How many people have been killed by Catholic teachings?

Answer 1

The definition of murder is the unlawful taking of a life. The Catholic Church is the Body of Christ on earth, and, as such, is here to bring God, especially through His Word and Sacraments to the people to save them. The Church, as such, is perfect, and has never murdered anyone.

But the Church is composed of sinners, from top to bottom, from the Apostles to modern times, there is not a single member of the Church, saving Our Blessed Lord, Himself, and His Blessed Mother, who are not sinners.

The members of the Church, in some cases even Bishops or the Pope, himself, have done wicked things throughout history. When you speak of "the Church" as referring to its sinful members, then, yes, they have murdered people in the name of God. Was it right? Certainly not, but the various inquisitions over the centuries have been brought up continually to discredit the Church.

Because there have been sinful people in positions of authority in the Church in the last twenty centuries who have done despicable things does not prove that the Catholic Church is not the Church of Christ; nor does it prove that the Catholic Church has acting more wickedly than any other institution in the various centuries in question.

As for the actual numbers of people killed in the various inquisitions, one must be very careful. Some sources which have been considered "reputable" by protestants for many years, have contained figures for the people killed by the inquisition as more than the present population of Europe! Almost all sources are wildly inflated.

One example: the Cathars, who waged war on Christians and killed many of them in southern France in the beginning of the 13th century: The King of France launched a crusade in 1209 to destroy the Cathar's military might, it was a brutal invasion where as many as 6,000 men, women, and children died. It was not an inquisition, and not run by the Church.

The Church started it's first "inquisition" in 1231 as a response to the Cathar influence in Southern France. The numbers of people over the years actually killed by secular authorities (after having being tried by Church courts) was, inflated, maybe in the hundreds over many decades. When looking at numbers for the Church inquisitions during those centuries, remember a number of things, 1) the populate of European nations at that time was far less than it is today, 2) the number of people brought to trial were minuscule, and 3) the number actually killed was even less. If you look at actual trials and sentences from this era, you begin to realize that the Church trials were much more lenient and were actually trying to accomplish good goals; even though, in many instances, innocent people ended up harmed, and there was a lot of evil. Still you have to keep things in perspective.

For excellent coverage of this and other issues, read Karl Keating's Catholicism and Fundamentalism, chapter 23 on the Inquisition. Many of the modern day fundamentalists identify with the Albigensians due to one or two perceived similarities. This is a gross mistake.

Please see the five part series (below) on actual records recently released concerning the Spanish Inquisition.

Answer 2

The Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, read St. Paul. It was established by Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, read St. Matthew 16:17-19. He is the Head, and He send the Holy Spirit to guide it into all truth until the end of time. To maintain that the Catholic Church has killed people is to maintain that God, and Our Blessed Lord, and the Holy Spirit have set up an institution on earth, guaranteed that it would lead people into all truth, and remain until the end of the world: that They did this, lied, and They are killed people. This is not how God operates, when you read something like this about the Catholic Church, ask if you people what you read more than you believe God's promises.

Answer 3

Roman Catholic AnswerCatholic teachings are the application of the teachings of Our Blessed Lord and Savior. All Catholic teachings stem from the two great commandments: to Love the Lord your God with your whole life, and your neighbor as yourself. These teachings to not tend to end up killing people, perhaps you are confused with Islam?

Answer 4

Roman Catholic AnswerCatholic Dogma is the explication of the teachings of Our Blessed Lord while He was on earth. It all hangs off of the two great Commandments: to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole mind, etc., and your neighbor as yourself. Where do you see the possibility of execution in such a belief?

INDEPENDENT ANSWER

The catholic church established the Inquisition into heresy in the middle ages - during such period, hundreds of thousands (by some accounts) and many millions (by other accounts) of people where convicted of crimes of heresy in all its forms. { In fact nobody knows the true figures, but given the population in Europe and the new world its likely that the true numbers is more in the hundreds of thousands than in the millions } To protect themselves (the inquisitor) against the actual execution, the heretic was handed over to the secular authority to be punished - the secular authority where under no illusion as to the punishment to be metered out, because if it was too light, then they too would be charged as a heretic. The catholic answer is that the church had a duty to bring people into the church and to maintain the church teachings - if this meant that people had to be forced to do so, then in the eyes of the church this was acceptable and gods way. It is unknown how many people where burnt at the stake or starved to death or simply beaten to death in the name of the catholic church.

Roman Catholic ReplyMy apologies, I am letting the above answer (Independent Answer) stand as it reflects what is taught in many public textbooks in the twentieth century. Unfortunately, it has no relation, at all, to the truth. First of all, there were a number of Inquisitions, in the second millennium. The "highly colored" view of the Inquisition of the Church was mostly an invention stemming from the Reformation and the Enlightenment periods (16th-18th centuries), it was largely created by anti-Catholic thinkers who were themselves heretics or atheists and who resented measures taken against them by the Church. This is important, because nearly all the textbooks created for public education in the 19th-20th centuries drew on these specific anti-Catholics and NOT on real history. First it is necessary to understand what the Inquisition was about, first of all it was only directed to Catholics. Those who were Muslims, Jews, or if there were a few non-Catholic people before the 16th century, they would have been not covered as well. Second, please understand that the Church was commissioned by Our Blessed Lord to SAVE PEOPLE, it never prosecuted anyone until death - that would have been against its "prime directive" if you will. Also, the Church was charged with preventing the spread of heresy to save souls. Please remember also, that the Governments involved took a very proactive interest in the Iniquisition as Heresy, as far as they were considered, gave rise to treason, thus making heresy an act against the State. This is very difficult for moderns to understand. This is too broad a topic for Answers.com, I would suggest that you get the book listed below "Seven Lies About Catholic History". Suffice it to say that heresy was a very different thing back then, most of it was treated very leniently, and only aggressively pursued when the state itself was in trouble. One of the most famous inquisitors, Jacques Fournier interviewed 930 suspected heretics during his career (which ended when he was made Pope). He never used torture. Penalties for those judged guilty ranged from making a pilgrimage or wearing a cross to exile or imprisonment. Of that number, he turned 42 heretics over to the secular authority with a request for mercy. Since most of those were convicted of high treason, the request was usually ignored. Take one other example, the famous inquisitor Bernard Gui, he interrogated many hundreds of suspects of whom 636 were punished: 40 with death, three hundred with prison, the rest with lighter punishments. Execution seems to have been relatively rare in those countries for which statistics exist. In England between 1401 and 1485, eleven heretics were burned, or less than 8 a year. The Spanish Inquisition, which was mostly a government run investigation into treason by Jews and Muslims who had "converted" to Christianity for political reason and used that cover to undermine the government during the war to drive the Moors out of Spain, it then went dormant until the protestant heresy arrived and was used to keep the heretics out of Spain. During the entire century of the reformation - the sixteenth - the Spanish Inquisition executed one hundred eighty-two heretics, or less than two a year. By comparison (just to put things in perspective) the protestant persecutions of Catholics in England, Ireland, the Netherlands, and elsewhere in northern Europe ... took tens of thousands of lives. - extracted from "Seven Lies about Catholic History, chapter 4, the Sinister Inquisition, by Diane Moczar.

Answer 5

Roman Catholic AnswerNone, he Catholic Church is in the business of preaching the Lord Jesus Christ, proclaiming His Gospel, and saving souls. It has been in this business since it was established by Our Blessed Lord two millenium ago, it is not in the business of killing people. The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ.

Answer 6

No one will ever know how many people have died at the hands of the Church. We have fragmented examples that demonstrate the number must be extremely large - for example, the Inquisition against the Cathars of Southern France and parts of Spain, a popular Gnostic denomination. Pope Innocent III decreed that anyone who attempted to construe a personal view of God which conflicted with Church dogma must be burnt without pity. What followed was a brutal pogram that decimated the population of southern France. To give one example, twelve thousand people were killed in St. Nazair, and in another ten thousand were killed in Toulouse. Were these people evil? The Catholic Bernard of Claireaux wrote:

"If you interrogate them, no one could be more Christian. As to their conversation, nothing can be less reprehensible, and what they speak they prove by deeds. As for the morals of the heretics, they cheat no one, they oppose no one, they strike no one."

The Roman Catholic Church did indeed have both justification and excuse: it could not afford to have an entirely different version of Christianity spreading within the borders of what it regarded as its domain. And it could not allow people to begin to question the teachings of the Church. In spite of this, most people today would regard this not only as murder, but genocide.

Another defence for the Church hierarchy was, whenever possible, to hand the 'heretics' over to the secular authorities to be executed. This way, the bishops could die without the stain of sin on their souls. Of course, the secular authorities had no choice but to comply, because they would face the same accusations if they thought to rebuke the clergy.