Page 549 - Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible Christianity. Based on the King James Bible

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

those days. Puritans, Anabaptists, Particular Baptists, they led in the massacre of untold multitudes. By these
and others fled to Europe and America because of the methods they stopped the Reformation in Southern
persecution poured out upon them by the state church Europe, and virtually saved the papacy from
of England. (We have given extensive documentation of ruin” (Halley).
the Protestant persecution of Baptists in “The Protestant Examples of Inquisition Horrors. Consider the
Persecutions” at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/ Albigenses. They preached against the immoralities of
protestant-persecutions.html.) the priesthood, pilgrimages, worship of saints and
It was the Anabaptists’ desire to practice biblical images; completely rejected the Catholic clergy and its
separation and to maintain apostolic order that brought claims; criticized church conditions; opposed the claims
upon them this hatred from the Catholic and Protestant of the Church of Rome; made great use of the
state churches. “Unlike the other Reformers, the Scriptures; lived self-denying lives and had great zeal
Anabaptists were not committed to the notion that for moral purity. For such great “evils,” Pope Innocent
‘Christendom’ was Christian. From the beginning they III, in 1208, ordered a crusade against these New
saw themselves as missionaries to people of lukewarm Testament Christians. A bloody war of extermination
piety, only partly obedient to the gospel. The followed, scarcely paralleled in history. Town after town
Anabaptists systematically divided Europe into sectors was put to the sword, and the inhabitants murdered
for evangelistic outreach and sent missionaries out into without distinction of age or sex. In 1229 the Inquisition
them in twos and threes. ... They were not interested in was established and within a hundred years the
simply reforming the church; they were committed to Albigenses were utterly rooted out (Halley).
restoring it to the vigour and faithfulness of its earliest Cosnider the Huguenots. Their earnest piety and pure
centuries... The Anabaptists came to elaborate upon the lives were in striking contrast to the scandalous lives of
‘congregational’ (independent, autonomous) view of the Roman clergy. In 1557 Pope Pius urged their
church authority” (Lion’s History of Christianity, pp. extermination. The king issued a decree for their
400, 401). massacre, and ordered all loyal subjects to help in
The Roman Counter-Reformation 1550-1675 A.D. hunting them out. St. Bartholomew’s Massacre followed.
“In fifty years the Reformation had swept Europe, Catherine de Medici, mother of the King, an ardent
with most of Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Romanist and willing tool of the pope, gave the order,
Scandinavia, England, Scotland, Bohemia, Austria, and on the night of August 24, 1572, 70,000
Hungary, Poland in its grasp; and making headway in Huguenots, including most of their leaders, were
France. This was a terrific blow to the Roman Church, massacred. There was great rejoicing in Rome. The pope
which, in turn, organized the Counter- and his college of cardinals went, in solemn procession,
Reformation” (Halley). to the Church of San Marco, and ordered the Te Deum
The Jesuits and the Inquisition. “Rome’s answer to the to be sung in thanksgiving. The pope struck a medal in
Lutheran Secession was the Inquisition under the commemoration of the massacre (Halley).
leadership of the Jesuits, an order founded by Ignatius Consider the Bohemian Brethren. By 1600 eighty
Loyola, a Spaniard, on the principle of absolute and percent of the population of 4,000,000 were Protestant.
unconditional obedience to the pope. The object of the When the Hapsburgs and Jesuits had done their work,
Inquisition and of the Jesuits was the recovery of only 800,000 were left, all Catholics (Halley).
territory lost to Protestants and Mohammedans, and the Consider Spain. Every effort for freedom or
conquest of the entire heathen world for the Roman independent thinking was crushed with a ruthless hand.
Catholic Church. Their supreme aim was the destruction Torquemada (1420-98), a Dominican monk, arch-
of heresy, that is, any thinking different from what the inquisitor, in eighteen years burned 10,200 and
pope said think. The primary methods of the Jesuits condemned to perpetual imprisonment 97,000. Victims
were Schools, seeking especially the children of ruling were usually burned alive in the public square; made
classes, aiming in all schools to gain absolute mastery the occasion of religious festivities. From 1481 to 1808
over the pupil; the Confessional, especially with kings, there were at least 100,000 martyrs and 1,500,000
princes, and civil rulers, indulging them in all kinds of banished.
vice and crime for the sake of gaining their favor; and The following is from The Anabaptist Story by
Force, persuading rulers to execute Inquisition William R. Estep:
sentences. In France they were responsible for St. Under the persecuting zeal of Cardinal von
Bartholomew’s Massacre [in which 70,000 separatist Dietrichstein the Brethren were robbed of all their
Christians were slaughtered in one night], persecution savings and driven out of Moravia. Once again
of the Huguenots. ... In Spain, Netherlands, South deprived of houses and land, cattle and household
Germany, Bohemia, Austria, Poland and other countries, goods, they became wanderers upon the face of the

Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity 549