over time how many people have the catholic church killed including the crusades and spanish inquisition etc?

Question

catholic church purges

Answer 1

Can one reasonably suppose fewer than Stalin murdered (20 million)? The link below guesses "between 1.5 and 5 million" for the Inquisition and 350,000 in the Crusades.

There is less documentation on how many Christians and others have been killed in jihad over the centuries.

But everybody has an agenda. You can not safely believe anyone.

Answer 2

+ Crusades +

Muslim armies had conquered much of northern Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Spain, which had been some of the most heavily Christian areas in the world.

Thousands, and possibly millions, of Christians died during this drive to eventually bring the entire world under Islam.

The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II to check the advance of the Muslims and regain control of the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

I am sure that some atrocities were committed by both sides during this war but by most people's judgment this was a just war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade

+ Inquisition +

Modern historians have long known that the popular view of the Inquisition is a myth. The Inquisition was actually an attempt by the Catholic Church to stop unjust executions.

Heresy was a capital offense against the state. Rulers of the state, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did common people, who saw heretics as dangerous outsiders who would bring down divine wrath.
When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig. It was not to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. The lord needed some basic theological training, very few did. The sad result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent judge of the crime.

The Catholic Church's response to this problem was the Inquisition, an attempt to provide fair trials for accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges.

From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the king and therefore deserved death. From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the pope and bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them. So, while medieval secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls. The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community.

Most people tried for heresy by the Inquisition were either acquitted or had their sentences suspended. Those found guilty of grave error were allowed to confess their sin, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ. The underlying assumption of the Inquisition was that, like lost sheep, heretics had simply strayed.

If, however, an inquisitor determined that a particular sheep had purposely left the flock, there was nothing more that could be done. Unrepentant or obstinate heretics were excommunicated and given over to secular authorities. Despite popular myth, the Inquisition did not burn heretics. It was the secular authorities that held heresy to be a capital offense, not the Church. The simple fact is that the medieval Inquisition saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.

Where did this myth come from? After 1530, the Inquisition began to turn its attention to the new heresy of Lutheranism. It was the Protestant Reformation and the rivalries it spawned that would give birth to the myth. Innumerable books and pamphlets poured from the printing presses of Protestant countries at war with Spain accusing the Spanish Inquisition of inhuman depravity and horrible atrocities in the New World.

For more information, see:
The Real Inquisition, By Thomas F. Madden, National Review (2004) http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/madden200406181026.asp
Inquisition by Edward Peters (1988)
The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen (1997)

With love in Christ.

Answer 3

I am so tired of the Crusades being carried around like
the ring for the bride, the Crusades were actually started because the muslims were running around killing people who wouldn't convert. And as for the Spanish Inquisition, that was Catholics torturing anyone who did not believe their way, but also was political. They tortured Christians too. Stop blaming everything religious on Christians because you can't lump us together.

Answer 4

I am not sure you could get proper results for this.

For one thing how do you define what a catholic is? Is it cause they say they are or cause they go to church every single week?

There have been lots of different periods of religious violence - the wars between the catholics and protestants went on for several hundred years in Europe. The catholics and protestants did like to torture each other.

As much as it has been involved in purpertrating violence the Parts of the Catholic church has been strongly involved in protecting people especially in Latin American in the 20th Century.

The balance sheet of lives taken and lives saved i don't think would demonstrate much.

Answer 5

As to 'Purges', wrong term. The church did their best to build the population up, not throw out.
It was join or die.
As to numbers, there would be accurate way to count because no one kept records of the killings and why. Mostly they were done by edict from the Pope at the time. Many were involved.
If you want a general and fairly accurate accounting of the whys and wherefores, the Awake magazine ran a series several years ago the was good reading, and they usually have good sources to research.

Answer 6

hey, and don't forget, the recent afganistan, and iraq wars... then you have the vietnam and korean wars (though not religiously motivated apparently... it was christiandom fighting islam and communisim which are both anti christian), and then not to mention the KKK, and the nazis who believe that god has given them divine right and that they are something special (phew several million to the nazis alone!) then you have the conquering of all the savages and infidels during colonialism... the old saying that the missionary arrived with the bible and the gun.
you asked a big question... what you can guarantee is that christianity is the bloodiest religion of them all!!!!
and then they pick holes in other religions for violence and war!!!

edit> i've forgotten about all the witches and scientists because they didn't confirm with the RC point of view etc in the inquisitions that occured all over europe which killed hundreds of people for nothing!!!

Answer 7

Over time how many people have the non-Catholics killed, including the Jews, Romans, Nazis, Communists, etc?

Answer 8

How many more people have been killed by godless political systems lke communism, and nazism (based on genetic cleansing from Darwinism).

It isn't religion that did the killing, it is the politicization of religion, something that hopefully we have fixed in the US with the bill of rights.

Spiritual faith is important to many people, so be a little more accepting of people and their choices.

Answer 9

I dont know, but I do know in the last 22 years over a million Christians have been killed by the Muslims in Sudan.

Answer 10

Maybe they have, but they did not do it because christianity told them to do so, they were following their own crazy instict, however muslim are following just what is said in their religion, spreading the word of Allah by the sword. we find good and evil in all religion but Islams find a justification for their actions,they are just like a bunch of idiots pleading temporary insanity in a court room.