Catholics, good, bad and some truth.
00:51 May 20 2006
Times Read: 651
Salem witch trials were not in any way connected to Catholics. It was a Protastant comunity. 19 people were hung and one was crushed to death by stone. No one was burned. The entire reason for the witch hunt was politics, land, power and money. It had little to nothing to do with religon.
Medevil burnings are a little harder to figure out. The church was not the sole reason for it though. Many of the officals were goverment (talk about waste of tax dollars). As with the Salem trials there were many "mistrials", otherwise people who were accused based on money, power and land. I fully admit it was not a pleasant time, but those accused of witchcraft were not the only ones. The whole thing started with the burning of Jews (ya know, the Jews have had the worst of the worst for centuries, and I have yet to hear them complain). There was another reason for all of this, not a good reason, but a reason none the less. It was a dark time, mostly due to the plauge. People wanted someone to blame. If you think about it, humans do this very often. Comunism, terrorists, all sorts of things, that someone needs to be blamed for.
Lastly, Catholics, Protastans and other Christians have had deaths as well. In the Roman times, you were killed for it. In the times of Henry the VIII you were killed for being Catholic (this went back and forth between Catholic and Protastant, and still goes on today in Northern Ireland). Many of the supposed witches were just everyday people, who were either in the wrong place at the wrong time, had enimies who found and easy out or were midwives and wise women (yes the Catholics have a very macho view, this has had a slow change, but a change none the less). I am not saying that the Christian faiths are lilly white, but that they are not to blame for everything.
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