Here is only one page in the history of the RCC as documented in the book "A Woman Rides the Beast," by Dave Hunt:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />In 1209 [Pope Innocent III] proclaimed a crusade against [them]. Indulgences, such as had been given to the [Holy Land] Crusaders…were now offered to all who would take part in the easier work of destroying the most fruitful provinces of France. This, and the prospect of booty and license of every kind, attracted hundreds of thousands of men. Under the presidence of high clerical dignitaries and led by Simon de Montfort, a military leader of great ability…the most beautiful and cultivated part of Europe at that time was ravaged...33
These simple believers were burned at the stake or slain with the sword (and most of their records were destroyed) when their towns and villages were razed by papal armies. Catholic apologists falsely accuse them of heresies and abominable practices which they denied. The accounts we have of their trials reveal that they held beliefs similar to evangelicals of today. Though some of the worst tales are told about the Cathari, one can only agree with their beliefs as described by Durant:
[They] denied that the [Roman Catholic] Church was the Church of Christ; [declared that] St. Peter had never come to Rome, had never founded the papacy; [and that] the popes were successors to the emperors, not to the apostles. [They taught that] Christ had no place to lay His head, but the pope lived in a palace; Christ was propertyless and penniless, but Christian prelates were rich; surely…these lordly archbishops and bishops, these worldly priests, these fat monks, were the Pharisees of old returned to life! The Roman Church, they were sure, was the Whore of Babylon, the clergy were a Synagogue of Satan the pope was Antichrist. They denounced the preachers of crusades as murderers…laughed at indulgences and relics…the called the churches “dens of thieves” and Catholic priests seemed to them “traitors, liars, and hypocrites.”34
Nineteenth-century Roman Catholic author du Pin writes: “The pope [Innocent III] and the prelates were of opinion that it was lawful to make use of force, to see whether those who were not reclaimed out of sense of their salvation might be so by the fear of punishments, and even of temporal death.” Almost everyone knows that crusades were organized of tens of thousands of knights and foot soldiers to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims. Very few have ever heard that similar crusades involving huge armies were fought against Christians who could not in good conscience submit to Rome. Yet such was the case, beginning with Pope Innocent III. 35
A major crime of these Christians was believing in freedom of conscience and worship—biblical concepts which the popes hated, for such beliefs would put Rome out of business. Though no exact figures are available, the slaughter of these Christians by the popes probably ran into the millions during the thousand years before the Reformation. In the city of Bezeirs alone about 60,000 men, women and children were wiped out in one crusade.36 Innocent III considered the annihilation of these particular heretics the crowning achievement of his papacy! Broadbent writes:
When the town of Beziers was summoned to surrender, the Catholic inhabitants joined with the Dissenters in refusing….The town was taken, and of the tens of thousands who had taken refuge there, none were spared [alive]. 37
33. E.H. Broadbent, “The Pilgrim Church” (London, 1931), pp. 88-89
34. Durant, “op. cit., vol. IV, p. 772.
35. Du Pin, “The Inquisition,” vol. ii, pp. 151-54, cited in R.W. Thompson, “The Papacy and the Civil Power” (New York, 1876), p. 418.
36. R. W. Thompson, “The Papacy and the Civil Power” (New York, 1876), p. 418; see also de Rosa, op. cit., p. 73.
37. Broadbent, op. cit., pp. 88-89.
]