Every student of history knows about the persecutions in Spain, the Spanish Inquisition. Believers were branded as heretics and 10,220 were burned to death within twelve months. As soon as a person confessed his faith in the Lord, he was put to death. All the judges in Catholic countries obeyed the order of the church. It was rare for the church to execute men directly. When the church wanted someone to die, it would request the courts to execute them. The church would not kill directly, but it asked the local authorities to do the killing.
The pope would pronounce twenty-seven anathemas every Thursday against all those who were considered heretics. Of course, when one adds up the finer points of the anathemas, there were more than twenty-seven items. The pope would curse all those who believed in the so-called heresies. After his pronouncement, he would kindle a torch and cast it down and quench it, signifying that everyone who believed in heresies would suffer eternal perdition. Please bear in mind that the heresies the Roman Catholic Church spoke of are what you and I believe in.
Since the time of Martin Luther, all bishops of the Roman Catholic Church had to make a solemn vow to persecute the heretics. In other words, the Roman Catholic Church is committed to persecuting those who hold the same faith as ours. St. Thomas Aquinas, a renowned figure in Catholicism once said, “Anyone who believes in heresies must be handed over to secular officials to be destroyed after being admonished twice.” The Catholic Church would not execute the judgment itself, but it would hand the case over to local officials for execution. The Roman Catholic Church openly professes that the words of Thomas Aquinas are direct inspirations of the Holy Spirit.
Do not think that this persecution is over. No, it is still going on. Everyone who has eyes will see that Roman Catholicism will keep coming back.
Within the stated decrees of Rome there is a clause which says that secular kings must destroy all heretics within their realms or else be excommunicated or lose their thrones.
A few popes in Rome, such as Honorius III, Innocent III, Innocent IV, and Alexander III, passed decrees which demanded all Catholics to fully destroy heretics. Gregory XIII told Charles IX that if he wanted to keep his country in godliness and religiosity, he must condemn all the heretics on the whole earth and fully destroy them. One of the pope’s words was published in the British newspaper, Times, on July 13, 1895. It said, “If you assassinate a Protestant, it will absolve your sin of assassinating a Roman Catholic.” These were the words of a pope! Another pope said, “To murder someone under the order of a priest is not considered murder.” These were the laws and edicts of Roman Catholicism.
As late as 1809 there were still witnesses who saw Protestants, the so-called heretics, killed in Madrid, the capital of Spain. Some had been freshly slain, while others were left to decay. There were some who were half-alive, while others, both men and women, young and old, even men in their seventies, were among the victims. Some had been stripped naked and thrown into prison. The instruments of torture that were employed could only have been conceived of by Satan in collaboration with men. This was the condition in Madrid as late as 1809.
In 1848, during the Italian revolution, piles of bones were found in large buildings in Rome. Two furnaces were found in these buildings with bones not yet fully burned.
One way of dealing with the Protestants was this: “Hang a person by the legs with a pulley and tie him with a rope. Tighten the rope with a ratchet so that it cuts into the flesh. Then drop water from the ceiling onto the person’s mouth. Cover his mouth so that he may not breathe or ventilate.”
In 1540 the Jesuit Society was formed by the Roman Catholic Church to counteract the Protestants, and from that time more than 1.9 million believers were murdered in Rome alone.