What do you say to people who say Catholicism is violent?

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Because of the violence in the medieval times and burning people at the stake a few hundred years ago. Why did this happen and what do you say to those who bring it up? (other than “protestants did it too”). Nowadays Catholics would condemn it severely I think but I wonder why this happened in the first place (What were the circumstances) Guess an institution so old is bound to have some dark periods? Have any teachings changed since then??
 
kaitlyn76 said:
violence in the medieval times
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When looking a history, you have to keep context in mind. Muslims had taken not just the Middle East and North Africa, but most of Spain, Sicily and Greece. Europe had to fight back. Sometimes the concept of just war applies. It was good that they fought back, otherwise chances are there would be no western civilization or Christianity today.
 
Yes! We violate cultural and societal norms and practices. We violate “conventional wisdom” and secular thought. We violate the pervasive relativism with revealed truth. We violate the anesthetized numbness of thoughtless daily living. We violate spiritual poverty and emptiness with the in-dwelling of the infinite Holy Spirit. We violate the noise and tumult of modern life with…

…Silence.

Mediation.

Contemplation.

Gratitude.
 
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You might point out that throughout most of history, economic gains and indeed, the very survival of one’s tribe pretty much depended on your tribe declaring war on the neighbors, and either killing them or enslaving them and taking all their land, gold and other stuff. Nowadays we don’t usually do that, we just do joint ventures and try to sell them all our widgets, and get their money through trade.

In a world where countries were essentially fighting with each other and even having civil wars all the time, the Church was going to get sucked into that. Even with all that going on, there were plenty of nonviolent monasteries and orders trying to make the world better and more peaceful.
 
No one has ever said that to me. Not to my face, anyway. And they’d better not, if they know what’s good for ‘em. Turn the other cheek? Ha! I’ll turn his cheek right onta th’ other side-ah his head.
 
I usually reply along these lines: “Are you really bothered by violence? So you must be really bothered by 150,000,000 people killed in just the past 100 years by communist and socialist Atheist governments!”

99.9% of the time they suddenly withdraw all “violent” objections to the Church and quit complaining.

Because they’re not anti-violence. They’re just anti-Catholicism and anti-Christianity.
 
I normally point to all the tens of thousands of people being killed by ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al Qaeda. Pretty much every year since 2001. But even before that, the Taliban took over Afghanistan. So, let’s keep that in mind. The last religious war by Christians was when? 1670s? The Battle of Vienna?

Anyways, its been several hundred years, and the Muslims are the ones still perpetrating lots of violence today. It makes me really mad when liberals or atheists will point to like Timothy McVeigh, or some other psychopath as an example of Christian terrorist. Firstly, McVeigh wasn’t a Christian. Secondly, here are the membership estimates of the world’s 4 largest terror organizations:

Al Qaeda: ~31,000-58,000
ISIS: ~10-20,000
The Taliban ~60,000
Boko Haram ~5-20,000

So, the high numbers all together is 158,000 fighers. Keeping in mind that there are dozens of other terrorist groups. And every one of these fighters have family that supports them, villages and regions that support them. So, no matter how many examples of a “Christian” terrorist they can come up with, it will always be a drop in the bucket compared to Muslim terrorists. Because there aren’t actually Christian terrorist organizations anywhere. These are all organizations that can recruit tens of thousands of fighters, and are supported by sizeable chunks of the population in certain countries. So again, in our lifetimes, these are the people perpetrating violence in the name of religion. Not Christians. I think thats important context even when talking history. Islam has not reformed. What its doing in 2018 isn’t so different as the religious wars of 1518 or the Crusades of 1018.
 
kaitlyn76 said:
Because of the violence in the medieval times and burning people at the stake a few hundred years ago.
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People have been, and always will be, violent. We have a fallen nature. Many persons who have perceived faith in Jesus through the lens of violence misunderstand the essence of discipleship. I point them back to the New Testament, which was written by, for, and about Catholics.

Catholics have committed many aggregious acts. Rejecting Catholicism because of this makes about as much sense as rejecting Jesus because of the actions of Judas and other Jews that rejected Jesus.

I might also show them where to find the Catechism online or give them a paper copy and ask them to show me where Catholicism is violent.

There is nothing in the Teaching of the Church that enjoins Catholics to be in any way violent.
kaitlyn76 said:
Why did this happen and what do you say to those who bring it up? (other than “protestants did it too”).
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One must understand these things in their context. At the time, heresy was considered treason, as it was a departure from the National Faith. Treason was commonly punished by death.
kaitlyn76 said:
Nowadays Catholics would condemn it severely I think but I wonder why this happened in the first place (What were the circumstances)
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It is very important for Catholics to understand and be able to explain these events in context.
kaitlyn76 said:
Guess an institution so old is bound to have some dark periods?
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It is important to understand that the Church is the Bride of Christ. As such, she is incarnational as He is. She has a Divine part ,and a human part. Jesus is her Head, and she is ensouled by the Holy Spirit. It is these Divine elements that make her infallible, not the human. There are humans attached to the Church who are faithless, and even evil. These persons are not the Source of the Divine Revelation, nor are they good examples of disciples of Christ.

No amount of human frailty can diminish the power of God placed in His One Body, the Church. Many Catholics can sin and do horrible things, but the purity and holiness of God in the Church always triumphs. People have dark periods, and some have dark deeds, but the Light of Christ is always more powerful.
kaitlyn76 said:
Have any teachings changed since then??
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No., but this is a good question to put to your detractors. Can you show me where the Church has ever taught that violence is the way of Christ? If not, then we are talking about Catholics who failed to understand the teachings of Christ.

The burden is always upon the accuser to produce the evidence.
 
Thank you!! I was looking for one of those (the Catechism) but I didn’t know what it was callled! Ah I still have a lot to learn
 
Be fair. There are far more people today than there were then, and the means by which to enact violence are exponentially quicker. Do you know how many Waldensians and Cathars could have been killed if the populations of those people were 10 times greater and their enemies had machine guns?
 
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We must remember that Islam is 700 years younger than Catholicism. If we finished up our religious wars only about 350 years ago, then it might take Islam 700 years past when we stopped to finish theirs, which would be another 3 or 4 centuries in the future.
 
I think you’ll find that I made no excuse for what Christians did in the past. My only point was that somewhere along the line, such attrocities did indeed cease to be committed in the name of our religion. That is not the case for only one religion I can think of.

Should Christians have to answer for crimes that happened 400+ years ago? 1,000 years ago? I think we should take Muslims to account much more for violence that they continue to perpetrate today.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
We must remember that Islam is 700 years younger than Catholicism. If we finished up our religious wars only about 350 years ago, then it might take Islam 700 years past when we stopped to finish theirs, which would be another 3 or 4 centuries in the future.
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One would hope. But, there aren’t any verses for Christians calling them to kill another group of people all the way to the end of the world.

" The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (the Boxthorn tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."

So yes, hopefully Muslims won’t kill Jews until the end of time. HOPEFULLY They’ll stop within 350 or 400 years, as you say.
 
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I would certainly agree that Islam today as a whole is more violent than Christianity. If given the choice to live in a predominantly Christian country or an Islamic one, the choice is clear.

The thing is Catholicism predicates itself on being an unending connection to Jesus. Listen to any EWTN radio program and there will be a commercial touting this connection and all that it did in the past. One has to take the good with the bad, so the only option is to delve deep into moral relativism – something Christians are told not to do.
 
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