Or at least PM it to me?

Well, you’re right of course and the persecutions of Irish Catholics was shameful, but we’re a hardy lot and between time and the Holy Spirit we’ll be just fine. :irish1:

 

[Zooey]

Could you ever post us a scan of that Rosary, My friend? Or at least PM it to me? Well, if I could, I would…But my camera is the cardboard 35mm kind from Walmart’s…It’s all I can do to manage that!!

Mind you, it’s not an old one; I had it specially made, however, as the originals were made: from the bits & pieces of old rosaries that had been hidden away. Huge old wooden beads, tied on knotted linen cord, with a crucifix that must be as old as I am, if not older…
Greatly loved, it is, & everyone who loves the rosary should have one. Just as a reminder to be thankful for the freedom to pray without fear…

Well, you’re right of course and the persecutions of Irish Catholics was shameful, but we’re a hardy lot and between time and the Holy Spirit we’ll be just fine

. :irish1:
Celts are a hardy lot, aren’t we?? Probably why we Americans are such a tough bunch to come up against; plenty of good Celtic blood in us!!

 

[seanie]

Persecutions suffered by the Catholics of Ireland
under Cromwell and the Puritans (Rev. Moran (1903)):
angelfire.com/ms/seanie/history/moranindex.html

 

[Red_Neck_Woman]

Here are the list of recognized English martyrs.

These men and women were sent to the scaffold, beheaded or died in prison because they adhered to the Catholic faith.

newadvent.org/cathen/05474a.htm

You will note that several of the lay people were killed because they gave refuge to a priest, or allowed a Catholic Mass to be said in their houses. Both of these were captial crimes in Elizabethan England ( as well as just being a Catholic priest)

One of them, St. Margaret Clitherow, was killed in the public square by having large stones placed upon her until she was crushed. She was pregnant at the time.

catholictradition.org/Saints/clitherow.htm

You can also check out the Penal Laws (officially called the “Laws in Ireland for the Supression of Popery”) placed on Ireland. Those prohibited, for example, Catholics to own land, be educated, practice a trade or profession or to bring a law suit against a Protestant.

law.umn.edu/irishlaw/

I had to sign up for these forums just to saw thank you for these links. I loved (hated?) the information about the Irish Penal laws that I blogged about them this morning. I had vague knowledge of them previously but reading the text is a rather chilling experience. Sometimes I think it’s easier to face outright martyrdom and death than face life as an impoverished second-class citizen. I am humbled by the dedication that Irish Catholics had in the face of such laws. May God bless their sacrifices and renew in all of us a spirit of that sort of martyrdom.

I’ll just have to save some of the other tales of martyrdom that you all have linked to for another day. THANKS!

 

[gam197]

It depends how you look at Luther. He caused confusion by spreading false doctrine.This led to constant uprising and wars such as the Knights Revolt in 1522 and the Peasant Revolt in 1524.

England…

King Henry executed…

John Fisher, Bishop
Edward Campion, Priest
Dissolution of the monasteries from 1535 to 1540 where 9000 nuns and monks were turned out-

Pilgrimage of Grace rising which occurred because of the suppression of the monasteries. They were promised a grievance hearing so they disbanded but instead were rounded up and executed.- 150 deaths including monks and the leader Robert Aske.
newadvent.org/cathen/12084b.htm

France…
Tumult of Ambrose 1561- Huguenots tried to kill King Francis II and began the War of Religions. Huguenots sacked 60 churches and killed 150 monks, nuns and priests at Montpellier.

Netherlands…
August 15, 1566 - Antwerp. The Calvinists sacked 400 Catholic churches smashing statues and decapitating statues of Christ.

[The Americas had just been discovered. Pope Paul III was condemning the potential slavery of American Indians and Europe was being attacked by the Moslem Turks.]

 

[gam197]

I don’t want to imply it was all Protestant that were doing the killing because some catholic leaders started things they were unable to control such as the"St… Bartholomew’s Day Massacre." which killed thousands of Huguenots.

“Good Queen Bess” was not so good as Irish persecution took place under her.

Also the Catholics have been blamed for the witch trials when the trails took place years later in Protestant England with estimates as high as 30 thousand and in Germany with 100 thousand deaths. Spain was spared as it really didn’t get into the witch trials.

 

[Contarini]

It depends how you look at Luther. He caused confusion by spreading false doctrine.This led to constant uprising and wars such as the Knights Revolt in 1522 and the Peasant Revolt in 1524.

There were social and political causes to both of these and arguably they would have happened without Luther. BTW, the best book on the “Peasant Revolt” is The Revolution of 1525 by Peter Blickle (he also wrote an even better book on a related subject, Communal Reformation). Blickle is a secular historian with a more or less Marxist perspective, and he’s no great admirer of Luther. So I am hardly relying on Protestan t propaganda in my view of these things.

Did Luther have an impact (on the peasants’ war more than the knights’ war–in that case I think it really is fair to say that Franz von Sickingen used Luther far more than he was influenced by him)? Sure. Many of the peasants used Luther’s ideas as the jumping-off point for their revolutionary ideology.

But your statement is just way too broad. You can’t speak about historical causality that way–it’s far too complex. Think about it–if you can say that any movement tracing its origin to Luther in any way is Luther’s responsibility (even if Luther disowned it, which we know he did in the case of the peasants’ war), then you’d have to say that Jesus is responsible for every movement claiming His name! This leads to absurdity. People are responsible for what they say and do, not for the way other people choose to use their words and actions. I will grant that Luther’s violent rhetoric in the early 1520s helped to encourage the use of violence in ways that Luther himself repudiated. Luther was frequently guilty of irresponsible rhetoric. But that is a long way from the claims that have been made on this thread.

And BTW no one has yet substantiated the claims that “hundreds of thousands of Catholics” or indeed even one Catholic was/were killed (for reasons directly connected to their adherence to the Church) at Luther’s instigation or with his approval. I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but I want statistics. Insofar as the peasants claimed religious ideology behind their revolt, it was not traditional Catholicism but some populist form of the “evangelical” movement on its way to becoming Protestantism. The Catholic Church clearly condemned the revolt as well. Luther was doing nothing unusual there (the same is true of his so-called “anti-Semitism”).

England…

King Henry executed…

Luther wasn’t in England and Henry was never in any sense a follower of Luther.

Edward Campion, Priest

Not that it matters to your point, but Campion was not executed under Henry but much later under Elizabeth. Also, his first name was Edmund (I know people have trouble keeping “Eds” separate–one Byzantine Catholic priest I used to know told me that he was praying to St. Edmund Campion for my conversion, under the apparent misapprehension that my name was Edmund).

I’m not disputing any of your other statements, except for the fact that you blame the Huguenots for starting the wars of religion. I don’t think it’s possible to blame one side or the other exclusively for that, but it is possible to say that massacres of ordinary people were far more characteristic of the Catholic side than of the Protestant (St. Bartholomew’s wasn’t the only one). Protestants tended to go after Catholic leaders and clergy, and primarily after churches and religious objects they saw as idolatrous (I’m uncomfortable calling the Host a “religious object” but that’s certainly how the Protestants would have seen It!). I am not justifying this or trying to whitewash it. I’m just reporting the historical record as I see it.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Also the Catholics have been blamed for the witch trials when the trails took place years later in Protestant England with estimates as high as 30 thousand and in Germany with 100 thousand deaths.

I question those figures, particularly the ones for England. But you could be right–I don’t have the statistics at my fingertips. It should be noted, however, that in Germany the witch hunts took place in Catholic territories at least as much as in Protestant, and that France was also seriously affected (Poland got into witch-hunting late but there was a lot of it there as well). For some reason the Rhine valley seems to have been a particular hotbed of this kind of activity. One theory is that witch-hunting was an aftermath of the Reformation (it happened before of course but not on anywhere near as large a scale) and tended to occur in areas already divided and upset by religious conflict. This created a climate of fear and paranoia which got channeled into accusations against witches as a way of denouncing “the other” and maintaining one’s identity (it tended not to happen in areas where religious conflict or persecution was actually taking place at the time). One thing can be said with certainty: both Protestants and Catholics did it and witch-hunting cannot be used as a polemical weapon by either side against the other.

Spain was spared as it really didn’t get into the witch trials.

Apparently because of the Inquisition, which followed a much more restrained and rational approach than northern courts. I’ve heard this explained (generally by secular historians) as a result of the fact that the Spanish were too busy persecuting other groups (as if there were some kind of finite “persecution energy” that could only be expended in so many directions at once–it seems to me that the opposite is the case, and that genuine paranoia feeds on itself and can create an infinite number of enemies). But I think that in fact this is genuinely to the credit of the Inquisition–an institution for which I have no particular love, but it did play by its own grim rules and was on the whole fairer and juster than most other legal institutions of the sixteenth century.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[gam197]

orignally posted by Contarini
But your statement is just way too broad. You can’t speak about historical causality that way–it’s far too complex. Think about it–if you can say that any movement tracing its origin to Luther in any way is Luther’s responsibility (even if Luther disowned it, which we know he did in the case of the peasants’ war), then you’d have to say that Jesus is responsible for every movement claiming His name

In every civilized cultures there are rules of wars. For example, during war time, the military forces fight the military forces not the average cilivian or as a rule, they don’t attack women and children. The rules would have been the same in those years. To attack priests, nuns. monks and churches would have not been done so to attribute this to just wars in general in not acceptable. They totally destroyed hundreds of churches and killed religious.

.

Henry was never in any sense a follower of Luther.

I did not mean to imply that Henry was a follower of Luther.The figure of 9000 nuns and monks turned out from from monasteries was from " A History of the Catholic Church" by Thomas Bokenkotter. According to these forums. Bokenkotter is abit of a liberal.

It should be noted, however, that in Germany the witch hunts took place in Catholic territories at least as much as in Protestant,

This figure are estimates taken from a recent catholic history book but I will post a site I just picked off the internet. Please look at the dates. To suggest that England was still catholic or that Germany was still catholic doesn’t seem realistic to me. They were Protestant controlled nations. The Catholic Church is constantly attacked as the cause of the witch trials.

hulford.co.uk/essex.html

 

[gam197]

originally posted by Contarini
The Calvinists sacked 400 Catholic churches smashing statues and decapitating statues of Christ.

I misquoted the information. It says churches in 400 towns and villages. Antwerp alone had 25 churches. It doesn’t state the number of churches.

I’m not disputing any of your other statements, except for the fact that you blame the Huguenots for starting the wars of religion.

The plot to kidnap King Francis II and the desecration of the 60 catholic churches took place in 1560-1561.Queen Elizabeth’s secretary of state William Cecil was encouraging the Calvinist Huguenots. The Wars of Religion, a series of seven wars began in 1562 .

The St. Barthlomew’s Day Massacre didn’t happened until 1572 under power hungry Queen mother Catherine d’Medici and young King Charles.

And BTW no one has yet substantiated the claims that “hundreds of thousands of Catholics”

Not in France, Netherlands or Germany.

 

[Contarini]

In every civilized cultures there are rules of wars. For example, during war time, the military forces fight the military forces not the average cilivian or as a rule, they don’t attack women and children. The rules would have been the same in those years.

Actually no, sixteenth-century armies in general weren’t very good at keeping these rules. They were made up mostly of mercenaries who had very little discipline and were mainly out for plunder. Atrocities against civilians were common. Of course, the peasants’ war was an exception–the peasants were not mercenaries but were motivated by anger at the ruling classes (secular and religious). The atrocity stories that so outraged Luther seem to have been exaggerated, but there were a lot of castles and monasteries sacked.

To attack priests, nuns. monks and churches would have not been done so to attribute this to just wars in general in not acceptable. They totally destroyed hundreds of churches and killed religious.

I feel as if you keep shifting your ground. The old dodge of blaming Luther both for the revolt and for the suppression of the revolt is simply unfair. Luther condemned what the peasants did, and you know this quite well. I thought you were talking about the religious wars more broadly.

.

I did not mean to imply that Henry was a follower of Luther.

Then what is the relevance of this information?

Please look at the dates. To suggest that England was still catholic or that Germany was still catholic doesn’t seem realistic to me. They were Protestant controlled nations.

I didn’t suggest England was. Germany was made up of many different territories–it never became Protestant as a whole (you do know that the Pope comes from Germany, right!–his region of Bavaria has always been staunchly Catholic, and many others as well). Some areas were Catholic, others were Protestant. Generally the northern and eastern areas were more likely to be Protestant and the south and west were more predominantly Catholic. This is still the case, although during and after WWII many Germans wound up migrating from one part of Germany to the other. For instance, I spent three months in a historically Lutheran region (Niedersachsen–the town was called Wolfenbuttel) but there were a significant number of Catholics, which I heard referred to as the “diaspora.”

To repeat: there never was a time when Germany as a whole became Protestant. In 1555 the Peace of Augsburg allowed each local territorial ruler to decide which faith to follow. At that point the choices were Lutheran or Catholic–after the Thirty Years’ War in the 17th century Calvinism was also officially recognized.

The Catholic Church is constantly attacked as the cause of the witch trialsl

Yes, it is, and this is totally unfair. Protestants and Catholics share blame on this one.

Edwin

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

This might have already been brought up but what about Bismarck’s kulturkampf? I am not sure what Bismarck’s religious views were (he defiantly wasn’t Catholic), but in my Modern Germany class we were taught that his kulturkampf was (among other things) an attempt by him to unite the Protestant Germans against the, “Catholic menace.” There was a lot more to it than that and I don’t recall any killing of Catholics, but his kulturkampf none the less persecuted Catholics.

Maybe someone around here knows more about it than I do. We went really fast over it in the class and focused mainly on his foreign policy more so than his domestic policy.

And sorry if this has been brought up already, I haven’t been following the thread.