The Inquisition: 50-68 million killed by the Church ? That’s quite a fantastic allegation (to put it mildly and charitably) by Rose42
Dec 16, 2018 17:04:25 #
11/10/2016 The Inquisition: 50-68 million killed by the Church ?
Dave Armstrong
http://www.themichigancatholic.org/2016/11/inquisition-50-68-million-killed-church/
Apologetics Archives - Page 8 of 18 - The Michigan Catholic
www.themichigancatholic.org/catholicism/apologetics/page/8/
Non-Catholic Christians and the secular world have used the Inquisitions, the Crusades, and the Galileo incident as “clubs” to bash the Church for almost 500 years.
I did so myself, in my Protestant days. But such critics almost invariably distort (willingly or unwittingly) the known facts in order to do so.
One Reformed Protestant apologist, for example, referred on his website to
“the Inquisition where an estimated 50-68 million people were killed by Rome.”
That’s quite a fantastic allegation (to put it mildly and charitably), seeing that the entire population of Europe at its height in the Middle Ages is thought by scholars to have been between 100-120 million.
If true, that would mean the Church killed as many people as the Black Death (Bubonic Plague), which wiped out about a third to half the population.
I replied by asking him to give me the names of any reputable historians who asserted such absolutely ridiculous figures.
He said he knew of an Internet article that he couldn’t locate, by one David A. Plaisted, who turned out to be a professor of computer science;
Not an academic historian at all. Ultimately, when pressed, my friend offered no actual historian to back up his assertion, and the “debate” quickly descended from there.
On the other hand, there are many historians — even non-Catholic ones — and professors of history who offer vastly different opinions.
Edward Peters, from the University of Pennsylvania, author of Inquisition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), and Henry Kamen, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison,
Who wrote The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), are two such scholars.
These two books are in the forefront of an emerging, very different perspective on the Inquisitions:
An understanding that they were exponentially less inclined to issue death penalties than had previously been commonly assumed, and also quite different in character and even essence than the longstanding anti-Catholic stereotypes would have us believe.
“The best estimate is that around 3,000 death sentences were carried out in Spain by Inquisitorial verdict between 1550 and 1800, a far smaller number than that in comparable secular courts,” Dr. Peters writes on page 87 of his book.
Likewise, Dr. Kamen writes: “Taking into account all the tribunals of Spain up to about 1530, it is unlikely that more than two thousand people were executed for heresy by the Inquisition (p. 60).
“It is clear,” he goes on, “that for most of its existence that Inquisition was far from being a juggernaut of death either in intention or in capability. …
It would seem that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries fewer than three people a year were executed in the whole of the Spanish monarchy from Sicily to Peru, certainly a lower rate than in any provincial court of justice in Spain or anywhere else in Europe.”
(p. 203, emphasis added).
Huge myths obviously abound. But does this mean that I “defend” capital punishment for heresy, or that Catholics in general should?
No; personally, I advocate the tolerant practices of the early Church.
Yet I think it’s also supremely important to properly and accurately understand the Inquisitions in the context of their times (the Middle Ages and early modern periods).
In those eras, almost all Christians (not just Catholics; minus only a few small groups such as Anabaptists and Quakers) believed in both corporal and capital punishment for heresy, because they thought heresy was far more dangerous to a person and society than physical disease was.
Their premise, at least, was exactly right, as far as it goes: heresy can land one in hell; no disease could ever do that. How to deal with heresy is a separate, and very complex question.
In the Middle Ages, all heresy was pretty much regarded as obstinacy and in bad faith;
Evil will, etc. The Church today takes a much more psychologically nuanced approach: much heresy is (erroneously) believed in good faith; hence the adherent is less culpable and not guilty enough to be punished.
We’ve also learned the pointlessness of coercion regarding one’s religious beliefs.
This assumption of “bad faith” was the original Christian position, anyway, before heresy became wrapped up in civil disorder (such as in the cases of the Donatists, Monophysites, Arians and Albigensians, among others).
Be that as it may, some Protestants and other critics of the Catholic Church exercise a glaring double standard in condemning only the Catholic Church for engaging in this practice, and grotesquely exaggerating ludicrous numbers.
In reply, it must be noted that Protestants (including Luther, Calvin, the early English Protestants, Zwingli, Melanchthon, et al) have a long and troubling list of scandals and “inquisitions” as well.
As just one example among many, Martin Luther and John Calvin both sanctioned the execution of Anabaptists due to their belief in re-baptizing adults, which they considered to be “sedition.”
In addition, thousands of English and Irish Catholics were executed,
(Often in very hideous ways) simply for being Catholics and worshiping as their ancestors had done for 1,500 years. T
he execution of reputed “witches” (such as in the famous Salem Witch trials) was almost entirely a Protestant phenomenon as well.
In any case, it is clear that the notion of the death penalty for heresy was largely a product of the Middle Ages, and the Protestants who came at the end of that period did not, for the most part, dissent from it.
To utterly ignore these facts, while condemning the Catholic Church, is to engage in dishonest historical revisionism.
Here is what Charles Buck has first fabricated
The first appearance of the number "fifty million" that I can find is in Charles Buck,
A Theological Dictionary, Containing Definitions of All Religious Terms, 1836, in the article "Persecution":
It has been computed that fifty millions of Protestants have, at different times, been the victims of the persecutions of the Papists, and put to death for their religious opinions.
Unfortunately, Buck does not state where he gets this number. In his discussion of "Persecution of Christians by those of the same name",
In which he focuses exclusively on post-Reformation persecutions of Protestants by Catholics,
He mentions the Inquisition, the Dutch Revolt (not by that name), the French Wars of Religion (likewise not by that name), the English Reformation, the 1641 Irish Rebellion,
And unspecified slaughters by Catholics in Scotland and Spain (although it specifies that the Spanish killings it mentions are of Jews, Muslims, and "barbarians", not of Christians).
According to this source, which cites the "fifty million" number as well (and which refers to the statement by Buck),
Between fifty and sixty-eight million people (not necessarily all Protestants) were killed by "Inquisition", 1518 and later.
This apparently refers to the Roman Inquisition, although it could refer to the Spanish and perhaps the Portuguese Inquisitions as well.
This academic source states that relatively few of those tried by the Inquisitions were in fact executed;
Wikipedia estimates that the total number of people executed by the inquisition was probably between three and five thousand.
The Dutch Revolt appears to have killed between 50,000 and 100,000 people.
The French Wars of Religion probably killed about three million people (Wikipedia estimates between two and four million).
In the English Reformation, based on the Wikipedia list, fewer than 500 people were killed.
In the Irish Rebellion of 1641, about 112,000 Protestants were killed.
Wikipedia, citing an article in The Oxford Book of Scottish History, estimates that "over 1,500 people" were executed for witchcraft, of between 4,000 and 6,000 tried.
These numbers total well under 5 million.
While this amount is lamentable, it is nowhere near the fifty million cited.
Perhaps one could add the figures referred to in this source from
FaithAssemblyOnline.org, which includes the Albigensian Crusade and the Thirty Years' War.
It appears that scholarly estimates of the deaths from the Albigensian Crusade amount to between 100,000 and 1,000,000, roughly in agreement with the Faith Assembly source.
Wikipedia's article on the Thirty Years' War, however (citing Europe, A History by Norman Davis), estimates that it caused 8 million deaths on all sides.
Finally, since I am unable to find a good source for the number of deaths caused by the crusade against the Waldensians, let's assume that the number given in the Faith Assembly source (900,000) is correct.
Dave Armstrong
http://www.themichigancatholic.org/2016/11/inquisition-50-68-million-killed-church/
Apologetics Archives - Page 8 of 18 - The Michigan Catholic
www.themichigancatholic.org/catholicism/apologetics/page/8/
Non-Catholic Christians and the secular world have used the Inquisitions, the Crusades, and the Galileo incident as “clubs” to bash the Church for almost 500 years.
I did so myself, in my Protestant days. But such critics almost invariably distort (willingly or unwittingly) the known facts in order to do so.
One Reformed Protestant apologist, for example, referred on his website to
“the Inquisition where an estimated 50-68 million people were killed by Rome.”
That’s quite a fantastic allegation (to put it mildly and charitably), seeing that the entire population of Europe at its height in the Middle Ages is thought by scholars to have been between 100-120 million.
If true, that would mean the Church killed as many people as the Black Death (Bubonic Plague), which wiped out about a third to half the population.
I replied by asking him to give me the names of any reputable historians who asserted such absolutely ridiculous figures.
He said he knew of an Internet article that he couldn’t locate, by one David A. Plaisted, who turned out to be a professor of computer science;
Not an academic historian at all. Ultimately, when pressed, my friend offered no actual historian to back up his assertion, and the “debate” quickly descended from there.
On the other hand, there are many historians — even non-Catholic ones — and professors of history who offer vastly different opinions.
Edward Peters, from the University of Pennsylvania, author of Inquisition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), and Henry Kamen, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison,
Who wrote The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), are two such scholars.
These two books are in the forefront of an emerging, very different perspective on the Inquisitions:
An understanding that they were exponentially less inclined to issue death penalties than had previously been commonly assumed, and also quite different in character and even essence than the longstanding anti-Catholic stereotypes would have us believe.
“The best estimate is that around 3,000 death sentences were carried out in Spain by Inquisitorial verdict between 1550 and 1800, a far smaller number than that in comparable secular courts,” Dr. Peters writes on page 87 of his book.
Likewise, Dr. Kamen writes: “Taking into account all the tribunals of Spain up to about 1530, it is unlikely that more than two thousand people were executed for heresy by the Inquisition (p. 60).
“It is clear,” he goes on, “that for most of its existence that Inquisition was far from being a juggernaut of death either in intention or in capability. …
It would seem that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries fewer than three people a year were executed in the whole of the Spanish monarchy from Sicily to Peru, certainly a lower rate than in any provincial court of justice in Spain or anywhere else in Europe.”
(p. 203, emphasis added).
Huge myths obviously abound. But does this mean that I “defend” capital punishment for heresy, or that Catholics in general should?
No; personally, I advocate the tolerant practices of the early Church.
Yet I think it’s also supremely important to properly and accurately understand the Inquisitions in the context of their times (the Middle Ages and early modern periods).
In those eras, almost all Christians (not just Catholics; minus only a few small groups such as Anabaptists and Quakers) believed in both corporal and capital punishment for heresy, because they thought heresy was far more dangerous to a person and society than physical disease was.
Their premise, at least, was exactly right, as far as it goes: heresy can land one in hell; no disease could ever do that. How to deal with heresy is a separate, and very complex question.
In the Middle Ages, all heresy was pretty much regarded as obstinacy and in bad faith;
Evil will, etc. The Church today takes a much more psychologically nuanced approach: much heresy is (erroneously) believed in good faith; hence the adherent is less culpable and not guilty enough to be punished.
We’ve also learned the pointlessness of coercion regarding one’s religious beliefs.
This assumption of “bad faith” was the original Christian position, anyway, before heresy became wrapped up in civil disorder (such as in the cases of the Donatists, Monophysites, Arians and Albigensians, among others).
Be that as it may, some Protestants and other critics of the Catholic Church exercise a glaring double standard in condemning only the Catholic Church for engaging in this practice, and grotesquely exaggerating ludicrous numbers.
In reply, it must be noted that Protestants (including Luther, Calvin, the early English Protestants, Zwingli, Melanchthon, et al) have a long and troubling list of scandals and “inquisitions” as well.
As just one example among many, Martin Luther and John Calvin both sanctioned the execution of Anabaptists due to their belief in re-baptizing adults, which they considered to be “sedition.”
In addition, thousands of English and Irish Catholics were executed,
(Often in very hideous ways) simply for being Catholics and worshiping as their ancestors had done for 1,500 years. T
he execution of reputed “witches” (such as in the famous Salem Witch trials) was almost entirely a Protestant phenomenon as well.
In any case, it is clear that the notion of the death penalty for heresy was largely a product of the Middle Ages, and the Protestants who came at the end of that period did not, for the most part, dissent from it.
To utterly ignore these facts, while condemning the Catholic Church, is to engage in dishonest historical revisionism.
Here is what Charles Buck has first fabricated
The first appearance of the number "fifty million" that I can find is in Charles Buck,
A Theological Dictionary, Containing Definitions of All Religious Terms, 1836, in the article "Persecution":
It has been computed that fifty millions of Protestants have, at different times, been the victims of the persecutions of the Papists, and put to death for their religious opinions.
Unfortunately, Buck does not state where he gets this number. In his discussion of "Persecution of Christians by those of the same name",
In which he focuses exclusively on post-Reformation persecutions of Protestants by Catholics,
He mentions the Inquisition, the Dutch Revolt (not by that name), the French Wars of Religion (likewise not by that name), the English Reformation, the 1641 Irish Rebellion,
And unspecified slaughters by Catholics in Scotland and Spain (although it specifies that the Spanish killings it mentions are of Jews, Muslims, and "barbarians", not of Christians).
According to this source, which cites the "fifty million" number as well (and which refers to the statement by Buck),
Between fifty and sixty-eight million people (not necessarily all Protestants) were killed by "Inquisition", 1518 and later.
This apparently refers to the Roman Inquisition, although it could refer to the Spanish and perhaps the Portuguese Inquisitions as well.
This academic source states that relatively few of those tried by the Inquisitions were in fact executed;
Wikipedia estimates that the total number of people executed by the inquisition was probably between three and five thousand.
The Dutch Revolt appears to have killed between 50,000 and 100,000 people.
The French Wars of Religion probably killed about three million people (Wikipedia estimates between two and four million).
In the English Reformation, based on the Wikipedia list, fewer than 500 people were killed.
In the Irish Rebellion of 1641, about 112,000 Protestants were killed.
Wikipedia, citing an article in The Oxford Book of Scottish History, estimates that "over 1,500 people" were executed for witchcraft, of between 4,000 and 6,000 tried.
These numbers total well under 5 million.
While this amount is lamentable, it is nowhere near the fifty million cited.
Perhaps one could add the figures referred to in this source from
FaithAssemblyOnline.org, which includes the Albigensian Crusade and the Thirty Years' War.
It appears that scholarly estimates of the deaths from the Albigensian Crusade amount to between 100,000 and 1,000,000, roughly in agreement with the Faith Assembly source.
Wikipedia's article on the Thirty Years' War, however (citing Europe, A History by Norman Davis), estimates that it caused 8 million deaths on all sides.
Finally, since I am unable to find a good source for the number of deaths caused by the crusade against the Waldensians, let's assume that the number given in the Faith Assembly source (900,000) is correct.
Dec 16, 2018 17:30:40 #
Dave Armstrong has a pretty solid history of not knowing scripture. One cannot discount a source out of hand because they are a computer scientist but he does his best. Computer scientists tend to be perfectionists and very precise.
This is a case of which historians to believe. One can also find the numbers elsewhere. This doesn't include the high numbers for those who died in prison. The Catholic church is also responsible for those deaths.
And...you're still ducking my questions Doc. Dave Armstrong can't answer them for you.
If the Catholic church's claims were true - that it were the one church, with apostolic succession and the pope was the vicar of Christ then why....
Why would the Catholic clergy be unable to do what the apostles did? None of them have ever been able to.
How is it Christian for a church to murder innocents merely for reciting scripture and having a copy of the bible?
More info - I'll change the number to 5,000,000 deaths caused by the Catholics. Explain how that can be Christs "one holy church".
How is it Christian for a church to have leaders steeped in corruption as so many popes have been throughout history?
And how is it Christian for the current and past popes to continue to ignore the rampant sexual abuse and pedophilia in the clergy? How many thousands upon thousands of children have been traumatized by this?
This is a case of which historians to believe. One can also find the numbers elsewhere. This doesn't include the high numbers for those who died in prison. The Catholic church is also responsible for those deaths.
And...you're still ducking my questions Doc. Dave Armstrong can't answer them for you.
If the Catholic church's claims were true - that it were the one church, with apostolic succession and the pope was the vicar of Christ then why....
Why would the Catholic clergy be unable to do what the apostles did? None of them have ever been able to.
How is it Christian for a church to murder innocents merely for reciting scripture and having a copy of the bible?
More info - I'll change the number to 5,000,000 deaths caused by the Catholics. Explain how that can be Christs "one holy church".
How is it Christian for a church to have leaders steeped in corruption as so many popes have been throughout history?
And how is it Christian for the current and past popes to continue to ignore the rampant sexual abuse and pedophilia in the clergy? How many thousands upon thousands of children have been traumatized by this?
Dec 16, 2018 17:42:48 #
Disprove the authors cited.
What a moroon what an ignominious . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxGgnI6kCrs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NYFq7ZJg4c
What a moroon what an ignominious . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxGgnI6kCrs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NYFq7ZJg4c
Rose42 wrote:
br Dave Armstrong has a pretty solid history of n... (show quote)
Dec 16, 2018 17:54:39 #
Doc110 wrote:
Disprove the authors cited.
What a moroon what an ignominious . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxGgnI6kCrs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NYFq7ZJg4c
What a moroon what an ignominious . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxGgnI6kCrs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NYFq7ZJg4c
Answer the questions Doc. You can skip the one about the millions of death caused by Roman Catholics. Address the others
Dec 16, 2018 18:54:14 #
What a rhetorical question
German Peasants War, 1524-1525
[font=Georgia]
Tyrolean Peasants War, 1525-1526
The German Peasants’ Rebellion
Rose
Oh please stop the nonsense . .
And how many millions on the Protestant side killed Catholics.
The Catholic Church did not have an army during the Reformation.
This was governments committing war German Dutch Spanish French.
You take history so totally out of context its laughable.
You are a product of your own misguided heresy Protestantism deranged reasoning
Peasant Violence: Rebellion and Riot in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1789
History of Baden-Württemberg - The Peasants’ War (1524-1525)
German Peasants War, 1524-1525
[font=Georgia]
Tyrolean Peasants War, 1525-1526
The German Peasants’ Rebellion
Rose
Oh please stop the nonsense . .
And how many millions on the Protestant side killed Catholics.
The Catholic Church did not have an army during the Reformation.
This was governments committing war German Dutch Spanish French.
You take history so totally out of context its laughable.
You are a product of your own misguided heresy Protestantism deranged reasoning
Peasant Violence: Rebellion and Riot in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1789
History of Baden-Württemberg - The Peasants’ War (1524-1525)
Dec 16, 2018 19:00:46 #
Stop ducking the questions Doc. You can't hide behind your fiction.
I know some protestants killed Catholics but their atrocities are minuscule compared to the Catholic Church
I know some protestants killed Catholics but their atrocities are minuscule compared to the Catholic Church
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