How many people has the Catholic religion killed?

Answer 1

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Surprising at it may seem, it is important in answering a question like this to understand what is meant by 'killed'. The Catholic Church has generally been careful not to perform executions itself, but has preferred to pass sentence of death on those it regards as heretics, and then require the secular authorities to carry out the sentences. Thus the Church could always claim that it was without the stain of blood, and that any deaths must be attributed to the secular rulers. However, the secular rulers were often placed under oath to execute those the Church passed sentence on, so effectively they were not independent agents, able to refuse.

The Inquisitions are often cited as the Catholic Church's greatest moral evil, and the Spanish Inquisition is the most famous of these. However, the Spanish Inquisition differs from some other Inquisitions, especially the medieval Inquisition, in that it was set up by the Spanish authorities, under the authority of the Church but operating independent of the Church. Its purpose was to promote Catholicism and its authority was from the Church, but it was not run by the Church. Furthermore, the Spanish Inquisition was relatively mild in its punishments, only responsible for some 6,000 deaths.

The Catholic Church also sanctioned the killing of people in other ways. Rulers were expected to convert or kill pagans. In 800, Charlemagne was rewarded by the pope with the title Holy Roman Emperor, in recognition of his splendid efforts in spreading Catholicism. In just one year, Charlemagne is reputed to have beheaded forty-five hundred Saxons who resisted the Frankish campaign of forced conversion to Catholic Christianity. From 1209 until almost 1250, crusading armies poured into southern France under a papal prerogative to cleanse the area of Cathars, who were peaceful non-Catholic Christians.

We will never know how many people were killed on the orders of the Catholic Church or with the Church's direct sanction, but it is at least in the tens of thousands. It is important to note that the Church no longer teaches that non-Catholics do not have the right to worship publicly, in any way they choose. The Declaration on Religious Freedom, passed by the Second Vatican Council in December 1965, says, "In matters religious no one is forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs. Nor is anyone to be restrained from acting in accordance with his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits."

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Answer.

The Catholic Church, since the very beginning (you can read the epistles of St. Ignatius in from the end of the first century) has existed only for one reason, to bring Jesus Christ to people, to proclaim the Gospel and bring people to salvation. Despite rumors and outright propaganda against the Church, especially in the past five centuries when whole countries left the Church and started massive propaganda machines against Her, the Church continues to preach the Gospel and to extend her resources in aid to those not yet believers. The Church has existed for twenty centuries for this sole purpose, any heretic who ended up dead was a loss to the Church as they did not want anyone to die in their sins, this was always considered a disaster. The only time that the Church has barely tolerated her members killing anyone has been during wartime when they were fighting for their own lives or the lives of others. For instance, during the Crusades, the Crusaders were called to liberate the Christians who were still alive after the Muslims had gone in and massacred them by the hundreds.

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As for the Inquisitions, same thing, the Church never sanctioned the killing of people, much less as a punishment for heresy. Below is an excerpt from Seven Lies About Catholic History, you may get the book at the link below.

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from Seven Lies About Catholic History Infamous Myths About the Church's Past and How to Answer Them by Diane Moczar, c 2010 by TAN Books, Charlotte, North Carolina

On the contrary, people believed it was of the greatest importance that everyone believe what was true and what would bring him eternal life. Just as it was a crime to kill the body of a person, a crime for which death was often the penalty, so it was even more a crime to kill the soul by destroying the virtues of faith, hope, and charity with false doctrine, because that destruction affected one's eternal destiny. It was thought that concern for the common good required that the heretic, teacher of false doctrine, should be prevented from corrupting souls. The best way to accomplish that was to show the heretic where he was wrong. It that did not work, he must at least be kept from spreading his spiritual poison; and in extreme cases, such as that of the suicide-promoting Cathars, he could be executed. Is this unreasonable? What do we do today with people who advocate committing crimes?

There were cases involving the civil governments in which people did, indeed end up executed, but this was far from common in Catholic governed areas, and then only carried out by the civil government for what they viewed as treason. The non-Catholic governments were far worse, executing people by the dozens on a regular basis just because they adhered to their Catholic faith!

Answer 2

Catholic AnswerThe Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Our Blessed Lord, and His Bride. As such it was established by God and is guided by the Holy Spirit. The Catholic Church has never murdered anybody. People, who are Catholic, may have participated in murders over the centuries, every single human being who has ever lived, saving Our Blessed Lord, and His Mother are or were sinners and we should not be surprised at anything they may have done. But the Church has been on earth for nearly two thousand years with the express purpose of bringing people to God, and God to people. Murder is not only no way to accomplish that, but is forbidden as a serious sin since before the Church was established.

Answer 3

That is pure unadulterated Protestant anti-Catholic Propaganda. Catholics have not murdered hundreds of millions of people. However, millions of Catholics have been murdered by non-Catholics over the centuries and are still being murdered today. Look at England starting with Henry VIII. Look at Germany under Hitler. Nearly as many Catholics and other Christians as Jews were murdered by the Nazis in World War II. One source says that about 22 million Catholics lost their lives to the Nazis in Europe, many of them because they worked actively or covertly to undermine the Nazis and Hitler or because they hid Jews in their homes. Thousands were also killed during the political upheavals and revolutions in France, Spain and Mexico. Lets not forget Josef Stalin who killed millions of Catholics, Orthodox and other Christians in his attempt to rid the USSR of all religion.

Answer 4

By definition only people can consciously kill, so it can plausibly be said that the Catholic Church has never murdered anybody. People who are Catholic may have participated in murders over the centuries, even with the authority and blessing of the Church or at least its most senior clergy. The Church seems to have at times in the past held that sometimes the only way to bring people to God is to show them no mercy. Thankfully those days are now behind the Church.