Message #17130

[mccoy]

Steve, if you want to enumerate all the atrocities carried out by the Catholic Church ot in name of it there is not room in an encyclopaedia.

Fra Dolcino, a medieval, heretic, was repeatedly tortured in public on an ox-driven carriage. After these tortures, which entailed castration and cutting off his nose, with heated pincers to avoid excessive blood loss, he was executed.

One of the worse massacres carried out in the name of the Church happened in Southern Italy. A Group of about 200 heretics, men, women and children, was killed one after the other by a knife in the jugular, using the same bloodied rag put on their eyes.  The description of the historician goes like that "...they were killed like cattle in a slaughtehouse..."

My only question is: why those people didn't pretend conversion? In those times there was no escape from the Church's cruelty if you were considered an heretic.