Catholic Intolerance

Catholic canon law states: “Most firmly hold and in no way doubt that every heretic or schismatic is to have part with the Devil and his angels in the flames of eternal fire, unless before the end of his life he be incorporated with, and restored to the Catholic Church.” And up to this day the oath of allegiance of Roman Catholic bishops states: “With all my power I will persecute and make war upon heretics.” Thus intolerance was built into Catholic thinking. But justifying this attitude, the authoritative French Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique states: “Being the guardian of revealed truth, faith and morals, the church cannot tolerate the spreading of any teaching that is harmful to the faith of the faithful.”

Thus the Catholic Church has often hounded down “heretics,” judged them and then handed them over to the secular authorities for punishment. The New Encyclopædia Britannica writes: “In the imperial church [after Constantine]​—especially after the emperor Theodosius in the late 4th century—​heresy became a criminal transgression punishable by the state. The enemy of the church was likewise viewed as the enemy of the empire. Thus, bishops at the imperial synods of the 4th to 8th centuries attempted to declare as heretics the minority of dissenters and to eliminate them as enemies of the state.”

The church also used the secular authorities to show its intolerance toward the Jews, the Muslims, the Cathari and the Albigenses (massacred in a “holy war” in southern France in the early 13th century), heretics and European Protestants. True, most of this blood was shed by the “secular sword.” But in his bull Unam Sanctam, issued in 1302, Pope Boniface VIII decreed that the “secular sword” must submit to the “spiritual sword” of the church and “be employed for the Church . . . under the direction of the spiritual power.” (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 15, page 126) So the Catholic Church cannot escape responsibility for the blood shed as a result of its policy of religious intolerance.

Protestant Intolerance

The Catholic Church, however, did not hold the monopoly on religious intolerance. Led by theologian John Calvin, Protestants carried out their own reign of terror. Swiss-born Protestant historian Philip Schaff admitted: “To the great humiliation of the Protestant churches, religious intolerance and even persecution unto death were continued long after the Reformation. In Geneva the pernicious theory was put into practice by state and church, even to the use of torture and the admission of the testimony of children against their parents, and with the sanction of Calvin.” And when his theology on predestination and the Trinity was challenged by Jérôme Bolsec and Michael Servetus respectively, Calvin had the former banished from Geneva and the latter arrested and tried as a heretic. Servetus was burned at the stake. Other “heretics,” too, were burned in Calvinist Geneva, with the approval of such Protestant theologians as Theodore Beza.

Martin Luther, too, showed great intolerance. He not only became “notoriously anti-Semitic [anti-Jewish]” but even had four “witches” burned in Wittenburg.

Soon France and Germany would be torn asunder by ferocious religious wars in the 16th and 17th centuries​—atrocities being committed by Catholics and Protestants alike.

The Rise of Secular Intolerance

‘But certainly man has learned from his past mistakes,’ you might say. And, indeed, the churches of late have demonstrated a more tolerant attitude than in the past. Nevertheless, as The New Encyclopædia Britannica says: “The legacy of Christian intolerance and the methods it developed (e.g., inquisition, or brainwashing) operates in the intolerance of the ideology and techniques of modern political revolutions.”

Yes, whereas in some respects there is a decline in religious intolerance within Christendom, our generation has seen an upsurge in political and racial intolerance. Such secular intolerance is indeed a “legacy of [apostate] Christian intolerance.” The Nazi Holocaust, or extermination of some six million Jews, is one example of this. And Hitler is quoted as justifying his intolerance of the Jews by saying: “I am just carrying on with the same policy which the Catholic church had adopted for 1500 years.” Other dictators since Hitler have used brainwashing and mental and physical torture in their fight against ideological “heretics.” Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, have often taken the brunt of such intolerance because of their political neutrality. In Cuba one Witness was stripped naked, wrapped in barbed wire and placed on top of a roof as human bait for hungry mosquitoes. In yet another land, five Witnesses were arrested and subjected to severe threats and beatings over a period of days. One had to be hospitalized as a result of his injuries. In three countries in northeast Africa, Witnesses were subjected to arrest. (Up to 5 percent of them in one country!) Many were tortured, and three were even killed. Yes, fanatical political rulers have learned much from the churches about silencing dissidents.

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Intolerance Knows No Boundaries

“Few Muslim nations . . . are models of toleration. But are they alone in this? The Inquisition and the wars of religion covered Christendom with blood, and the devout people who founded the United States viewed the Indians and the blacks as something less than human. The same is true today of their cousins in South Africa. As for the worshipers of Reason, unfortunately their reign coincided with the reign of the guillotine. ‘Scientific socialism’ [communism], when in power, has done no better.”​—French newspaper editor André Fontaine, writing in Le Monde.