Why did the Catholics think that a crusade against the Cathars is a solution to the problem of heresy?

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I would like to understand why there was a crusade against the Cathars, because it seems to me that the Catholics tried to exterminate the Cathars so as not to bother them any more (which is very troublesome).
 
Here’s how Archbishop John Hughes explained it in a 19th century debate with a Presbyterian minister about the Catholic doctrine on religious freedom (note, he uses the term Albigensian, but he is referring to the same group/event):

Archbishop Hughes, debate with John Breckinridge
Let any man apply the doctrines of the Albigenses, simply on two points, viz. the tenet that the devil was the creator of the visible world ; and that, in order to avoid co-operation with the devil in continuing his work, the faithful should take measures by which the human race should come to an end ; and then say whether those errors were merely speculative. They were, on the contrary, pregnant with destruction to society. Was it persecution, or rather, was it not self-preservation, to arrest those errors? We shall see presently, however, that these men, like the Calvinists in France at a later period, took up the sword of sedition, and wielded it against the government under which they lived. We shall see, that long before the canon of Lateran was passed, their course was marked with plunder, rapine, bloodshed. And if so, it follows that their crimes against society springing from their doctrines, constitute the true reason of the severity of the enactment against them.

Their existence was known from the year 1022. If, then, the extermination of heretics had been a doctrine of the Catholic Church, why were they not exterminated from the first? If it was not a doctrine of the church in 1022, it was not a doctrine in 1215; for the gentleman himself admits and proclaims that our doctrines never change. Why then did not the Catholics exterminate them at once ? Is it that they were not able ? No : for at first the heresy had but few supporters. But why were they afterwards persecuted ? The reason is, that in the interval they had proceeded to sustain and propagate their infernal principles, by violence. They had placed themselves under the patronage of factious and rebellious barons, and had fought in pitched battles against their sovereigns. In the former controversy, the gentleman garbled the twenty-seventh canon of the third Council of Lateran, to show that these poor heretics were condemned to awful penalties, for nothing at all but protesting against the errors of the Church of Rome. This he did by quoting the beginning and conclusion of the canon, and, without indicating any omission, suppressing the crimes of these proto-martyrs of Calvinism. It was proved, by the very document from which he quoted, that these lambs of the Albigensian fold were “exercising such cruelty on the Christians, (ie. the Catholics) that they paid no respect to churches or monastaries, spared neither virgins nor widows, neither old nor young, neither sex nor age, but after the manner of pagans destroyed and desolated every thing.”
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Also, if memory serves, the Cistercians were first dispatched to convert them. The Dominican Order began in 1216 as a result of the Albigensian heresy to convert them.
 
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The Cathars promoted a form of civil anarchy, refusing oaths— the foundation of feudal society.

The rulers wanted to drive them out of their territories.

The Church opposed their heretical teachings, of course. But the civil rulers particularly opposed them and tried to eradicate them.
 
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And they gave St. Peter of Verona (aka St. Peter Martyr) a machete to the skull for his troubles.

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I think it’s troublesome that someone radically oversimplifies historical events in terms such as “so as not to bother them anymore”.
 
One Saint took a blade in the head, two Saints (Sts. Bernard of Clairvaux and Dominic) used their not inconsiderable intellects to argue and plead for the conversation of the Albigensians.
 
I asked this question because I would like to understand the real motives and circumstances behind the crusade against the Cathars, because extermination of a population is no small deal, and this was not the only massacre in Catholic history (and the common anti-Catholic interpretation is that these groups challenged the power of Catholic hierarchy, which they could not tolerate, so they tried to wipe out those who challenged their power).
 
These groups challenged civil authorities such as the King (especially the Cathars). They disrupted the civil peace. They lynched people, robbed houses and villages, and generally stampeded around the countryside in a mad mob. Once they got too big and started actually threatening the King’s power, the non- ecclesiastical authorities of the time ( the King and his government) leaned on the support of the Church to exterminate these heretical groups. The Church did not go about crusading against Cathars because “they bothered them”, as you put it, they crusaded against them because they were a threat to order and completely out of control. ( This applies to all heretical groups, not only the Cathars- in general groups like that would be started by countryside preachers, gain popularity, start assaulting people and possessions and disturbing the peace, then are finally put down by the combined efforts of Crown and Church.)
 
Thank you all for the responses, I have received good answers! But if you would still like to add anything useful, please do so!
 
WW2 was, to some extent, a de facto Christian crusade, at least in Europe. I have seen video of Roosevelt and Churchill joining in singing “Onward Christian Soldiers”, with servicemen.

As revisionists re write history, I’m sure they will denounce this as aggressors from England and America smashing into continental Europe, overthrowing the democratically elected government of Germany, exterminating the Nazis. Then the Christians executed their leaders, who broke no laws.

The difference between these two Christian crusades is that the papal crusade came at an earlier stage. The Albigensians were also anti humanity, but the territory they controlled was smaller. But growing.
 
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Fauken is right that the Pope tried for a while to proceed via peaceful diplomacy and conversions, and had some success in that regard. After awhile the Pope’s legate, who’d already been having to kind of sneak around in the bushes due to threats on his life, was assassinated. At that point the Pope kinda threw up his hands and declared a crusade. The political leaders in the area, who as others have said wanted to subdue this radical out-of-hand group, took it from there.
 
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I’ve only ever read reviews of RI Moore’s: “The War On Heresy, Faith and Power in Medieval Europe” but it would appear to be quite a bit more complicated than the usual Catholic apologetic approach portrays or the natural sympathies that “anybody persecuted by Medieval Christians can’t be all bad” that Jews (like me) might feel.
 
What were the results in the election where Hitler was elected?
 
SaintMartin said:
Meanwhile, Germany was ruled by a man who was elected and then had dictatorial powers voted to him.
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After having his SA bully and/or beat the tar out of anyone who would dare to vote against him, murdering a bunch of his opposition (Night of Long Knives), and pining the problems on his nation on a scapegoat. Yes. Very democratic.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Fauken is right that the Pope tried for a while to proceed via peaceful diplomacy and conversions, and had some success in that regard. After awhile the Pope’s legate, who’d already been having to kind of sneak around in the bushes due to threats on his life, was assassinated. At that point the Pope kinda threw up his hands and declared a crusade. The political leaders in the area, who as others have said wanted to subdue this radical out-of-hand group, took it from there.
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Have you actually read about the Cathars? According to Wikipedia:
Killing was abhorrent to the Cathars. Consequently, abstention from all animal food (sometimes exempting fish) was enjoined of the Perfecti… War and capital punishment were also condemned.

At first [Pope] Innocent tried peaceful conversion, and sent a number of legates into the Cathar regions. They had to contend not only with the Cathars, the nobles who protected them, and the people who respected them, but also with many of the bishops of the region, who resented the considerable authority the Pope had conferred upon his legates. In 1204, Innocent III suspended a number of bishops in Occitania…

In January 1208 the papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau—a Cistercian monk, theologian and canon lawyer—was sent to meet the ruler of the area, Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse. Known for excommunicating noblemen who protected the Cathars, Castelnau excommunicated Raymond for abetting heresy following an allegedly fierce argument during which Raymond supposedly threatened Castelnau with violence. Shortly thereafter, Castelnau was murdered as he returned to Rome, allegedly by a knight in the service of Count Raymond.
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It sounds to my as if the Albigensian Crusade was more complicated than many people in this thread are implying. Since the Cathars were against killing, it’s unlikely that they were responsible for the murder of Catelnau and that it was instead the Count of Toulouse, who was not a Cathar and who had just threatened Castelneu for excommunicating him, who was behind the murder.
 
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The Count of Toulouse was supporting the heresy. If you’d read a few more Wiki articles, it explains that the Count of Toulouse could easily have dealt with the heresy as rulers of an area were expected to do. That’s why the Pope was reaching out to him. He refused, he got excommunicated, he threatened violence to the Church’s representative, who was later killed. And as always, the subjects suffered for the misdeeds/ mistakes of their ruler. I’m not saying it was a good outcome, but that’s how life was then.
 
Nevertheless, the violence was not being done by the Cathars, but you wouldn’t know this from many of the comments in this thread.
 
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