I am not a christian but am well read on it and other religions. The best thing about christianity is that it has evolved to be by far the most tolerant and most egalitarian. Mostly when i see Asians, even among some of my distant relatives who are christians, i see that Asians simply do not understand the message of Christ. By converting, they retain so much of their bad values that they become a disgrace to Christianity. Some of my christian relatives (Asian) even find socialising in Hindu festivals as an insult. What is the use of becoming a christian if you retain your hate and still think in term of caste system?. Asian people to some extent appear to be unable to handle  their new religion.
The western world has been built on the values of christianity. It is these values that give us our freedom and human rights that we enjoy so much. Come think of it. When the floods happened in PAkistan or disasters happen in other countries, it is the Christian countries who dig into their pockets to help. These people are burdened with debt and lack of a proper job in their country but many do not hesitate to donate to the needy. Do the Nepalese and Indian Christians emulate this aspect of their new found religion?. Negative as i have not seen it. So why are they becoming christians if they cannot be a proper one?. 
I am an agnostic but i do admire the teachings of Jesus and as i try to be a good human being, i try to follow his good message. I have learnt to be tolerant, egalitarian by observing and socialising with some good Christians.
I have not become a Christian as per religion, but i have become a better human being.

 

 1300s

John Wycliffe of England denounced church corruption, rejected transubstantiation, and translated the Bible into English. After his death, his followers (called "Lollards") were declared heretics and persecuted. Some were burned at the stake. [Haught, 1990, 85-86]

 

1300

Gerhard Segarelli was burned at the stake. He led the Apostolic Brethren, who preached and sang in public.[Haught, 1990, 58]

 

1302

Pope Boniface VIII issued the bull Unam Sanctam which declared that the Pope answers only to God, and "it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff." [Ellerbe, 64; Martin, 108]

Chamberlin (119) repeats this quote from the famous bull and adds, "Temporal power throughout the earth lay in the hands of the pope; he could, and did, delegate it to monarchs and princes but he could, and would, withdraw it as he chose."

 

1303

After his election, Pope Benedict XI immediately left Rome because his life was in danger. He died by poisoning in Perugia after less than a year in office. William of Nogaret was suspected of the crime. The CE says he died in 1304. [Martin, 177; Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope Benedict XI"]

 

1305

Pope Clement V was crowned in Lyons, France. In fear for his life, he never went to Rome. After wandering among French cities, he settled in Avignon. Thereafter, most cardinals selected were French. The next six popes were chosen by the French king. From 1305-1377, while the popes resided in Avignon, Rome declined. The former papal city became crime-ridden and infrastructure decayed. [Martin, 177-179]

 

1307

Dolcino, successor to Segarelli of the Apostolic Brethren, was burned at the stake. [Haught, 1990, 58]

1307

The Knights Templar were accused of devil worship and spitting on crucifixes. They were tortured and killed. 70 were burned. [Haught, 1990, 58-59]

"On October 13, 1307, every Templar in France was placed under arrest in a single sweep, and the property of the order was confiscated." [Kirsch, 139]

 

1309

After Amiel de Perles, a Cathar teacher, was arrested by the Inquisition and refused food and water, the Inquisitor, Bernard Gui, conducted a speedy trial and execution, rather than let Perles starve himself to death.[Kirsch, 86]

"Of 636 heretics convicted by ... Bernard Gui ... forty-two were burned, about three hundred were sent to prison, and the rest were given lesser penalties. [Engh, 133]

 

1310

Inquisitor Bernard Gui sentenced convicted heretics to life imprisonment (some in chains) and burning by the civil authorities. [Kirsch, 86]

1310

Fifty-four French Knights Templar recanted their confessions of heresy, which had been coerced by torture. The church considered them relapsed heretics and publicly burned them at the stake anyway. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "The Knights Templar"]

 

1311

The 15th ecumenical council, the Council of Vienne, was convened by Pope Clement V. The primary purpose of the council was to suppress the Knights Templar in order to appease the French king. "The Acts of the council have disappeared...." [Catholic Encyclopedia, "Council of Vienne (1311-1312)"; Cline, medieval5]

 

1312

Pope Clement V issued a bull suppressing the Knights Templar and distributing their property to other orders of the church. Eventually, Philip, the French King, was able to control the property formerly belonging to the Knights. Clement V, in effect, "traded" the Knights Templar to preserve the reputation of former Pope Boniface VIII, because King Philip was so powerful that he was bound to have one or the other. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "The Knights Templar" & "Pope Clement V"]

 

1314

Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Templars, Geoffroy de Charnay, Grand Preceptor of Normandy, and thirty-seven other French Knights Templar were burned at the stake in Paris for alleged heresy. [Grun, 184; Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope Clement V"]

 

1317

Pope John XXII had an elderly French bishop tortured and executed by burning. The pope believed that the bishop tried to murder him using black magic. [Kirsch, 145]

 

1318

A group of Celestine or "spiritual" Franciscan monks were burned for refusing to abandon the primitive simplicity of Franciscan garb and manners. When the Franciscan leaders declared that poverty had been permitted by Pope Nicholas III [1277-80], Pope John XXII revoked Nicholas's bull. [Haught, 1990, 58; McCabe 1916, 214]

 

1319

"... a wealthy burgher of Carcassonne named Castel Faure, ... was charged and convicted of heresy some forty-one years after his death in 1278. ... his heirs were dispossessed of their inheritance." [Kirsch, 87]

 

1320

Pope John XXII formalized the persecution of witchcraft when he authorized the Inquisition to prosecute sorcery.[Ellerbe, 121]

1320

The Shepherds' Crusade, comprising mostly poor people, massacred Jews in more than a dozen cities. "337 Jews who had taken refuge in the castle of Montclus were slaughtered." Children were forcibly baptized and brought up as Christians. Local authorities did not interfere with the crusaders' violence. [Engh, 138]

 

1323

Even though many popes before him had agreed that Jesus and the apostles lived in poverty, Pope John XXII, in the bull Cum inter nonnullos, stated that it was a perversion of scripture to maintain that Jesus and the apostles had no property. The Franciscans, with their vows of poverty, became heretics. It was said that the pope did this to counter criticism of the church's wealth in contrast to Jesus' ideals. (Ellerbe states that the bull was issued in 1326.) [DeRosa, 212; Ellerbe, 58]

 

1324

"In 1324 Petronilla de Midia was burnt at Kilkenny in Ireland at the instance of Richard, Bishop of Ossory...."[Catholic Encyclopedia, "Witchcraft"]

 

1328

"... in a single papal audience, no fewer than one patriarch, five archbishops, thirty bishops, and forty-six abbots were excommunicated for default on their taxes." [Bokenkotter, 183]

 

1329

A Carmelite monk, convicted of sorcery, informed on his fellow prisoners in order to get a lighter sentence from the Inquisition. His "good work" helped him to avoid the usual harsh punishment he would have received. "Inquisition apparently regarded the Christian rigorism of Cathars and Waldensians as a greater threat to the Church than the secret practice of sorcery by one of its own monastics." [Kirsch, 71]

 

1330

"[The] last Cathar had been burned alive by the Inquisition, and Catharism was extinct." [Kirsch, 134]

 

1334

At a witch trial in Toulouse, eight women were sentenced to burning and fifty-five to long or life imprisonment. Their confessions had been extracted by torture. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "Witchcraft"]

 

1337

The Jewish population of Deggendorf, Bavaria, was burned after stories of host-defiling. Sixteen oil paintings showing Jews defiling hosts were displayed in the Catholic church there through the 1960s. [Haught, 1990, 50]

 

1343

Pope Clement VI published the bull Unigenitus. This bull formed much of the Church's legal basis for indulgences. The theory is that the works, penances, sufferings and virtues of Jesus, Mary, and the saints far outweigh the sins of mankind. The surplus ("infinite treasury") was entrusted to the Church, to be dispensed to the faithful as needed "in full or partial remission of the temporal punishment due to sin." This is one of the doctrines later denied by Martin Luther. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "Indulgences"]

 

1348

Jews were blamed for the bubonic plague, leading to massacres in 300 cities. [Haught, 1990, 69]

 

1349

2,000 Jews were killed in Strasbourg. [Cline, medieval5; Johnson, 1987, 217]

6,000 Jews were killed in Mainz. [Haught, 1990, 70; Johnson, 1987, 217]

Flagellants massacred Jews in Frankfurt. In Brussels they incited Christians to kill 600 Jews. [Haught, 1990, 70]

 

1350

Emperor Charles IV began to issue pardons to cities which had murdered their Jews. [Johnson, 1987, 217]

 

1365

The last great international crusade, led by Peter I, King of Cyprus, landed at the predominantly Christian city of Alexandria. His forces plundered the city, including the stores of Latin tradesmen, and killed Christians, Jews, and Moslems alike. They then retreated when the Egyptian army approached the city. [Johnson, 1976, 246; Catholic Encyclopedia, "Crusades"

 

1366

"... the Priors of Florence, who had previously given their sanction to the import and sale of infidel slaves..." changed their definition of "infidel" to mean anyone arriving "from the land and race of infidels" whether Christian or not. [David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, 101 (quoted in Stannard, 208).]

 

1370

In Brussels, someone reported that a Jew broke a wafer. Nearly all Belgian Jews were massacred, including children. In the cathedral, eighteen tableaux showing Jews nailing bleeding wafers were displayed until recent times. [Haught, 1990, 52]

"Jews were expelled from Brussels, Belgium." [Cline, medieval5]

 

1376

"Pope Gregory XI wrote that too many accused heretics were dying of starvation in prison before they could be brought to the stake, and he offered indulgences to all who would donate food to them." [Walker, 7]

 

1377

Cardinal Robert of Geneva massacred the people of Cessna (Cesena). As papal legate, he was trying to put down a rebellion. The people had killed some of Robert's mercenaries for raping their women. They negotiated a truce, which included a promise by Robert that he would spare their lives if they disarmed. They did, and all* were slaughtered. After raping the women and ransoming the children, the city was then plundered and burned. Robert became Avignon Pope Clement VII in 1378. [De Rosa, 92; Ellerbe, 71; McBrien, 247; Catholic Encyclopedia, "Robert of Geneva]

*Estimates of the number of those killed varies. Ellerbe says 2500-5000; DeRosa 8000; the CE 4000.

 

1378-1417

These were the years of the so-called Great Schism*, with popes living in Rome and anti-popes living in Avignon. The schism was about political power rather than church theology or practice. [Ellerbe, 64]

* Sometimes referred to as the Western Schism, as opposed to the equally great schism with the Eastern Orthodox Church.

 

1378

Under pressure from a Roman mob, the cardinals elected the Italian, Bartolomeo Prignano, as pope. Immediately after he was consecrated as Pope Urban VI, sixteen cardinals left Rome and held their own conclave at Fundi. They elected the Frenchman, Robert of Geneva as anti-pope Clement VII, who returned to Avignon. [Martin, 184]

 

1391

Enraged mobs of Christians attacked Jews across all of Spain, killing thousands. They had been required to wear badges, making it easy for rioters to identify them. Jewish synagogues, homes and businesses were looted and their neighborhoods were destroyed. Some Jews chose conversion or were forced to convert to Christianity. After conversion, they became vulnerable to anti-heresy laws. [Cline, medieval5; Engh, 138; Stannard, 182]

 

 1400

England's Parliament mandated the death penalty for heresy. [Kirsch, 242]

 

1401

England passed De Hæretico Comburendo ("on the burning of heretics"). This act gave church bishops the power to arrest and imprison those suspected of heresy. Those condemned were to be burned. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "Lollards"]

Different sources place this act in 1399, 1400, and 1401.

 

1407

Anti-Jewish riots occurred in Poland. Jews were attacked in Cracow. [Cline, medieval6; Johnson, 1987, 231]

 

1409

Cardinals of anti-Pope Benedict XIII met with some of Pope Gregory XII's cardinals. Together, they deposed and excommunicated both Benedict XIII and Gregory XII, then elected a new anti-pope, Alexander V. There were now one pope and two anti-popes. [Martin, 184]

 

1410

All three claimants to the papacy held synods in March 1410, where each one condemned the other two. Alexander V died from poisoning on March 17 and was succeeded by anti-pope John XXIII (Baldassare Cossa).[Martin, 185, 192]

 

1411

The Bishop of Verden wrote: "When the existence of the Church is threatened, she is released from the commandments of morality. ... The use of every means is sanctified, even cunning, treachery, violence, simony, prison, death." [Kirsch, 13]

This is the antinomian heresy. Laymen were killed for this, but it's OK for the church.

 

1412

John Hus of Prague advocated that the Church should give up its wealth and halt the sale of indulgences, sinful priests should not administer the sacraments, any devout Christian had a right to preach, and the Bible was the only source of true doctrine. He was excommunicated by Pope Gregory XII. Gregory also put Prague under interdict while Hus was there: church services could not be held, nor could people receive a Christian burial. Three of his followers were burned. [Engh, 135-136; Haught, 1990, 86]

1412

In Piedmont, Italy, several deceased Cathari were executed in effigy. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "Cathari"]

 

1414

Anti-Pope John XXIII was deposed by the Council of Constance in 1415. In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon wrote, "The most serious charges were suppressed; the Vicar of Christ was accused only of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy, and incest." [Catholic Encyclopedia, "Antipope John XXIII"; Haught, 1990, 82]

 

1415

John Hus, a church reformer from Prague, went to the Council of Constance to explain his ideas against a charge of heresy. He had a letter of safe passage from the Holy Roman Emperor but was arrested, found guilty and burned at the stake anyway. [Haught, 1990, 86]

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia ("Council of Constance"), the safe passage letter was good only against illegal actions, and the council's decision was considered legal. Therefore, Hus' punishment was legal.

In 1999 Pope John Paul II apologized for the "cruel" execution of Hus, 584 years earlier. [Bokenkotter, 484]

1415

The Council of Constance (in Germany) decided that Urban VI and his successors were the true popes and that Clement VII and his successor anti-popes were not. The council deposed all three claimants to the papacy: Gregory XII (currently the "real" pope), Benedict XIII and John XXIII (the "anti-" popes). They then elected Italian Cardinal Oddo Colonna pope, and he took the name Martin V.

Baldassare Cossa (formerly John XXIII) was tried before the council. In addition to the charges of simony, adultery, fornication, perjury, sacrilege and gluttony, was the charge of murder. When Cossa was Cardinal, serving Pope Boniface XI, they said that he had seventeen Roman nobles beheaded in 1398 and thirty-one more in 1400. [Martin, 194-197]

1415

The council of Constance ordered the remains of John Wycliffe (d. 1384) to be dug up and thrown away. That was not done until 1428. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "John Wyclif"]

 

1416

"Jerome of Prague, a follower of [Jan] Hus, burned for heresy." [Grun, 202]

 

1420

Pope Martin V started a crusade against the Hussites. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "Crusades"; Cline, medieval6]

"Between 1420 and 1432 five separate crusades were launched against the Bohemian separatists." They were all defeated by the Bohemians. [Engh, 137]

 

1421-22

Reformed Bohemian Christians, known as Taborites and led by John Zizka, executed some of his own followers for heresy, forced the conversion of others, and suppressed another Christian group known as Adamites. [Engh, 137]

 

1421

Austrian Jews were imprisoned and exiled. Jews were killed in Linz, Styria, and Vienna. [Cline, medieval6; Johnson, 1987, 230]

 

1424

"Jews were expelled from Cologne." [Johnson, 1987, 231]

 

1427

"Jews were expelled from Berne, Switzerland." [Cline, medieval6]

 

1428

Pope Martin V ordered the village of Magnalata leveled and all inhabitants killed. This was the village of the "Spiritual Franciscans" who had adopted the ideas about poverty of their founder St. Francis of Assisi. They were persecuted, excommunicated, and finally killed. [Lea, 1901, 176; Ellerbe, 81]

1428

John Wycliffe, who died in 1384, was disinterred, his remains burned, and the ashes scattered. This was done by order of the Council of Constance (1415), which had found numerous "errors" in his writings. [Cross, 1480; Leedom, 279; Catholic Encyclopedia, "John Wyclif"]

 

1430

Jews were expelled from Eger, Bohemia, and Speyer, Germany. [Cline, medieval6]

 

1431

Joan of Arc was burned by the British for heresy. She had also been accused of witchcraft. [Cline, medieval6; Catholic Encyclopedia, "St. Joan of Arc."]

 

1434

The Bohemian Taborites were defeated by a more moderate group of Hussites. The victors returned to the Catholic Church without giving up their principles. [Engh, 137]

 

1434-68

Ethiopian emperor Zara Yakob, a Christian, persecuted Jews, Muslims and pagans, including members of his own family. His successor Baida Maryam continued the persecution during his reign. [Engh, 155]

 

1435

"Forced conversion of Jews in Palma de Mallorca, Spain." [Wikipedia, "Timeline of Christian Missions"]

 

1439

Jews were expelled from Augsburg. [Johnson, 1987, 231]

 

1440

A papal aide, Lorenzo Valla, proved that the "Donation of Constantine" was a fraud. Valla's book was not published until 1517. "Though every independent scholar was won over by Valla's arguments, Rome did not concede; she went on asserting the Donation's authenticity for centuries." [De Rosa, 42]

 

1442

Jews were expelled from Bavaria. [Johnson, 1987, 231]

 1450

Jews were expelled from Bavaria again. [Johnson, 1987, 231]

 

1452

Pope Nicholas V issued the bull Dum diversas. This document authorized the King of Portugal to enslave unbelievers and take their territory for the monarchy. [Thomas, 59]

 

1453

In Breslau, a woman accused a Jew of stabbing a wafer. 41 Jews were burned. [Haught, 1990, 52]

 

1454

Jews were expelled "from the crown cities of Moravia." [Johnson, 1987, 231]

 

1455

Joan of Arc was rehabilitated, twenty-four years after her execution in 1431. An appellate court in Paris, authorized by Pope Callistus III, declared illegal the court which had found her guilty and reversed her conviction.[Cline, medieval6; Catholic Encyclopedia, "St. Joan of Arc"]

1455

"Jews were forced to flee Spain." [Cline, medieval6]

 

1458

Pope Paul II "first declared witchcraft a crimen exceptum, and made those accused subject to torture." [Johnson, 1976, 309]

 

1471

Pope Sixtus IV, granting the request of the monarchs, created the Spanish Inquisition to subdue heresy. [Cline, medieval6]

 

1475

Reports that Simon, a toddler in Trent, Italy, had been sacrificed by Jews caused all Jews in the city to be tortured, tried and burned. Simon received sainthood and many miracles were reported at his shrine in Trent.[Haught, 1990, 46]

In 1965 the Vatican ordered a halt to the "cult" of Simon of Trent.

 

1478

Pope Sixtus IV authorized King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to revive the inquisition to hunt "secret Jews" and Muslims. Dominican friar Tomas de Torquemada was appointed inquisitor general. He tortured thousands and burned 2000. [Haught, 1990, 65-66]

1478

Pope Sixtus IV voided the acts of the reformist Council of Constance (1414-18). [McBrien, 264]

 

1480

"Ferdinand and Isabella appoint inquisitors against heresy among converted Jews." [Grun, 214]

 

1481

The Spanish Inquisition began its reign of terror. Supposedly, the purpose of the office was to prevent conversos (converted Jews) from relapsing rather than punish unconverted Jews. Nevertheless, many cities passed laws against Jews. In Seville about 800 Jews were burned and thousands more imprisoned in the 1480s. [Garraty and Gay, 423; Thomas, 60]

 

1483

"... the Inquisition was instituted in Castile in 1483, finally spreading to Barcelona in 1487." [Stannard, 182]

 

1484

Pope Innocent VIII made disbelief in witches heresy. Prior to this it had been heresy to believe in witches (see 906, above). In the bull Summis desiderantes he authorized two inquisitors, Kramer and Sprenger, to systematize the persecution of witches. [Ellerbe, 121; Haught, 1990, 73-74]

"... Pope Innocent VIII officially ordered pet cats to be burned together with witches, a practice which continued throughout the centuries of witch-hunting." [Ellerbe, 142]

1484

Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada instructed his inquisitors that descendants of condemned heretics were ineligible for most professions and occupations. "A new doctrine of original sin...." [Johnson, 1976, 306-307]

 

1485

Inquisitor Cumanus burned 41 women as witches. A colleague in the Piedmont of Italy burned 100. [Haught, 1990, 74]

1485

Jews were expelled from Perugia. [Johnson, 1987, 231]

 

1486

Dominican inquisitors Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer published Malleus Maleficarum, used as a manual by inquisitors for centuries. It became a best seller. [Haught, 1990, 74]

1486

In Toledo, 2,400 Jewish converts confessed to heresy and implicated others in order to avoid torture and burning. [Kirsch, 189]

1486

Jews were expelled from Vicenza. [Johnson, 1987, 231]

 

1487

Pope Innocent VIII declared a crusade against Waldensians in France's Savoy region. [Haught, 1990, 56, 58]

1487

"Henry VII of England eliminates the right of accused heretics to know the names of their accusers." [Cline, medieval6]

 

1488

Jews were expelled from Parma. [Johnson, 1987, 231]

 

1489

Jews were expelled from Milan and Lucca. [Johnson, 1987, 231]

 

1491

Jews tortured by the Holy Inquisition in Spain were made to confess to child sacrifice near La Guardia. All those Jews were murdered. No such town existed. [Haught, 1990, 47]

 

1492

Three boys died in an unsuccessful attempt by doctors to transfuse their blood to a dying Pope Innocent VIII. Among Innocent's mourners were his mistress and their children. [Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World (excerpts in Joshi, 222)]

1492

Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) bought the papacy by bribing cardinals to elect him. He then hosted sex orgies attended by his illegitimate children, Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia. Although celibacy had been required for Catholic clergy since 1139, Pope Alexander VI had four children by and a mistress. His official actions as pope were "determined almost solely by political and family considerations." [Chamberlin, 170-171; Cross, 33; Manchester, 79; McTavish, 93; Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope Alexander VI"]

1492

Twenty-seven Jews were tortured and burned in Mecklenburg. [Haught, 1990, 52]

1492

After twelve years of anti-Semitic laws, Spanish monarchs exiled all Jews. Many thousands had converted and stayed in the country. However, some members of the most powerful Christian families in Spain had intermarried with Jews. "The Inquisition could authenticate false genealogies" and accurate genealogies then became "subversive literature." [Johnson, 1976, 306]

1492

100,000 Jews were expelled from Sicily. [Cline, medieval6]

 

1493

"Pope Alexander VI appoints his son, Cesare Borgia (b .1475), a cardinal." [Grun, 218]

1493

Alexander VI decreed that all newly discovered lands east of a north-south line (the "line of demarcation") 100 Spanish leagues east of the Azores belonged to Portugal. All west of that line belonged to Spain. This was conditional on their converting any native peoples to Christianity. [Martin, 108; Thomas, 59]

1493

By command of Pope Alexander VI, Spain was to found Catholic missions throughout the New World. Columbus took priests with him on his second trip to the Americas. [Wikipedia, "Timeline of Christian Missions"]

 

1494

With Pope Alexander VI's approval, the line of demarcation defined in 1493 was moved 270 leagues further west by the Treaty of Tordesillas. Thus, Spain received North and South America, except Brazil, and Portugal got Brazil and Africa. [Martin, 108]

1494

Jews were expelled "from Florence and all Tuscany." [Johnson, 1987, 231]

 

1495

"The Jews expelled from Portugal." [Grun, 218]

1495

"January 28 - Pope Alexander VI gave his son Cesare Borgia as hostage to Charles VIII of France." [Cline, medieval6]

 

1496

The Jews were expelled from Syria, Portugal, and Carintha, Austria. [Cline, medieval6]

 

1497

Attempting to carry out moral reform, the Dominican Girolamo Savonarola destroyed much of the work of Renaissance Florence in a huge bonfire. Among the works destroyed were books, illuminated manuscripts, women's ornaments, musical instruments, and paintings. His police state tactics included compelling servants to inform on their masters and organizing bands of young men to raid people's homes. Savonarola wrote: "It would be good for religion if many books that seem useful were destroyed." [Ellerbe, 57]

1497

"Pope Alexander VI excommunicated Girolamo Savonarola." [Cline, medieval6]

1497

King Manuel of Portugal allowed Jewish children to be taken from their parents to be raised as Christians. Thousands of Jews were forcibly baptized in Lisbon. [Engh, 139]

 

1498

Florence priest Girolamo Savonarola was hanged and burned with two followers after calling for reform. [Haught, 1990, 86]

 

1499

Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros (1436-1517), Spanish inquisitor-general, began forcing Moors to convert en mass. That practice led to the Moorish revolt in Granada. [Grun, 220; Cline, medieval6]

1499

By the end of this decade, Jews had been expelled from the Kingdom of Navarre. [Johnson, 1987, 231]

 

 1500s

Queen Mary of Hungary, Regent of Flanders, ordered the execution of all heretics, with instructions not to depopulate the provinces. [Haught, 1990, 98]

 

c.1500

The Spanish Inquisition burned heretics in Mexico and South America. The Portuguese did the same in Goa in India. Inquisitors routinely accompanied priests on missionary travels. [Kirsch, 55]

 

1501

Spain, in the treaty ending their victory over the last Muslim kingdom in Spain, promised toleration. That promise was soon broken. In 1501 Muslims in Spain were given the same choice as that given to Jews: convert or leave the country. Queen Isabella ordered all copies of the Koran burned. [Engh, 139; Kirsch, 182]

1501

Pope Alexander VI allows Spain to claim all new lands in the Americas, only if they provide religious instructions to the indigenous people there. [Wikipedia, "Timeline of Christian Missions"]

 

1503

Queen Isabella decreed that natives [in the New World] who rejected the Catholic faith could be enslaved." [Engh, 181]

1503

Massacre of Xaragua: Fr. Nicolás de Ovando, governor of Espanola, invited Anacaona, native queen of the west of the island, to dine. She accepted the invitation and was hanged. Her chief followers were burned alive. [Thomas, 66-67]

 

1503-18

Dominican monk, Johann Tetzel (1465-1519), preached and sold indulgences in Germany. Tetzel was Martin Luther's first public antagonist. [Grun, 224; Catholic Encyclopedia, "Johann Tetzel"]

 

1506

4,000 Lisbon Jews were slaughtered in one night. [Manchester, 33]

 

1509

"Persecution of Jews in Germany; the converted Jew, Johann Pfefferkorn, receives authority ... to confiscate and destroy all Jewish books, especially the Talmud...." [Grun, 226]

 

1510

In Spandau, after a tortured Jew confessed, 38 more Jews were burned in Berlin. [Haught, 1990, 52]

1510

Russian monk Philotheus of Pskov wrote: "Our ruler, Czar Basil III, is on earth the sole Emperor of the Christians, the ruler of the Apostolic Church which stands no longer in Rome or in Constantinople but in the blessed city of Moscow....Two Romes have fallen, but the Third stands. A fourth there will not be." [Martin, 135]

 

c.1512

"The Pope must have been drunk," when he gave to the Catholic kings so much territory which belonged to others. Comment of the Cenú Indians when being told that Alexander VI had divided the world between the Portuguese and the Spaniards. [Thomas, 72]

 

1512

Dominican missionary Antonio de Montesino reported to King Ferdinand that the native populations of Hispaniola and Cuba were in danger of extinction because of slavery imposed by the colonists. [Wikipedia, "Timeline of Christian Missions"]

 

1513

Giovanni de'Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, became Pope Leo X. Leo was a spendthrift who sold cardinal hats and anything else he could to raise money to pay his debts and put on lavish displays. One of his favorites, Cardinal Petrucci, joined a conspiracy to assassinate Leo. Leo lured him back to Rome with a promise of safe conduct, a promise which he broke. While Petrucci was being tortured, he told the ambassador who guaranteed the safe conduct, "No faith need be kept with a prisoner." Not content with that, Leo also had killed Petrucci's family and friends. [Martin, 203]

 

1515

The Spanish began turning the Caribbean natives into slaves. About half a million people of the Bahamas were sent to Hispaniola to replace the huge loss of population there. Cuba's large population was also severely reduced by slavery. Millions of the Caribbean's original population died in only twenty-five years. Slavers continued enslaving people from other islands to replace the dead elsewhere. By the time Cortés arrived in 1525, the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras were uninhabited. [Stannard, 72-73]

 

1517

Thomas Cardinal Wolsey ordered 60 street people hanged who had demonstrated against their plight. [Manchester, 36]

 

1518

"'In the year 1517, New Spain was discovered; after the discovery of which they did nothing first or second, but immediately fell to their old practices of cruelty and slaughter; for in the following year the Spaniards (who called themselves Christians) went thither to rob and kill. Though they gave out that they went to people the country. From that year unto this present year 1542, the violent injustice and tyrannies of the Spaniards came to their full height.' His writings were banned for a long time in Spain and most of Europe...." [Catholic priest Bartaloméde las Casas (1474-1566), The Tears of the Indians (quoted in Costo and Costo, 50)]

 

1519

Cortés landed at an island near Yucatan, Mexico. He had been instructed that "the first motive which you and your company have to carry with you is to serve our Lord God and increase the dimension of our holy Catholic faith." When Cortés encountered the Mayas, he informed them there was one God, the creator and giver of all things. He and his men interrupted a native ceremony and arranged for a mass to be held instead. He broke their idols and installed an image of the Virgin Mary. [Thomas, 159-161]

 

1521

Pope Leo X made heretics of secular officials if they refused to execute people at the church's order. There was no appeal. [Ellerbe, 82-83]

1521

Paris' high court ruled that the theological faculty of the Sorbonne must approve all religious books prior to publication. French-language Bibles were burned and new translations were forbidden. [Engh, 170]

 

1523

The first Protestant was burned at Paris. [Engh, 170]

1523

Giulio de'Medici, nephew of Giovanni (Pope Leo X) was elected pope, becoming Clement VII. Church law had disqualified him for the papacy because he was a bastard, but he was able to buy the office by paying the cardinals for their votes. [Martin, 209]

c.1523

Twenty-five years after Columbus landed, the population of the island of Hispaniola had been reduced to 3 percent of its former number. After eighty years, only 125 natives remained from the original 3.5 million inhabitants. Eventually, 90 to 95 percent of the native population of North America was wiped out. [Engh, 181]

 

1534

Martin Luther wrote a tract condemning the peasants' revolt. After thousands of peasants had been killed, he said, "It is a trifle for God to massacre a lot of peasants, when he drowned the whole world with a flood and wiped out Sodom with fire." He had changed his position over time, from believing that people could not be coerced into changing their religion, to believing that capital punishment was proper for blasphemy and idolatry. He applied this to other religions, especially Judaism. He wanted to destroy Jewish synagogues and books. [Engh, 165]

 

1525

Thomas Muntzer led rebels in the Peasant's War. They were wiped out; he was tortured and executed. Martin Luther supported the merciless suppression of the peasants in this war. [Haught, 1990, 88; Ellerbe, 99]

1525

The Dutch Inquisition convicted Lutherans for the first time. Sentences were imprisonment on bread and water for two to seven years. Survivors had to "wear conspicuous red or yellow crosses for the rest of their lives." [Engh, 168-169]

1525

In France, a commission was appointed to prosecute suspected heretics. [Engh, 170]

 

1526

The Colonnas pretended reconciliation with the Vatican, then suddenly attacked Rome. Cardinal Pompeo Colonna led a raid to assassinate Pope Clement VII. The Pope was cornered while the attackers plundered the Vatican. They stole the papal tiara and valuable works of art, raped, killed and plundered. Several members of the papal household were killed, but the pope escaped through a secret passageway. That was followed by an invasion by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. His army finished what Colonna had started—sacking Rome. [Manchester, 196-197;Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope Clement VII"; Martin, 211-213]

1526

"Persecution of Jews in Hungary." [Grun, 234]

1526

Possession of a French translation of the Bible or any of Martin Luther's writings was criminalized in France. [Engh, 170]

 

1528

"Austrian Anabaptist Balthasar Hubmair burned at the stake in Vienna." [Grun, 234]

1528

"The first auto [da fe] on American soil was held in Mexico City in 1528, when two Marranos from Spain were burned alive." [Kirsch, 180]

 

1529

At the Diet of Speyer, Catholics and Lutherans agreed to join forces to execute Anabaptists. [Haught, 1990, 111]

 

1530

Pope Clement VII crowned Charles V emperor. He had made his peace with Charles by agreeing to pay an enormous ransom. [Martin, 219]

 

1531

Martin Luther publicly supported the Speyer agreement to execute Anabaptists. [Haught, 1990, 111; Ellerbe, 99]

1531

In Switzerland, Ulrich Zwingli led urban Protestants in two local wars against rural Catholics. He was killed in the second war. [Haught, 1990, 88]

1531

"Inquisition in Portugal." [Grun, 236]

1531

Michael Servetus' On the Errors of the Trinity was published. [Freeman, 2009, 194]

 

1531-64

John Calvin led the Protestants and created a police-state theocracy in Geneva. No amusements were allowed. Morality police inspected household behavior. Theological nonconformists were executed. He also urged the burning of witches. He burned Michael Servetus, a famous dissenter who had fled the French Inquisition. He and John Knox believed that theirs was the only legitimate church. Each new Protestant church made the same claim. [Ellerbe, 99-100; Haught, 1990, 90]

 

1532

Catholic Spaniards captured the Incan king Atahualpa. After receiving a ransom for his release, the Spaniards murdered him. [Engh, 184]

 

1533

Martin Luther wrote, "Girls begin to talk and to stand on their feet sooner than boys because weeds always grow up more quickly than good crops." [Ellerbe, 99]

 

1534

Protestant religious radicals seized the town of Munster, Germany. After the leader, John Mathijs, was killed, his successor, John Beukels, instituted a reign of terror. Catholics recaptured the town in 1535. Beukels was tortured to death in January, 1536. [Johnson, 1976, 262-263]

1534

The death penalty was prescribed in France for "reading, expounding, translating, writing, or printing anything contrary to Catholic doctrine." [Engh, 170]

 

1535

Most of the population of Munster were massacred by forces of the Catholic ruler Prince-Bishop Franz von Waldeck. Their leader, Jan Beukelsz, and two others "were ripped apart with red-hot tongs, and their bodies displayed in iron cages hung on the city gates." They had been denounced by Luther. Philip Melanchthon said that "all Anabaptists should be exterminated." [Engh, 167]

1535

The native population of most of the Caribbean islands had been wiped out. "By 1496 ... the population of Hispaniola had fallen from eight million to between four and five million. By 1508 it was down to less than a hundred thousand. By 1518 it numbered less than twenty thousand. And by 1535, say the leading scholars on this grim topic, 'for all practical purposes, the native population was extinct.'" [Stannard, 74-75]

1535

"Study of canon law forbidden in Cambridge." [Grun, 238]

 

1536

English Protestant William Tyndale was captured by Catholics in Antwerp, tried for heresy, strangled and burned. He had dared to translate the Bible into English and have it smuggled into England. Much of his prose is retained in the King James Version. [Haught, 1990, 101]

1536

"... the Portuguese king successfully petitioned the pope [Paul III] for an inquisition of his own...." [Kirsch, 180]

1536

"Northern Italian Anabaptist missionary Hans Oberecker is burned at the stake in Vienna, Austria." [Wikipedia, "Timeline of Christian Missions"]

 

1540s

"In southern France, the Parlement of Aix condemned whole villages of Waldensian immigrants to be killed and their houses demolished. Some three thousand villagers were massacred by government troops." [Engh, 170]

 

1540

In Portuguese Goa, the governor, acting on royal authority, destroyed all Hindu temples on the islands. On the island of Teeswadi, the local base for the Jesuits and the Franciscans, there was no temple there, according to a contemporary report from Fr. Nicolau Lancilotto. The temple estates were to be confiscated for churches not yet built. [Roberts, 81-82]

 

1542

Pope Paul III revived the Inquisition to hunt Protestants in Italy. [Haught, 1990, 90; Kirsch, 159]

 

1543

Martin Luther published On the Jews and their lies. [http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documents/luther-jews.htm ; Also found at: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html ; "Jewish Virtual Library, A Division of The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise"]

In his book On the Jews and their lies "Luther referred to Jews as 'as plague, a pestilence,' as 'venomous, bitter worms,' as 'a desperate, thoroughly evil, poisonous, and devilish lot,' as 'useless, evil, pernicious people,' as 'tricky serpents, assassins, and children of the devil,' as a 'brood of vipers,' and as 'mad dogs.'" [Stannard, 248]

"Although Luther could find no scriptural warrant for exterminating Jews, he believed that they should be enslaved or thrown out of Christian lands and that their ghettos and synagogues should be burned." [Ellerbe, 99]

1543

"First Protestants burned at the stake by Spanish Inquisition." [Grun, 240]

 

1545-63

The Council of Trent declared that scripture is not to be interpreted "in any other way than in accordance with the unanimous agreement of the fathers." [Freeman, 2009, 150]

 

1546

Peter Chapot was executed in France for publicly selling Bibles translated into French. [Forbush, IV]

 

1547

France created the "burning chamber" for executing heretics. Within three years, the chamber had charged more than five hundred people with heresy. [Engh, 171; Grun, 242]

1547

Archbishop Siliceo of Toledo said, "... the principal heretics of Germany, who have destroyed that nation ... are descendants of Jews." [Johnson, 1976, 307]

 

1549

Protestant reformer Philipp Melanchthon opposed the Copernican theory. [Grun, 242]

 1551

"Jews persecuted in Bavaria." [Grun, 244]

1551

Possession of a Bible in any language other than Greek or Latin was a crime in Spain. [Kirsch, 184]

1551

"The Spanish Index of Prohibited Books was first published in 1551...." The Spanish Index was independent from the Vatican's list. It included a number of books which had been approved by Rome. [Johnson, 1976, 307]

 

1553

Spanish theologian Michael Servetus was burned at the stake for doubting the Trinity. He escaped the Inquisition, only to be captured in Switzerland and burned by Calvin. [Haught, 1990, 90; Cross, 1244; Freeman, 2009, 194-195]

Servetus "had corresponded with Calvin for years and may have hoped to find toleration" of his views by him. Servetus fled the French Inquisition and went to Geneva. Calvin decided to execute him. Protestants as well as Catholics approved. [Engh, 168]

 

1553-58

Queen Mary I of England ("Bloody Mary"), a Catholic, burned 300 Protestants in three years, as she tried to restore Catholicism using terror. She was a daughter of Henry VIII and the wife of Philip II of Spain. [Haught, 1990, 102; Cross, 870]

 

1555

The Peace of Augsburg ended war between Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Protestants led by German Lutheran princes, and "allowed 300 local German rulers to decide whether their districts were to be Catholic or Protestant." The people had to adopt the religion prescribed by their king. It also "recognized the right of Protestant 'heretics' to exist in Germany." [Haught, 1990, 88, 90; Engh, 166]

1555

In England a pregnant woman was burned at the stake for sorcery. She suffered a miscarriage at the stake and her still living baby was thrown back into the flames. [Kirsch, 242]

 

1555-59

Under Pope Paul IV the inquisition became a reign of terror, killing many "heretics" on mere suspicion. [Haught, 1990, 66]

 

1556

Church of England official under Henry VIII Thomas Cranmer (b. 1489) was burned at the stake during the reign of the Catholic Mary Tudor. [Grun, 244; Cross, 870]

1556

King Philip II wrote that all the heresies which occurred in Spain, France, and Germany were the work of Jews.[Johnson, 1976, 307]

 

1558

Scottish Protestant John Knox wrote that every Protestant had a right to kill every Catholic. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "John Knox"]

 

1559

Many Protestants were burned in Spain in honor of King Philip II, son of Charles V. King Philip, in response to an appeal by a condemned Protestant, "I myself would bring the faggots to burn my own son, were he as perverse as you." [Haught, 1990, 90; Kirsch, 184]

1559

Archbishop of Toledo, Bartolomeo de Carranza, was arrested by the Inquisition and kept in prison for seven years despite papal intervention. [Haught, 1990, 90; Johnson, 1976, 308. See also, 1565 and 1566]

1559

"The first Roman 'Index of Prohibited Books' (Index librorum prohibitorum), published in 1559 under Paul IV, was very severe...." [Catholic Encyclopedia, "Index of Prohibited Books"]

 

1560

Pope Pius IV ordered that all Protestants in Italy be persecuted. The result was that many men, women and children, of all ages, were killed. [Forbush, VI]

1560

"Beginnings of Puritanism in England." [Grun, 246]

1560

Catholic invaders of the Americas destroyed Mayan temples and idols and burned all Mayan books they found.[Engh, 184]

c.1560

The Inquisition was instituted in Portuguese Goa, at the urging of [St.] Francis Xavier and others. It was not ended until 1812. [Roberts, 89,91]

 

1561

A yellow smock, which all condemned heretics in Spain had to wear, for each person burned was hung like a trophy in the church where the person had lived. [Kirsch, 201; Johnson, 1976, 307]

 

1562-89

Catholics and Huguenots in France fought eight wars. [St.] Pope Pius V sent troops to France with orders to take no prisoners. [Haught, 1990, 92, 94]

 

1562

"1200 French Huguenots slain at Massacre of Vassy; first War of Religion begins." [Grun, 248]

1562

"Diego de Landa burns the libraries of the Maya civilization." [Wikipedia, "Timeline of Christian Missions"]

 

1565

A papal legation including three future popes, Gregory XIII, Urban VII, and Sixtus V, reported to Pope Pius IV: "Nobody dares to speak in favor of [Archbishop of Toledo] Carranza [see also 1559 and 1566] because of the Inquisition ... and its authority would not allow it to admit that it had imprisoned Carranza unjustly. The most ardent defenders of justice here consider that it is better for an innocent man to be condemned than for the Inquisition to suffer disgrace." [Johnson, 1976, 308]

1565

Spanish Catholic soldiers massacred all members of a Huguenot colony in Florida. [Haught, 1990, 96]

 

1566

[St.] Pope Pius V finally brought Archbishop Carranza to Rome "where he was held in the fortress of St. Angelo. The power of Spain prevented his clearance until 1576, just eighteen days before his death." [Johnson, 1976, 308; see also, 1559 and 1565]

 

1568

Spanish King Philip II sent the Duke of Alva to the Netherlands to assist the Inquisition there to persecute Protestants. At one point the Duke condemned the entire population, threatening genocide if they did not submit. There were many massacres by Spanish soldiers, including a mass drowning of about 6000. He also set up what came to be known as the Court of Blood. It condemned 18,000 people to death as heretics. [Stannard, 216; Engh, 169. See also, 1573.]

1568

In Valencia, 2,689 converted Jews confessed to heresy and implicated others in order to avoid torture and burning. [Kirsch, 189]

 

1571

[St.] Pope Pius V launched the final crusade against Islam. [Haught, 1990, 27]

 

1572

St. Bartholomew's Day massacre: 10,000 Protestants were killed in France. After the third Catholic/Huguenot war, the Catholic Catherine de Medici had arranged the marriage of a daughter to a Huguenot prince, Henry of Navarre. When Huguenots gathered in Paris for the wedding under a promise of safe passage, Catherine plotted with Catholic dukes to assassinate the Huguenot military leader, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. The assassin missed, merely wounding the admiral-so Catherine and the dukes hastily decided to murder all the Huguenots before they had time to counterattack. On St. Bartholomew's Day Catholic troops swept through Huguenot neighborhoods in Paris, slaughtering thousands. Admiral Coligny was beheaded. Other massacres were staged throughout France.

Coligny's head was sent to Rome, where Pope Gregory XIII received it joyfully. He wrote to France's Charles IX, "We rejoice with you that with the help of God you have relieved the world of these wretched heretics." He and the whole college of cardinals offered a mass of thanksgiving. The pope struck a medal celebrating the Catholic victory and commissioned the artist Giorgio Vasari to paint a fresco of the triumph. The massacre triggered another war and four more followed. Finally, Henry of Navarre was offered the crown as king of France if he would convert to Catholicism. He did so. [Haught, 1990, 94, 96; Ellerbe, 95]

 

1573

The Duke of Alva massacred Haarlem Protestants. The duke also killed thousands in Antwerp. He was sent by King Philip II, ruler of Holland and Belgium, to kill all Protestants after they had rebelled and burned 400 Catholic churches. Philip also revived the Inquisition. [Haught, 1990, 98, 100. See also, 1568]

 

1574

"First auto-da-fé in Mexico." [Grun, 254]

1574

The Spanish government waged war against the Chichimeca in the Mexican state of Michoacán. [Wikipedia, "Timeline of Christian Missions"]

 

1575

The Spanish Inquisition in Seville imprisoned an Englishman for seven years for possession of a Protestant prayer book. [Kirsch, 184]

 

1577

"Dominicans enter Mozambique and penetrate inland, burning Muslim mosques as they go. [Wikipedia, "Timeline of Christian Missions"]

 

1578

Inquisitor Francisco Pena stated, "We must remember that the main purpose of the trial and execution is not to save the soul of the accused but to achieve the public good and put fear into others." [Ellerbe, 76; Kirsch, 189-190]

1578

"King of Spain orders the bishop of Lima not to confer Holy Orders on mestizos." [Wikipedia, "Timeline of Christian Missions"]

 

1580

The Inquisition in Goa disinterred and burnt the remains of Garcia d'Orta, a noted physician. Inquisitors did this to dead Jews who had not been condemned while they were alive. [Stannard, 209]

 

1581

Jesuit Edmund Campion was tortured and executed for treason in England. He converted from the Church of England to Catholicism, preaching and publishing pamphlets. [Cross, 225; Grun, 256]

1581

"... Pope Gregory XIII forbade Jews to employ Christian wet-nurses because of the slander ... that Jews make these women pour their milk into the latrines for three days [after taking communion] before they again give suck to the children." [Kirsch, 170-171]

 

1583

In Vienna, a 16-year-old girl suffered stomach cramps. Jesuits exorcised her for 8 weeks. Her grandmother was tortured into confessing she was a witch, then burned at the stake. "One of perhaps one million such executions during three centuries of witch hunts." [Haught, 1990, 10]

 

1584

William of Orange was killed after leading Dutch Protestants in a rebellion against Catholic Spain. [Haught, 1990, 100]

 

1586

"... the entire female population of two villages was wiped out by the inquisitors, except for only two women left alive." [Ellerbe, 136]

 

1587-93

Archbishop Johann von Schoneburg burned more than 300 "witches" in twenty-two villages around Trier. He also tortured, strangled and burned the chief judge of the electoral court, a university rector, for leniency. [Johnson, 1976, 310]

 

1590

Philip II proclaimed that witchcraft was "the scourge of the human race." [Johnson, 1976, 310]

 

Late 1500s

879 heresy trials were recorded in Mexico. The Inquisition had been brought to the Americas by Spaniards to punish Indians who reverted to native religions. [Haught, 1990, 66; Stannard, 218]

 

1598

After Henry of Navarre had assumed the French throne as Henry IV, he issued the Edict of Nantes, which permitted French Huguenots (Protestants) to worship freely. "When the Edict of Nantes was signed in 1598 it was promptly denounced by Pope Clement VIII as 'the worst thing in the world'." [Johnson, 1976, 319]

 1600

Giordano Bruno, who espoused Copernican theory, was burned in Rome. [Haught, 1990, 66]

 

1602-05

"Some [witch] hunters were paid by results: Balthasar Ross, minister to the Prince-Abbot of Fulda made 5393 guilden out of 250 victims...." [Johnson, 1976, 311]

 

1607-1632

Ethiopia had always been and still is Monophysite. The Ethiopian Church followed the ritual and doctrine of the Egyptian Coptic Church and its bishops were ordained by the patriarch of Alexandria. Catholic Christian Susenyos, emperor of Ethiopia, forced Ethiopia's bishops and priests to be re-ordained, re-consecrate all churches and re-baptize all believers in the Catholic faith. Susenyos crushed the rebellions that followed. He was succeeded by his son, Fasilidas, who reversed his father's actions and began persecuting Catholics. [Engh, 156; Jenkins, 234]

 

1608-1622

The Extirpation of Idolatry in South America "condemned 1618 people as pagan priests or priestesses, absolved 18,893 other people after due penance, destroyed 1769 major shrines, 7288 household shrines, and 1365 mummies." [Engh, 185-186]

 

1610

Twenty-nine people were condemned as witches in Navarre; six were burned alive. [Kirsch, 188]

1610

"... some witches were burned in Logroño, the first known instance of such a punishment by the [Spanish] Inquisition." [Lippy, 11-12]

 

1612

"Last recorded burning of heretics in England." [Grun, 274]

 

1614

"Iyeyazu, Shogun of Japan, accused the [Christian] missionaries of 'wanting to change the government of the country and make themselves masters of the soil.'" [Ellerbe, 88]

 

1615

The Inquisition declared Galileo's ideas heretical. He then renounced his ideas to avoid punishment. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "Galileo"]

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin." - Cardinal Bellarmino, during the trial of Galileo (1615)

The church admitted its error and reinstated Galileo in 1993, almost 380 years later.

1615

"Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigné's 'Histoire Universelle,' a Huguenot-inspired survey from 1553 to 1602, officially burnt in Paris." [Grun, 274]

 

1616

The church banned all works advocating the Copernican system. That system was allowed to be taught as hypothesis, not fact. Copernicus' treatise, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, was put on the Catholic Index of forbidden books. Although it was removed from the Index in 1757, Catholics were still not allowed to read it until 1828. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "Galileo"; Cross, 341; Manchester, 91, 295]

1616

"Catholic oppression intensified in Bohemia." [Grun, 276]

 

1618

The Thirty Years' War engulfed all of Europe and killed more people—numbered in the millions—than any other religious war in history. Central Europe became a wasteland and Germany's population was reduced from about 18 million to 4 million. The war was the result of the Catholic Holy Roman Empire attempts to stamp out Calvinism. There was no clear winner—the war ended because the combatants were exhausted. The Peace of Westphalia also recommended an end to the Vatican's temporal power. [Haught, August 1990; Haught, 1990, 106-107]

 

1619

"Lucilió Vanini, Italian Catholic philosopher, burned as a heretic." [Grun, 278]

 

1622-33

Von Dornheim burned 600 witches at Bamberg. Many were falsely accused by those who were tortured until they implicated others. [Johnson, 1976, 311]

 

1623-31

Wurzburg's Bishop von Ehrenberg killed nineteen priests, a seven year old, and his own nephew among the more than 900 "witches" he had burnt. [Johnson, 1976, 311]

 

1624

The English Parliament passed an act prohibiting swearing and cursing. [Ellerbe, 107]

 

1627

The Collegium de Propaganda Fide (Sacred Congregation of Propaganda) was founded. It is the department of the pontifical administration charged with the spread of Catholicism and with the regulation of ecclesiastical affairs in non-Catholic countries. [Grun, 282; Catholic Encyclopedia, "Sacred Congregation of Propaganda"]

 

1629

"In the Bavarian prince-bishopric of Eichstatt, 274 were burned in the year 1629 alone." [Johnson, 1976, 311]

 

1631

Pope Urban VIII suppressed the Jesuitesses (founded in 1609 by Englishwoman Mary Ward) for "insubordination."[Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope Urban VIII"]

1631

The German city of Magdeburg was sacked. 30,000 Protestants were killed before the 30 Years War ended. [J.H. Robinson, ed., Readings in European History, 2 vols. (Boston: Ginn, 1906), 2:211-212; found at http://history.hanover.edu/texts/magde.html ]

1631

Protestants printed a Catholic document written by a Jesuit, Friedrich Spee, which read: "Torture fills our Germany with witches and unheard-of wickedness, and not only Germany but any nation that attempts it. ... If all of us have not confessed ourselves witches, that is only because we have not all been tortured." [Johnson, 1976, 311]

 

1633

The Inquisition forced Galileo to repudiate the Copernican theory that the earth revolves around the sun. In 1965, 332 years later, the Roman Catholic Church finally revoked its condemnation of Galileo. [Grun, 286; Ellerbe, 44]

Where did Galileo's soul reside until 1965? NOTE: In 1992 John Paul II rejected the finding of a papal commission and refused to reverse Galileo's conviction.

 

1634

A New England General Court forbade garments "... with any lace on it, gold or thread ... also all cutworks, embroidered or needlework caps, bands and rails ... all gold and silver girdles, hatbands, belts, ruffs, beaver hats." [Ellerbe, 104]

 

1636

"Welsh Puritan Roger Williams banished from Massachusetts; establishes Providence, RI; proclaims complete religious freedom." [Grun, 288]

 

1637

"Introduction of new liturgy into Scotland causes riots." [Grun, 288]

 

1638

A Catholic revolt in Shimabara, Japan, led to the ban of Christianity and contacts with Europeans. Zealous Christians convinced the government that they put loyalty to their religion ahead of loyalty to the state. [Garraty and Gay, 638, 637]

 

1639

"A [New England] law in 1639 prohibited the custom of drinking toasts or health-drinking as an 'abominable' pagan practice." [Ellerbe, 152]

 

1641

The massacre of Ireland began. Catholics murdered thousands of English Protestants. [Forbush, XVII]

 

1642-46

Civil war in England led to the disestablishment of the Church of England and the establishment of Presbyterianism in its place. [Cross, 266]

 

1647

"Dismissal of Anglican professors at Oxford University." [Grun, 294]

 

1648

Pope Innocent X condemned that part of the Peace of Westphalia which prescribed religious toleration and equality. Centuries of succeeding popes continued that condemnation, calling it atheistic and insane. [DeRosa, 37,145]

1648

In the Ukraine, Orthodox priests and peasants rallied behind the Cossack Boydan Chmielnicki (Bohdan Kmelnistsky). Some Jews fled back to Poland but others were massacred. Cossacks got help from Orthodox Russia. 100,000 Jews died in 300 communities. Later, Ukraine was taken from Catholic Poland and annexed to Orthodox Russia. [Haught, 1990,126]

1648

"John Stearne: 'Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft'." [Grun, 294]

 

1649

"John Milton: 'The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates,' defense of Charles I's execution [in 1649]." [Grun, 294]

 

1650

A New England law prohibited "short sleeves, whereby the nakedness of the arm may be discovered." [Ellerbe, 104]

1650

"James Ussher: 'Annales Veteris et Novi Testamenti' (giving beginning of world as 4004 B.C.)" [Grun, 294]

 

1653

A Massachusetts law was passed prohibiting Sunday walks and visits to the harbor as being a waste of time. To enjoy oneself on the Sabbath was considered a terrible offense. [Ellerbe, 103]

1653

English Quaker James Naylor (or Nayler) (1618-1660) was called the new Messiah by his followers. He was imprisoned and severely punished for blasphemy. He eventually repented and was released. [Grun, 296; Cross, 940-941]

 

1654

Maryland repealed its religious toleration law. [Engh, 191]

 

1655

Troops from France and Savoy massacred Waldensians in the mountain valleys of northern Italy. [Eng, 169]

 

1656

Puritan Massachusetts arrested ten Quakers as soon as they arrived, and confiscated and burned their books.[Engh, 190]

 

1657

Christian clergy in Swabia denounced Jewish doctors as diabolical sorcerers: "It is better to die with Christ than to be healed by a Jew doctor with Satan." [Kirsch, 171]

 

1659

"Children as young as ten were charged by the tribunal at Toledo...." [Kirsch, 202]

1659

Puritan Massachusetts outlawed celebration of Christmas. [Engh, 189]

 

1661

"... the Corporation Act incapacitated from holding office in any corporation all who did not first qualify by taking the sacrament according to the Anglican rite...." [Catholic Encyclopedia, "Nonconformists"]

 

1663

"Writings of Descartes put on the Index." [Grun, 302]

 

1664

The Conventicle Act, against Nonconformists, forbade meetings of more than five people. Nonconformists were those who refused to conform to the official rites of the Church of England. Eventually, the term came to be associated with the Puritans. [Grun, 302; Catholic Encyclopedia, "Nonconformists"]

 

1665

The Five Mile Act restricted Nonconformist ministers from being within five miles of a town without official authorization. Violators were imprisoned. [Grun, 302; Catholic Encyclopedia, "Nonconformists"]

 

1666

Patriarch Nikon's reforms triggered "Raskol" (Great Schism) in the Russian Orthodox Church. [Grun, 304; Cross, 1139]

 

1668

William Penn was imprisoned for unorthodox (Church of England) writings. He was freed by a jury in 1670, who were in turn imprisoned for their verdict. On appeal, the jury and Penn were freed. [Cross, 1042]

 

1670

John Lewis and Sarah Chapman were brought before the New London court for "sitting together on the Lord's Day, under an apple tree in Goodman Chapman's orchard." [Ellerbe, 104]

 

1680s

This period was called the "killing time." James II persecuted Puritans. Puritans who went to Massachusetts to escape the persecution, persecuted others. [Haught, 1990, 122]

 

1680

King Charles II, his wife and 50,000 others gathered in Madrid to be entertained by a 12-hour auto-da-fé. 188 condemned heretics were displayed and 51 were "relaxed" (burned at the stake). [Kirsch, 196]

 

1682

"58,000 French Huguenots forced to conversion." [Grun, 312]

 

1684

"93 Jewish families expelled from Bordeaux." [Grun, 312]

 

1685

French King Louis XIV revoked the edict of Nantes, which had been issued by King Henry IV (Henry of Navarre) in 1598. The edict had allowed French Protestants religious freedom. After the revocation, Protestant public worship was forbidden; Protestants were forbidden to assemble in private homes; Protestant ministers had to convert to Catholicism within fifteen days or leave the country; parents were forbidden to teach their children Protestantism and were ordered to have them baptized by a priest and sent to Catholic schools; emigration was forbidden. Thousands of French Protestants were exiled. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "Huguenots"; Grun, 312]

 

1689

The Church of England was established as the colony of Maryland's official religion. Denying church doctrine or excessive swearing could be punished by fines, prison, and even tongue-boring. [Engh, 191]

 

1691-92

"Twenty alleged witches were killed and 150 imprisoned" in Massachusetts by Puritans. [Haught, 1990, 122-124]

 

1693

"Secret society, Knights of the Apocalypse, founded in Italy to defend the church against the antichrist." [Grun, 316]

 

1696

All New Hampshire residents were required to swear an oath against Catholicism. [Engh, 191]

 

1697

Thomas Aikenhead was hanged in Scotland for denying the divinity of Christ. [Engh, 229]

 1700

Catholic priests in New York could be sent to prison for life, and New York Catholics were denied the right to vote. [Engh, 192]

 

1702

British author Daniel Defoe was pilloried, fined and imprisoned for fourteen months for writing a satirical religious tract, The Shortest Way with Dissenters. The tract recommended executing nonconformists in order to frighten others. "Several prominent Anglican churchmen took the proposal seriously and endorsed the policy."[Engh, 229]

 

1704

Maryland criminalized conversion to Catholicism. Catholics were not allowed to teach school. Irish servants were heavily taxed to discourage more immigration. A few years later, new laws prevented Catholics from voting or holding public office. [Engh, 191]

 

1706

Deist Matthew Tindal published The Rights of the Christian Church in England. He, his publisher and printer were all prosecuted. [Cross, 1360]

1706

Kimpa Vita (who called herself "St. Anthony") and her assistant ("St. John") were burned as heretics in the Christian African kingdom of Kongo. [Engh, 150]

 

1709

Matthew Tindal published A Defense of the Rights of the Christian Church. The book was burned on order of the House of Commons because it was thought to undermine Christianity. [Cross, 1360]

 

1715

"... King Louis XIV proudly declared that all Protestantism had been suppressed in France." [Haught, 1990, 96]

1715

Protestants were violently persecuted in the Rhineland Palatinate. [Haught, 1990, 130]

 

1716

"Christian religious teaching prohibited in China." [Grun, 328]

 

1720s

English writer Thomas Woolston was put under lifetime house arrest for doubting the Resurrection and Bible miracles. [Haught, 1990, 131]

 

1720

Two competing monastic orders of the Ethiopian Church accused each other of heresy. The emperor David III took sides with one group and massacred the monks of the other. [Engh, 156]

 

1721

"... a ninety-six-year-old woman named María Bárbara Carillo was sent to the stake at Madrid...." [Kirsch, 202]

 

1722

A Scottish woman was burned as a witch. [Haught, 1990, 78]

 

1723

The bishop of Gdansk, Poland, demanded the expulsion of Jews but the city council declined. The bishop then raised a mob which killed them. [Haught, 1990, 129]

1723

The printer and publisher of the works of Michael Servetus were imprisoned and all copies of the books were burned. Servetus was burned by Calvinists in 1553 for unorthodox ideas about the Trinity. [Engh, 229]

 

1727

The crime of obscenity, founded on religious grounds, was enacted in England. The highest court affirmed that Christianity was part of the common law of England and that offenses against it and morals should be punished.[Engh, 229]

 

1731

"Mass expulsion of Protestants from Salzburg." [Grun, 336]

1731

Eighty-three people were burned at the stake in Lisbon. [Kirsch, 197]

 

1732

Archbishop Firmian forcibly expelled 20,000 Protestants from Salzburg province. [Haught, 1990, 130]

 

1736

Freemasons were denounced by Clement XII, and later popes also condemned them. In France, Italy, and other Latin countries Freemasonry was openly hostile to the Church and to religion. In England, Germany, and other Germanic countries they professed a non-doctrinal Christianity. Catholics are prohibited from joining the Freemasons, with the penalty being excommunication. In more recent times Freemasonry demands belief in God from its members and is not hostile to religion. It is concerned primarily with philanthropic and social activities.[Grun, 338; Cross, 527]

 

1743

"Pogroms in Russia." [Grun, 342]

 

1749

A nun was burned as a witch in Wurzburg. [Haught, 1990, 78]

 

1752

French Catholics nullified all Protestant marriages and baptisms. [Haught, 1990, 132]

1752

At his own request, Fr. Junipero Serra was appointed Head Inquisitor of Sierra Gorda, Mexico. He wrote that the native people "... are addicted to the most detestable and horrible crimes of sorcery, witchcraft, and devil worship...." Serra later brought his inquisitorial techniques to the California mission system. [Jose Ignacio Rivera, "Father Serra And The Skeletons of Genocide," in Leedom, 270-271]

 

1755

"... Jacob Ilive was sentenced to three years hard labor for writing and printing an attack on the orthodox opinions of the bishop of London." [Engh, 229]

1755

In Maryland, the law forced Catholics to pay twice the property tax that Protestants paid. [Engh, 191]

 

1756

Virginia made it illegal for a Catholic to own a firearm or to own a horse worth more than five pounds. [Engh, 192]

 

1757

In Puritan Massachusetts a man was whipped for jokingly saying that "God was a damned fool for ever making a woman." [Engh, 190]

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote much the same thing and was made a saint. [See 1265-73.]

 

1759

The Jesuits were expelled from Portugal amid many accusations, from plotting assassinations to perpetrating frauds in the colonies. [Johnson, 1976, 353; Grun, 350]

 

1761

Jews were executed in Nancy, France, on unfounded allegations of host-nailing. [Haught, 1990 52]

1761

"The Portuguese Inquisition burned its last condemned heretic...." [Kirsch, 203]

 

1762

Seventy-year-old Peter Annet was sentenced to a "mitigated" twelve months hard labor, plus two sessions in the pillory, a fine, and a surety for his good behavior, after pleading guilty to a charge or blasphemy for printing a deist weekly, the Free Enquirer. [Engh, 230]

 

1766

A boy, Chevalier de La Barre, in Abbeville, France, was tortured and killed for criticizing the church. [Haught, 1990, 10]

 

1772

"Inquisition abolished in France." [Grun, 356]

 

1775

Fr. Junipero Serra, in Monterey, California, wrote to the governor requesting soldiers to help bring back native Americans who had fled the mission. The letter evidences Serra's practice of forced residency. [Jose Ignacio Rivera, "Father Serra And The Skeletons of Genocide,"] in Leedom, 272-273]

 

1779

Fr. Junipero Serra wrote to a priest to resist the military's plan to get native Americans to work for them. He added, "... no Indian has authority to dispose of his people without the consent of the Fathers." [Jose Ignacio Rivera, "Father Serra And The Skeletons of Genocide," in Leedom, 274.]

 

1780

Fr. Junipero Serra wrote to the governor that native Americans had no ability to manage their own affairs. He recommended punishing all malcontents and added, "... the natives of these parts will, in the course of time, develop into useful vassals for our religion and for our State ...." [Jose Ignacio Rivera, "Father Serra And The Skeletons of Genocide," in Leedom, 274.]

1780

"The unhappy treatment which the Franciscans give the Indians renders the Indian condition worse than slaves. The fathers aim to be independent and sovereign over the Indians and their wealth." [Governor Felipe de Neve, July 4, 1780, during the tenure of Fr. Serra (in Costo and Costo., 132)]

 

1782

Pope Pius VI tried to get Joseph II of Austria to revoke his freedoms of religion and of the press. [Grun, 362]

1782

Switzerland performed the last legal execution of a witch. The witch-hunts had been directed "not by superstitious savages, but by learned bishops, judges, professors, and other leaders of society." [Haught, 1990, 78-79]

 

 19th Century

This century saw Christian missionaries making great efforts to convert peoples all over the world, using force when necessary. They showed no respect for indigenous cultures, indeed they meant to replace them with "civilized" Christian culture. European governments were quite willing to send military assets to support the missionaries.

 

• In Polynesia, missionaries forced native religion underground and made Christianity the law of the land. They were unhappy about their inability to spread guilt among the islanders.
• In Australia, "only Christians could testify in court." Children were forced to attend Christian schools and indoctrinated with Christian religion.
• In China, the British compelled the government to make Christianity a protected religion. Unlike that earlier, more diplomatic missionaries, the new ones were willing to destroy China in order to "save" it.
• In America, missionaries made a concerted effort to teach children that their native cultures were barbarous and they should be ashamed of it. They were punished for speaking their native language.
• Jews were not allowed to attend public schools in Quebec.

 

[Engh, 210-215, 244, 247]

 

1801

In Bucharest, Romania, Orthodox priests incited their parishioners to kill Jews by repeating the lies that Jews sacrificed Christians and drank their blood. [Haught, August 1990]

 

1810

Mexican Miguel Hidalgo was excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church for using his pulpit to advocate revolution against foreign rule. After that, he was known as "Zorro" to the parishioners. He was executed in 1811. ["Freethought Today," Nov. 2009, 17]

 

1814

"Pope Pius VII returns to Rome and restores the Inquisition." [Grun, 382]

1814

The Spanish Inquisition condemned artist Francisco Goya for his now famous painting, "Naked Maja." [Kirsch, 187]

1814

At the behest of the Russian Orthodox Church, Christians who observed the Sabbath and followed the laws of Moses were exiled to Siberia. Jews were then excluded from any district where "Sabbatarians" had been found, and were forbidden to hire Christian servants. [Engh, 234]

 

1815

Mexican Jose Maria Morelos, successor to Hidalgo (see 1810, above), was tried by the Inquisition and shot.[Freethought Today, Nov. 2009, 17]

 

1818

Spain prosecuted its last person of Jewish origin for heresy. [Kirsch, 193]

 

1821-34

"... there were seventy-three convictions for blasphemy in England. Most of those were for printing or distributing The Age of Reason." [Engh, 228]

 

1825

"France makes sacrilege a capital offense." [Grun, 388]

 

1826

The Spanish Inquisition took its last human life. [Kirsch, 204]

 

1828

A Catholic Irishman, Daniel O'Connell, was elected to Parliament. After he refused to take the oath of office, which denounced Catholicism, he was not allowed to take his seat. [Engh, 230-231]

 

1831

In his "Catechism on Revolution" Pope Gregory XVI wrote: "Does the Holy Law of God permit rebellion against the legitimate temporal sovereign? No, never, because the temporal power comes from God." [Burleigh, 116]

 

1832

Pope Gregory XVI published Mirari Vos, an encyclical against freedom and the separation of church and state. He specifically condemned freedom of thought, speech, writing, the press, and religion. He said "It is in no way lawful to demand, to defend, or to grant [these fredoms] as if they were so many rights that nature has given to man." Freedom of thought would lead to "the ruin of the Church" and freedom of the press is "the most deadly and execrable freedom for which one cannot have enough horror." [Cline, "This Date in History: Freedom of Conscience vs. Catholicism"; Burleigh, 141]

 

1834

A Protestant mob burned an Ursuline Catholic convent in a suburb of Boston. Thirteen men were arrested. Only one was convicted, and he was pardoned. The Ursuline order was not reimbursed for the loss of their property.[Engh, 247]

 

1838

Lilburn Boggs, governor of Missouri, ordered the state militia to treat Mormons as enemies and run them out of the state or exterminate them. A few days later during an attack on the Mormon village of Haun's Mill, militiamen found a nine-year-old boy. In response to efforts to protect the child, one militiaman said, "Nits will make lice," and shot the boy dead. [Engh, 241]

 

1840

Three English publishers were imprisoned on charges of blasphemy for publishing Letters to the Clergy of All Denominations by Junius Haslam. One, Henry Hetherington, accused a respected publisher, Edward Moxon, of blasphemy for publishing Shelley's poem Queen Mab. Hetherington's point was that only cheap publishers were actually punished. Hetherington's contention was proved when, after Moxon was found guilty, the prosecutors and judge let him off with no sentence. [Engh, 231-232]

 

1841

Charles Southwell was imprisoned for publishing England's first atheist periodical, "The Oracle of Reason." His successor, George Jacob Holyoake, was imprisoned for his "blasphemous" answer to a question from the audience after he gave a lecture. [Engh, 229]

 

1844

A cannon battle between Catholics and Protestants in Philadelphia killed 20. The fight arose when a Catholic bishop wanted Catholic children in the public schools to read from a Catholic Bible, rather than the King James Version required by the education authorities. Protestant mobs burned Catholic homes and churches. [Haught, 1990]

 

1847

Lionel de Rothschild became the first Jew elected to the English Parliament. He was denied his seat for eleven years on religious grounds. [Engh, 234]

 

1854

The Crimean War started when the Ottoman sultan declared war against Russia. The Czar had declared Russia protector of Christians and holy places in Ottoman lands. [Haught, 1990, 153-154]

1854

"Pope Pius IX declares the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary to be an article of faith." [Grun, 418]

 

c.1857

The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa enforced church separation, thus providing a justification for apartheid. It set a precedent for separate educational institutions for Afrikaners, English and the native African population. The new Calvinism of Abraham Kuyper played a key role in the evolution of this ideology. His view of Christianity was intended to counter the new freedoms of the Enlightenment. [Nieder-Heitmann]

 

1860s

Western missionaries had reduced Hawaii's native population by 90%. The Reverend Rufus Anderson said that the situation was similar to "the amputation of diseased members of the body." [Stannard, 244]

 

1860

The Haitian government gave the Catholic church special privileges. [Engh, 248]

 

1864

Pope Pius IX, in Syllabus Errorum, condemned rationalism, liberalism, modern civilization, and the idea of progress. Other errors he included were the state's not excluding all religions other than Roman Catholicism, and stating that the pope should accept modern civilization. [Grun, 426; Williams, 2003, 21]

1864

The Haitian government and the Church tortured and executed eight people during a campaign to eliminate the native Voodoo religion. [Engh, 248]

 

1865

A letter from Odo Russell, representative of the British government to the Vatican, to the British Foreign Office reported that Pope Pius IX said to him: "That liberty of conscience and toleration I condemn here [in Rome], I claim in England and other foreign countries for the Catholic Church." [De Rosa, 21]

 

1870

The First Vatican Council proclaimed papal infallibility when speaking ex cathedra, i.e. when speaking of doctrine or morals applicable to the Church as a whole. [Catholic Encyclopedia, "General Councils"; Grun, 432]

 

1972-89

Ethiopian Christian emperor Yohannes IV ordered all Muslims, Jews and pagans to become Christians. The penalty for disobedience was forfeiture of all property. His actions included forced baptism, tithing, and holy day celebration. [Engh, 257]

 

c.1878-1903

Pope Leo XIII forbade Catholics to participate in the new Italian state elections. His purpose was to prevent the separation of church and state, which he termed an "American" idea. [Williams, 2003, 23]

c.1878-1903

Pope Leo XIII approved capital punishment for heretics and other rebels who are not deterred by other penalties.[Ellerbe, 38]

 

1878

Heinrich Treitschke, a German historian, started an anti-Semite movement. [Grun, 438]

 

1879

"Anti-Jesuit Laws introduced in France." [Grun, 438]

 

Early 1880s

Atheist Charles Bradlaugh was repeatedly denied his seat in Parliament for refusing to take the oath of office. The oath had to be taken with a hand on the Bible, and the member had to swear "by the true faith of a Christian." [Engh, 232-233]

 

1881

"Persecution of Jews in Russia." [Grun, 440]

 

1882

Liberal Czar Alexander II was assassinated by bomb-throwing nihilists. One of six sentenced to death for the killing was a Jewish woman, mobs looted and beat Jews. Severe anti-Jewish laws were passed, and Moscow expelled 35,000 Jews. [Haught, 1990, 150; Engh, 234-235]

 

1885

"The Mormons split into polygamous and monogamous sections." [Grun, 442]

 

1890s

An estimated 200,000 Christian Armenians were killed by Muslim Turks. [Haught, 1990, 154]

 

1890

A policy of genocide by American Christians eliminated 80% of California's native-Americans when that state joined the Union. [Stannard, 145]

 

1893

An alliance of churches, missionaries and sugar growers overthrew Hawaii's Queen Liliuo Kalani. [Leedom, 278]

 

1896

Catholic Christian Haiti banned Voodoo religious services, Voodoo shrines were destroyed, and practitioners were arrested. [Engh, 248]

 

Late 1800s

The czars helped anti-Semitic groups to incite Orthodox Christians in order to divert public attention from rebellion. Pogroms occurred in the 1880s, from 1903 to 1906, and during the 1918 revolution. The pogroms of the revolutionary period saw 530 communities attacked and 60,000 Jews murdered. [Haught, August 1990]

 

 1903

The Russian Czar and the Orthodox Church hierarchy blamed the current civil unrest on the Jews. 300 Jews were killed at Odessa and 120 at Yekaterinoslav. Pamphlets urging pogroms were printed on a press of the Czar's secret police. [Haught, 1990, 150]

 

1907

Pope [St.] Pius X issued the decree Lamentabili and the encyclical Pascendi gregis both of which condemned modernism. He thought that modernism threatened the purity of Catholic doctrine. [Cross, 1080; Grun 460]

 

1908

The Roman Holy Office of Inquisition was renamed the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. [Kirsch, 208]

 

1909

20,000 Armenians were killed by Turks. [Haught, 1990, 154]

 

1910

Pope Pius X issued Sacrorum antistitum which contained an anti-modernist oath. In it he called modernism "Americanism" and said that it "represented 'the synthesis of all heresies.'" [Williams, 2003, 23; Cross, 1080]

 

1914

"When a clearly defined dogma contradicts a scientific assertion, the latter has to be revised." [Catholic Encyclopedia, 1914, "Science and the Church" (article), "Conflicts" (section heading]

1914

"To undo the creed is to undo the Church. The integrity of the rule of faith is more essential to the cohesion of a religious society than the strict practice of its moral precepts." [Catholic Encyclopedia, 1914, "Heresy" vii, "Vindication of their teaching"]

 

1915

While Ottoman Turks fought WWI on the German side, Christian Armenians backed by Russia rebelled and slaughtered Muslims, including 30,000 at Van. The Ottomans sent armies against them and forcibly relocated some. After WWI Muslim/Christian killing continued until the 1920s, when Armenia was incorporated into the Soviet Union. [Haught, 1990, 154]

 

1918

During the Bolshevik revolution 60,000 Jews in 530 communities were killed, mostly by the anti-communist White Army and Ukrainian troops. [Haught, 1990, 150]

 

1923

After receiving financial help from Mussolini, the Vatican ordered the Catholic Populist Party to disband. [Williams, 2003, 27]

 

1926

Therese Neumann (1898-1962), a German stigmatic visionary, lived in the Bavarian village of Konnersreuth. She lost her health and her sight, and became bedridden. On the day of the beatification of Teresa of Lisieux (or Teresa of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face) in 1923, Therese Neumann reportedly regained her sight. On the day of Teresa of Lisieux's canonization in 1925, Therese Neumann reportedly regained her ability to walk.

During Lent in 1926, she began to have visions and to show stigmata, which bled on Fridays. She was alleged to have supernatural abilities, such as reading consciences and authenticating relics. Supposedly, Theresa took no solid food after 1922, and no nourishment at all after 1927 other than daily Holy Communion. As the news of her spread, pilgrims began visiting her village. Catholic authorities remained neutral and silent about her case.[Cross, 948; Grun, 490]

 

1928

A Hungarian court acquitted a peasant family of beating an old woman to death for witchcraft. The court found that the defendants had acted out of "irresistible compulsion." [Ellerbe, 137]

1928

Pope Pius XI published Mortalium animos: "On Fostering True Religious Unity." This encyclical forbade Catholics from taking part in Faith and Order or any other ecumenical movement to reunite the Christian churches. [Cross, 492 & 927; Grun 494]

 

1929

The Vatican under Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini signed a concordat known as the "Lateran Treaty." The Vatican blessed the Italian fascist in return for money and recognition of the Vatican as a sovereign state. "In Berlin, Adolf Hitler was delighted with the news of the treaty." Hitler wrote: "The fact that the Catholic Church has come to an agreement with Fascist Italy proves beyond doubt that the Fascist world of ideas is closer to Christianity than those of Jewish liberalism or even atheistic Marxism...." The treaty also made Catholicism the "'official religion of Italy' and outlawed propaganda in favor of Protestantism." [Williams, 2003, 31]

 

c.1930

Bernardo Nogara, financial manager for the Holy See, took over Banca di Roma for the Vatican. Pope Pius XI, in authorizing the investment, broke the tradition against usury, which was condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325 and reaffirmed by many councils thereafter. [Williams, 2003, 36-37]

 

1931

Catholic bishops, at a meeting in Fulda, Germany, voted down a condemnation of Nazism. "They hated liberalism and democracy much more than they hated Hitler." [Johnson, 1976, 482]

 

1933

Adolph Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany. "The Nazis, thanks to the clandestine workings of the Vatican, had gained control of the government." [Williams, 2003, 44]

1933

German Catholic bishops reversed their position and supported Hitler after he assumed power. The Vatican's Secretary of State Cardinal Pacelli convinced Pope Pius XII not to oppose Hitler. [Johnson, 1976, 482]

1933

Hitler told Bishop Berning of Osnabruch: "As for the Jews, I am just carrying on with the same policy which the Catholic church had adopted for 1500 years." [Johnson, 1976, 490]

1933

Rome signed a concordat with Hitler, which unilaterally ceded all power to the Nazis and advised German Catholics to support Hitler's regime. At the time of the signing, Nazis had been asserting their hostility to Catholics by "by searching priests' houses, forcing Catholic clubs and organizations to liquidate themselves, dismissing Catholic civil servants, confiscating diocesan property, censoring Catholic papers, and even attempting to close Catholic schools." Priests and leading lay Catholics were arrested and held until the Catholic Bavarian People's Party dissolved itself. In the face of these provocations, there was nothing but silence from German Bishops and the Vatican. [Johnson, 1976, 482-483, 489]

Hitler and the Vatican signed a concordat. The Nazis promised state support for Catholic social programs, outlawed criticism of Catholic doctrines in schools and public forums, and instituted a "church tax" on incomes of all Catholics in Germany. The tax was 9 percent of gross income and was collected via payroll deductions. In return, the Vatican agreed that Germany's Catholic Center Party would dissolve itself. In addition, German Catholic bishops were forced to swear loyalty oaths to the Nazi regime. [Williams, 2003, 46]

 

1934

The "Night of the Long Knives." Nazis purged the Reich. The executed included Dr Fritz Gerlich, editor of "Der Gerade Weg," a Munich Catholic weekly, Dr. Edgar Jung, prominent in Catholic Action, Dr Erich Klausner, General-Secretary of Catholic Action, Adalbert Probst, Director of the Catholic Sports Organization, and Father Bernard Stempfle, editor of an anti-Semitic Bavarian newspaper.

"Hitler refused to hand over their bodies to relatives and had them cremated in defiance of Catholic teaching." Evangelicals and Catholic bishops alike were silent, making no protest. One Evangelical bishop of Nassau-Hessen, a Dr. Dietrich, sent a congratulatory letter to Hitler, thanking him for the "rescue operation," and claiming that "he has been sent to us by God."

Cardinal Pacelli (later, Pope Pius XII), the Vatican's Secretary of State, stated that the atrocities against Jews and Catholics were matters of German internal affairs. [Johnson, 1976, 487; Williams, 2003, 48]

 

1935

A munitions plant owned by the Vatican provided armaments for Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia. [Williams, 2003, 38]

1935

The Nuremberg Laws forbade two Catholics to marry if one was non-Aryan. The Church had initially complained that the law infringed on its spiritual jurisdiction, but eventually gave in. The Church excommunicated Catholics who willed that they be cremated, "but it did not forbid them to work in concentration or death-camps. "... at the end of 1938, 22.7 per cent of the SS were practising Catholics." [Johnson, 1976, 491]

 

1936

Talking with Bishop Berning of Osnabruch, Adolf Hitler told him "there was no fundamental difference between National Socialism and the Catholic Church. ... 'I am only doing what the church has done for fifteen hundred years, only more effectively.' Being a Catholic himself, he told Berning, he 'admired and wanted to promote Christianity.'" [De Rosa, 5]

 

1938

Pope Pius XI had prepared an encyclical that condemned Hitler's anti-Semitism and terrorism. He scheduled a meeting of the Italian hierarchy for February 11 to be followed by the public release of the document on the twelfth. On February 10 the pope died under mysterious circumstances. Not only was the encyclical never issued publicly, for decades the Vatican maintained that the document never existed. In 1997 scholars found a copy among the papers of Cardinal Eugenio Tisserant, who had been dean of the Sacred College under Pius XI.

Only Dr. Francisco Petacci and Cardinal Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) had access to Pius XI's body. Against Vatican tradition, they had the deceased pope's body immediately embalmed and refused to allow an autopsy.

It turned out that Dr. Petacci's daughter was one of Mussolini's mistresses, and Cardinal Pacelli's secretary, Monsignor Umberto Benigni, was an official of the Fascist Secret Police—a Nazi spy. [Williams, 2003, 49-54]

 

1939

Cardinal Pacelli became Pope Pius XII on March 9, 1939. One of his first acts as pope was to send greetings to Hitler and "to strengthen papal ties to the Reich."

"Hitler's response to the groveling of the Austrian bishops was to revoke their concordat, close their schools, and loot and burn the palace of Cardinal Innitzer, their leader. Despite this, Pius XII ... could hardly wait to send Hitler a friendly letter." [Williams, 2003, 59; Johnson, 1976, 489]

 

1939-42

In 1939 Hitler invaded predominantly Catholic Poland. He planned to kill the Polish intelligentsia, including clergy, and enslave everyone else. There were more than 2,000 concentration camps in Poland. "Altogether Poland lost six million citizens during the war years."

"In his 1939 encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, Pius XII condemned the war but not the German invasion." "...the official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, said vaguely that the pope suffered because of the destiny of a Catholic nation, but that the Holy See would remain impartial and speak in the name of truth and justice."

Polish clergy wrote to the pope in 1941, telling him how bad things were for Polish Catholics. The Polish ambassador to the Vatican told the Vatican's secretary of state about it also. In the fall of 1942, six countries, including the US and Britain sent separate letters to the pope, warning him about the loss of papal moral authority. In 1942 the English minister to the Holy See checked the record and told the Vatican that "Pope Pius had not referred explicitly and publicly to Poland since June of 1940."

For a long time, the Vatican's official position on their silence was that condemning the atrocities in Poland would just make matters worse for the Poles. A second reason given for inaction was that they didn't want to be accused of giving in to Allied pressure. A third reason: the Vatican feared the Germans would put an end to their charitable work for the Poles. Then they admitted that the Nazis hadn't allowed it up to that time anyway

It appears that the real reason for the Pope's silence was that he was afraid of German retaliation against the Vatican if he spoke out. Three times during the latter half of 1941, Pius sent a representative to Germany to plead for better treatment of Polish priests and lay people, but that accomplished nothing. When the Vatican pressed the Germans more strongly in 1942, they received threats from the Nazis, so they backed off.

But, Pius said privately that he wanted both an independent Poland and a strong postwar Germany. On several occasions he spoke about Germany's "vital necessities." [Phayer, Chapter 2]

It was believed that the pope feared communism more than Nazism.

 

1941

Hitler conquered Yugoslavia and partitioned Catholic Croatia from Orthodox Serbia. A few days later, the primate of Croatia, Archbishop Stepinac, offered his congratulations to Hitler's new puppet ruler, Ante Pavelic, for the Fascist victory. He was the leader of the Croat fascist movement, the Ustasha. Besides being anti-Semitic, he was anti-Serb and pro-Catholic.The Catholic press published a statement which ended with "Glory be to God, our gratitude to Adolf Hitler, and infinite loyalty to chief Ante Pavelic." [Williams, 2003, 64; Phayer, 32]

 

1941-42

Many Catholic priests were officers at Ustashi death camps in Croatia. Fr. Miroslav Filipovic, Fr. Zvonko Brekalo, Fr. Zvonko Lipovac, Fr. Josef Culina, Fr. Grga Blazevitch, and Br. Tugomire Soldo, all of whom were Franciscans, also took an active part in the atrocities.

Many more such atrocities by Croatian Catholics (including priests) are documented here. Williams comments that even some hardened Nazi officers were horrified; one reported to Hitler that "the Ustashi have gone raving mad." The massacres and plundering of Orthodox establishments resulted in much treasure being transferred to the Vatican. [Williams, 2003, 67-68]

 

1942

Ample documentation exists which shows that Pope Pius XII and his closest advisers were well-informed throughout the war about the atrocities committed by the Croatians.

 

• The World Jewish Congress sent a letter to the Pope asking for help.
• Archbishop Stepinac of Croatia and the pope's personal representative in Croatia, Monsignor Ramiro Marcone, both regularly reported to him about the conditions in Croatia.
• Francis D'Arcy Osborne, London's Minister to the Vatican monitored and translated BBC broadcasts for the Pope.
• Prvislav Grizogono, former Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, wrote an official letter to Pius XII listing the atrocities in Croatia.

 

Notwithstanding these reports and postwar documented stories in the international press, Pius XII did not censure the Ustashi, the Franciscans, or any member of the clergy.

After the war, when a war crimes tribunal found Archbishop Stepinac guilty and sentenced him to sixteen years in prison, then Pius XII publicly declared his outrage and excommunicated everyone who had taken part in the trial. Furthermore, in 1998 Pope John Paul II went to Croatia and announced the archbishop's beatification.[Williams, 2003, 70-72]

Corroboration and augmentation of the events in Croatia, described above, can be found in Chapter Three of Michael Phayer's The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965. The record clearly shows that Pope Pius XII wanted a Catholic Croatian state more than he wanted to end the genocide.

1942

On order of the Nazis, 500 Polish Christian men shot to death 1800 Jews in one Polish village. [Newberg, 147]

1942

The Vatican bank was founded by Pope Pius XII, despite never having withdrawn its ban against the charging of interest on loans "under any circumstances." The bank was involved in major financial scandals a few decades later. [De Rosa, 21]

 

1945

Pope Pius XII finally condemned the Nazis. By this time the Germans had surrendered and Hitler was dead.[Johnson, 1976, 493]

 

1948

"In a state where the majority of people are Catholic, the church will require that legal existence be denied to error, and that if religious minorities exist, they shall have only a de facto existence without opportunity to spread their unbeliefs." [Civilta Cattolica (Jesuit), (quoted in Leedom, 265]

 

 959

"Anti-Semitism flares at Cologne, Germany." [Grun, 544]

1959

"Cardinal Spellman said: 'Next to Jesus Christ, the greatest thing that happened to the Church was Bernardino Nogara.'" Nogara had been the manager and director of the Special Administration of the Holy See, a financial institution. Eventually, the Special Administration's "workings were esteemed to be of such importance that Nogara became the only Vatican official with free and unannounced access to the Holy Father." [Williams, 2003, 36]

 

1965

The Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (formerly The Holy Office of Inquisition) was again renamed. This time it became the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. [Kirsch, 208]

 

1968

"Ulster civil rights campaign leads to fighting between Protestants and Roman Catholics." [Grun, 562]

1968

"Pope Paul VI: encyclical 'Humanae Vitae' against all artificial means of contraception." [Grun, 562]

 

1970

"Pope Paul VI declares priestly celibacy to be a fundamental principle of the Roman Catholic Church." [Grun, 568]

 

1971

"A synod of Roman Catholic bishops, meeting in Rome, reaffirms the role of celibacy for the clergy." [Grun, 568]

 

1975

"Four women ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in Washington; previous ordination of 11 women in Philadelphia is invalidated by the House of Bishops." [Grun, 580]

 

1976

"... a poor spinster, Elizabeth Hahn, was suspected of witchcraft and of keeping familiars, or devil's agents, in the form of dogs. The neighbors in her small German village ostracized her, threw rocks at her, and threatened to beat her to death before burning her house, badly burning her and killing her animals." [Ellerbe, 137]

 

1977

"... in France, an old man was killed for ostensible sorcery." [Ellerbe, 137]

 

1978

U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan, his aides, reporters, State Dept. officers and relatives of colonists were killed at Jonestown, Guyana, by members of Rev. Jim Jones' People's Temple. Then 914 colonists killed themselves by drinking a poisoned liquid. A female member and her three children had their throats cut in Georgetown, Guyana. More than a year later, Former member Al Mills and his family were shot to death at their California home. They had helped to expose the problems at Peoples Temple. Jim Jones was an evangelical, a self-proclaimed prophet of God, then Jesus, who performed "miracles" and faith healing. He had also predicted that the world would end on July 15, 1967. [Haught, 1990, 185-191]

 

1979

"I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"[Rev. Jerry Falwell, (quoted in Leedom, 265)]

 

1981

The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the new name for the old Inquisition) "reaffirmed an old decree of excommunication against Catholics who dare to join the Freemasons...." [Kirsch, 208]

1981

"A mob in Mexico stoned a woman to death for her apparent witchcraft which they believed had incited the attack upon Pope John Paul II." [Ellerbe, 137]

 

1983

In Darkley, Northern Ireland, Catholic terrorists with automatic weapons killed three and wounded seven in a Protestant church on a Sunday morning. It was "one of hundreds of Protestant–Catholic ambushes which have cost nearly 3,000 lives during 20 years of religious conflict in Northern Ireland." [Haught, 1990, 10]

 

1984

"I believe this notion of the separation of church and state was the figment of some infidel's imagination." [Rev. W. A. Criswell, Dallas TX, (quoted in Leedom, 265)]

1984

Father Gilbert Gauthe was indicted for many crimes, including rape and sexual relations with a minor, in Lafayette, Louisiana. Knowing Gauthe's history, the Church transferred him to different parishes several times for positions in which he had contact with children. [BishopAccountability.org, citing "The Tragedy of Gilbert Gauthe" by Jason Berry in The Times of Acadiana, May 23, 1985; Gaylor, Annie Laurie, "Sexual Child Abuse In The Church," in Leedom, 372.]

1984

When attorney Gloria Allred scheduled a press conference to name seven priests who had sexually abused her client, all seven "disappeared." When Msgr. Benjamin Hawkes found out about the lawsuit, he telephoned the priests and told them to leave town immediately. The Los Angeles diocese claimed not to know their whereabouts. [Morrison, Los Angeles Times, March 28, 1991]

 

1985

In Northern Ireland, "there were 54 assassinations, 148 bombings, 237 shooting episodes, 916 woundings, thirty-one kneecappings, 522 arrests on terrorism charges, and 3.3 tons of explosives and weapons seized. All this in a tiny country with a population of 1.5 million people." [Haught, 1990, 183]

 

1986

"The Supreme Court of the United States of America is an institution damned by God Almighty." [Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, (quoted in Leedom, 265)]

1986

The son of Faye and Glenn Gastal were awarded $1 million for damages to their son by Father Gilbert Gauthe in Louisiana. [Gaylor, Annie Laurie, "Sexual Child Abuse In The Church," in Leedom, 372.]

1986

Father Andrew Christian Anderson was found guilty on 26 counts of child molestation. He was sentenced to only five years probation. The church had never reported him to authorities, and continued allowing him contact with young boys. [Gaylor, Annie Laurie, "Sexual Child Abuse In The Church," in Leedom, 373.]

 

1987

"[Non-believers] can't be considered citizens or patriots ... this is one nation under God." [George H.W. Bush, 41st US President, at a press conference at O'Hare Airport, Chicago]

 

1990

The death toll in Northern Ireland from the previous two decades was 3,000. [Haught, 1990, 184]

1990

According to a study by Rev. Ronald Barton and Rev. Karen Lebaczq at Berkeley found that 25% of all clergy have engaged in sexual misconduct. [Gaylor, Annie Laurie, "Sexual Child Abuse In The Church," in Leedom, 369.]

1990

"11 out of the 46 Protestant ministers charged in 1990 with criminal sexual abuse had prior convictions ... all dating since 1985. Most of the men had received light sentences ... Churches are not only failing to check ministers' records, but in some instances are knowingly hiring convicted child molesters." [Gaylor, Annie Laurie, "Sexual Child Abuse In The Church," in Leedom, 370.]

 

1991

"I want to be invisible. I do guerilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night." [Ralph Reed, Christian Coalition, (quoted in Leedom, 265).]

1991

Letters dating from the 1980s from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles advised Santiago Tamayo, a priest accused of sexual abuse with a minor, to leave the country and stay there. Church officials later denied knowledge of his whereabouts. They later admitted that they did know that Tamayo was in the Philippines when the victim's attorney was trying to serve him legal papers. [Morrison, Los Angeles Times, March 28, 1991]

 

1992

"The majority of our leaders are pro-abortion. So you don't go in there and say, 'I'm an advocate against abortion.' No, you say, 'I'm interested in housing, or development, or sanitation.' And you keep your personal views to yourself until the Christian community is ready to rise up, and, wow! They're gonna be devastated!"[Antonio Rivera, Christian Coalition NYC, (quoted in Leedom, 265.]

1992

After a thirteen year study of Galileo's trial, a commission appointed by Pope John Paul II reported that the Inquisition had committed "a subjective error of judgment." The pope expressed sympathy with their findings but declined to reverse Galileo's conviction. As of 2008, Galileo's conviction still stood. [Kirsch, 208]

 

1994

Two thousand attendees including, then Vice-President Dan Quayle, at a religious-right training conference, pledged allegiance to Jesus and a Christian flag. [Sidney Blumenthal, New Yorker, July 18, 1994, (quoted in Leedom, 292]

1994

Rwandan Benedictine nun Maria Kisito and her mother superior Sister Gertrude helped Hutu militiamen set fire to a garage in which Tutsis had taken refuge. Five hundred Tutsis were burned alive. 5000 to 7000 in all died after taking refuge at the convent in southern Rwanda. [Wikipedia, "Maria Kisito," citing the Washington Post, June 9, 2001]

 

1995, July

"Srebrenica: Worst European Atrocity Since World War II"
Led by "Serb commander-in-chief General Ratko Mladic."
"In a five-day orgy of slaughter at Srebrenica in July 1995, up to 8,000 Muslims were systematically exterminated in what was described at the U.N. war crimes tribunal as "the triumph of evil." 
"More than 60 truckloads of refugees were taken from Srebrenica to execution sites where they were bound, blindfolded, and shot with automatic rifles."
"Some were buried alive...."
"... Bosnian Serb forces had killed and tortured refugees at will. Streets were littered with corpses, he said, and rivers were red with blood. Many people committed suicide to avoid having their noses, lips and ears chopped off...."
"... adults being forced to kill their children or watching as soldiers ended the young lives." [CNN World, 05/26/2011]

 

1998

Pope John Paul II announced the beatification of Archbishop Stepinac, who was a convicted war criminal.[Williams, 2003, 70-72. See also: 1942.]

 

This thread has been hijacked by some cut and paste bloke. The only reason why one cannot find such chronological equivalent in Hinduism and others is because they did not record history as well and when they did it was not unbiased. If one does more research one can find so much crimes in other religions too that are really much worse.
The fact remains that religion has had an evil history as far as politics is concerned. But which religion has evolved the best to support freedom and tolerance?. The answer is the religion which let you talk about its bad history even while staying in the country which was founded by that religion and established on its ideals by its founders.  

 LOL....freedon 2012 ....i have been reading your posts from the top and interesting to see how you are changing your stance about your religion. you started out as how christianity was the best religion and now ending with its equally bad as hinduism because bad stuffs are not recorded in hinduism.

Hinduism is the most tolerable and most free religion of all so far. There are no strict guidelines on how to approach the GOD. Each can find their own way to reach salvation. Hindus are so tolerant that they have allowed christians to open conversion shops at every little corner of India and Nepal. In other Abhramic religion such as Muslims, those christians would have been burned alive. Hindus know that the christians take advantage of their illitracy, poverty and ignorance and convert them into christianity wiht food and clothes sponsored from vatican and yet they allow them to keep on doing that in their land. 

 This thread has been hijacked by some cut and paste bloke. The only reason why one cannot find such chronological equivalent in Hinduism and others is because they did not record history as well and when they did it was not unbiased. If one does more research one can find so much crimes in other religions too that are really much worse.

They did not use christian calanader does not mean that they did not record their history. The problem is not the record of the history, the problem is wanting to see everything  thgoriugh christian spectacle 

 If one does more research one can find so much crimes in other religions too that are really much worse.

No need to do "more Research". Just few clicks will take you there.(or may be few clicks in internet is "more research" for you)

But which religion has evolved the best to support freedom and tolerance?

Are you sure? or just you are day dreaming? read following

Ireland to clarify abortion rules after Indian woman's death

Reuters | Nov 16, 2012, 04.49 PM IST

 

 

DUBLIN: Ireland's government pledged on Thursday to clarify its abortion laws after an Indian woman who was refused a termination died from blood poisoning in an Irish hospital. 

Thousands took to the streets to protest on Wednesday after news broke of the death ofSavita Halappanavar of septicaemia following a miscarriage 17 weeks into her pregnancy. 

Activists in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, which has some of the world's most restrictive laws on abortion, say the refusal by doctors to terminate the pregnancy earlier may have contributed to her death. 

"I was deeply disturbed yesterday by what Savita's husband said. I don't think as a country we should allow a situation where women's rights are put at risk in this way," deputy prime minister Eamon Gilmore told parliament on Thursday. 

"There is no question of equivocation. We need to bring legal clarity to this issue and that is what we are going to do." 

Irish law does not specify under what circumstances the threat to the life or health of the mother is high enough to justify a termination, leaving doctors to decide. Critics say this means doctors' personal beliefs can play a role. 

Halappanavar was admitted to hospital in severe pain on October 21 and asked for a termination after doctors told her the baby would not survive, according to her husband Praveen. 

The foetus was surgically removed when its heartbeat stopped days later, but her family believes the delay contributed to the blood poisoning that killed Halappanavar on Oct. 28. 

Praveen said he would wait for the results of an investigation before deciding whether to sue, but that Ireland's Roman Catholic tradition appeared to have been a factor in the decision to deny a termination. 

"I am still in shock. It is hard to believe that religion can mean somebody's life," Praveen Halappanavar told Reuters. He said he planned to return to Ireland from India, where he travelled with his wife's body. 

The Irish health authority (HSE) has launched an inquiry which the health minister said must "stand up to the scrutiny of the world." Irish media said Praveen would be interviewed. 

The Indian couple were resident and working in Ireland, he as an engineer and she as a dentist. 

Political storm 

Despite a dramatic waning of the influence of the Catholic Church, which dominated politics in Ireland until the 1980s, successive governments have been loath to legislate on an issue they fear could alienate conservative voters. 

Fine Gael, the senior partner in Ireland's ruling coalition, told supporters before a recent election that it would not introduce new laws allowing abortion during its five-year term, despite pressure from its junior partner Labour to act. 

The government said it had received long-delayed recommendations from an expert panel on introducing new rules on abortion, and would report before the end of the month. 

Four out of five Irish voters support a change in the law to permit abortion in cases where a mother's life is at risk, according to a recent opinion poll. 

But a vocal anti-abortion minority has dominated the debate on abortion in Ireland in the past, with campaigners arguing that the adoption of legislation or guidelines for medical terminations would bring in abortion through the back door. 

In 1992, when challenged in the "X-case" involving a 14-year-old rape victim, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was permitted when the woman's life was at risk, including from suicide. A European court of human rights in 2010 ruled that Ireland must clarify what this means in practice. 

"This is exactly what the (European) court was complaining about ... The court has not said Ireland must or must not have abortion, they said they have to clarify circumstances," said Ronan McCrea, a barrister and lecturer in law at University College London. 

"The vagueness ... gives excessive scope to doctors to follow their own personal views or it means even if they want to give the treatment, they worry they'll fall foul of the law," he said. 

Halappanavar's death has dominated debate in Ireland's parliament since news of it broke on Wednesday. Her photograph was spread across front pages of all Ireland's major newspapers on Thursday, while editorials demanded action from politicians. 

The fact that she is a foreign national has heightened the government's embarrassment. The story was on the front of several large Indian newspapers and family members were featured on national television. 

The Indian government said on Thursday it deeply regretted Halappanavar's death. "The death of an Indian national in such circumstances is a matter of concern," a spokesman said.

_________________________________

Please do not come to sajha and start advocating religion as a blindfolded person may be it is a good idea to do "more research" before posting somthing. because not all people are vulnarable to propoganda.

The answer is the religion which let you talk about its bad history even while staying in the country which was founded by that religion and established on its ideals by its founders.   

if you are talking about US, FYI I do not live in US. You are so naive that you think everyone who posts in sajha live in US? what do you think?
US was founded by religion ??

The United States Constitution serves as the law of the land for America and indicates the intent of our Founding Fathers. The Constitution forms a secular document, and nowhere does it appeal to God, Christianity, Jesus, or any supreme being. (For those who think the date of the Constitution contradicts the last sentence, see note 1 at the end.) The U.S. government derives from people (not God), as it clearly states in the preamble: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union...." The omission of God in the Constitution did not come out of forgetfulness, but rather out of the Founding Fathers purposeful intentions to keep government separate from religion.

Although the Constitution does not include the phrase "Separation of Church & State," neither does it say "Freedom of religion." However, the Constitution implies both in the 1st Amendment. As to our freedoms, the 1st Amendment provides exclusionary wording:

Congress shall make NO law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. 

..........
..........
The Declaration of Independence

Many Christian's who think of America as founded upon Christianity usually present the Declaration of Independence as "proof" of a Christian America. The reason appears obvious: the Declaration mentions God. (You may notice that some Christians avoid the Constitution, with its absence of God.)

However, the Declaration of Independence does not represent any law of the United States. It came before the establishment of our lawful government (the Constitution). The Declaration aimed at announcing the separation of America from Great Britain and it listed the various grievances with them. The Declaration includes the words, "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America." The grievances against Great Britain no longer hold today, and we have more than thirteen states.

Although the Declaration may have influential power, it may inspire the lofty thoughts of poets and believers, and judges may mention it in their summations, it holds no legal power today. It represents a historical document about rebellious intentions against Great Britain at a time before the formation of our government.

Of course the Declaration stands as a great political document. Its author aimed at a future government designed and upheld bypeople and not based on a superstitious god or religious monarchy. It observed that all men "are created equal" meaning that we all have the natural ability of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men." Please note that the Declaration says nothing about our rights secured by Christianity. It bears repeating: "Governments are instituted among men."

The pursuit of happiness does not mean a guarantee of happiness, only that we have the freedom to pursue it. Our Law of the Land incorporates this freedom of pursuit in the Constitution. We can believe or not believe as we wish. We may succeed or fail in our pursuit, but our Constitution (and not the Declaration) protects our unalienable rights in our attempt at happiness.

Moreover, the mentioning of God in the Declaration does not describe the personal God of Christianity. Thomas Jefferson who held deist beliefs, wrote the majority of the Declaration. The Declaration describes "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." This nature's view of God agrees with deist philosophy and might even appeal to those of pantheistical beliefs, but any attempt to use the Declaration as a support for Christianity will fail for this reason alone.

The Treaty of Tripoli

 

 

Unlike most governments of the past, the American Founding Fathers set up a government divorced from any religion. Their establishment of a secular government did not require a reflection to themselves of its origin; they knew this as a ubiquitous unspoken given. However, as the United States delved into international affairs, few foreign nations knew about the intentions of the U.S. For this reason, an insight from at a little known but legal document written in the late 1700s explicitly reveals the secular nature of the U.S. goverenment to a foreign nation. Officially called the "Treaty of peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, of Barbary," most refer to it as simply the Treaty of Tripoli. In Article 11, it states:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." 

The preliminary treaty began with a signing on 4 November, 1796 (the end of George Washington's last term as president). Joel Barlow, the American diplomat served as counsel to Algiers and held responsibility for the treaty negotiations. Barlow had once served under Washington as a chaplain in the revolutionary army. He became good friends with Paine, Jefferson, and read Enlightenment literature. Later he abandoned Christian orthodoxy for rationalism and became an advocate of secular government. Joel Barlow wrote the original English version of the treaty, including Amendment 11. Barlow forwarded the treaty to U.S. legislators for approval in 1797. Timothy Pickering, the secretary of state, endorsed it and John Adams concurred (now during his presidency), sending the document on to the Senate. The Senate approved the treaty on June 7, 1797, and officially ratified by the Senate with John Adams signature on 10 June, 1797. All during this multi-review process, the wording of Article 11 never raised the slightest concern. The treaty even became public through its publication in The Philadelphia Gazette on 17 June 1797.

So here we have a clear admission by the United States in 1797 that our government did not found itself upon Christianity. Unlike the Declaration of Independence, this treaty represented U.S. law as all U.S. Treaties do (see the Constitution, Article VI, Sect.2: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.") [Bold text, mine]

Although the Treaty of Tripoli under agreement only lasted a few years and no longer has legal status, it clearly represented the feelings of our Founding Fathers at the beginning of the American government.

 

Mr. freedom 2012, By doing "some more research" on founding fathers of US , i suspect that you may have fallen  pray to the christian advocacy group.

Please read following.

The U.S. Founding Fathers: Their Religious Beliefs

Sidster,
I am an Agnostic. It is true that people in Asia never recorded their history as well as did the white people. USA becoming more Atheist is not something to cheer about for Hindus and Muslims because Atheists do not believe in God in general, not just the Bible God but neither the hindu god nor the muslim god. These Atheists from the West however had a Christian upbringing and some values which are encouraged from childhood like donating to the poor, adopting kids, making a meritocratic and egalitarian society are encouraged. This is why millions of hindus and muslims still migrate to the West every year.  

Using my analytical brain, i see followers of certain religion failing to make an egalitarian and meritocratic society. Copy Paste bro, isnt it amazing that all the Western countries are predominantly christian and white?. Mass immigration to the West by Asians (hindus. muslims) is a recent phenomenon. And you can relax as you will not be persecuted for showing the bad side of Christianity in the past even if you live amidst them at present. Try doing the same in India or muslim country and speak against their religion and you will wish you had never left the West.

During Xmas here, one Hindu actually put a Hanuman on the Xmas tree at work once. There was one Xtian who got offended. But majority of the workmates actually told her off and continued with the celebration. Even that one was smiling and celebrating later on. This is my actual experience at work. I learnt a lot from that experience.

Actually the most easy religion to criticize is Hinduism for obvious reasons. If i really were to dwell on it, i could write an encyclopedia on it.  

Sidster,
lolz all were Atheists and even the one who objected initially was an Atheist. Seriously dude?. You are in severe denial. But even the Atheists of the West have a Christian upbringing at some stage and some values hold on. What the hindu lady did was wrong. You should respect other peoples' religion. But inspite of the wrong, there was merry making. I was merely highlighting the tolerance.
LOLZ and you bring the KKK on. Ever heard of SHIV SENA?. The only difference is that KKK commits a crime, they get caught and punished my friend. KKK is a minority. SHIV SENA is a majority. 
 

LOLZ and you bring the KKK on. Ever heard of SHIV SENA?. The only difference is that KKK commits a crime, they get caught and punished my friend. KKK is a minority. SHIV SENA is a majority.

Are you finally accepting Christians are as bad as the Hindus? I dont know what else you are saying in the above statement.

 And the IRONY of your priceless discussion of "very tolerant nepal" is next to the other posting " Nepali restaurant serving beef". At the end of the day, NO we are NOT as tolerant as you claim. If you cannot get use to beef in this day and age, then you're in kindergarden of tolerance.

Sidster bro,
this thread (as per the poster and video) is about the hindu intolerence towards christians. So, i made my opinion. i have grown up in the West. I had colleagues whose son/daughter became hindu/buddhist and their catholic mother/father was happy for their choice and talked about it with a smile on their face. Some colleagues asked me nicely about my religion and were keen to learn. So this is not about religion but freedom and tolerance. Religion is a personal choice, even if someone does it for money, it is their choice. 
I never said Christianity is perfect. What i said was it has evolved to be the best supporter of freedom and tolerance. More often than not, Christians succeed in making a meritocratic and egalitarian society.