The most cruel of the many persecutions of the innocent Waldenses in the valleys of
Piedmont took place in 1655, and shocked by its boundless violence the whole Protestant world,
calling forth the vigorous protest of Cromwell and inspiring the famous sonnet of Milton, his foreign
secretary:
"Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold,
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones."
These persecutions form the darkest, we may say, the satanic chapters in church history,
and are a greater crime against humanity and Christianity than all the heresies which they in vain
tried to eradicate.
The Roman church has never repented of her complicity with these unchristian acts. On the
contrary, she still holds the principle of persecution in connection with her doctrine that there is no
salvation outside of her bosom. The papal Syllabus of 1864 expressly condemns, among the errors
of modern times, the doctrine of religious toleration.^55 Leo XIII., a great admirer of the theology
of St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Encyclical of Nov. 1, 1885, "concerning the Christian constitution
of states," wisely moderates, but reaffirms, in substance, the political principles of his predecessor.^56
A revocation would be fatal to the Vatican dogma of papal infallibility. The practice of persecution
is a question of power and expediency; and although isolated cases still occur from time to time,^57
the revival of mediaeval intolerance is an impossibility, and would be condemned by intelligent
and liberal Roman Catholics as a folly and a crime.
- The Protestant theory and practice of persecution and toleration.
(a) The Lutheran Reformers and Churches.
of the refugees whom the Elector Frederic William of Prussia so hospitably invited to Berlin, fought against France in the Napoleonic
wars, and aided in the terrible retribution of 1870.(^55) Among the errors condemned are these, § X., 78 and 79: "In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion shall
be held as the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all other modes of worship.""Whence it has been wisely provided by law, that
persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own worship." The condemnation of toleration implies the approval
of intolerance. See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, II., 232. Janssen, while he condemns the Protestant persecutions of Catholics, approves
the Catholic persecutions of Protestants in the time of the Reformation. He says: "Für die katholische Geistlichkeit, die katholischen
Fürsten und Magistrate und das katholsche Volk war es ein Kampf der Sebsterhaltung, wenn sie Alles aufboten, um dem Protestantismus
den Eingang in ihre Gebiete zu wehren und ihn, wenn er eingedrungen war, daraus wieder zu entfernen." -Geschichte des deutschen
Volkes, III., 193.
(^56) After glorifying the Middle Ages and the hierarchical rule of the church over the state, Leo XIII. in that Encyclical proceeds to say:
"No doubt the same excellent state of things would have continued, if the agreement of the two powers had continued, and greater things
might rightfully have been expected, if men had obeyed the authority, the teaching office, and the counsels of the church with more fidelity
and perseverance. For that is to be regarded as a perpetual law which Ivo, of Chartres, wrote to Pope Paschal II.: ’When kingship and
priesthood are agreed, the world is well ruled, the church flourishes and bears fruit. But when they are at variance, not only do little things
not grow, but even great things fall into miserable ruin and decay.’ " Then the pope rejects among the evil consequences of the "revolution"
of the sixteenth century (meaning, of course, the Reformation) the erroneous opinion that "no religion should be publicly professed [by
the state]; nor ought one to be preferred to the rest; nor ought there to be any inquiry which of many is alone true; nor ought one to be
specially favored, but to each alike equal rights ought to be assigned, provided only, that the social order incurs no injury from them."
This is probably aimed at Italy and France, but implies also a condemnation of the separation of church and state as it exists in the United
States. Further on, the pope approvingly refers to the Encyclical Mirari Vos of Gregory XVI. (Aug. 15, 1832), which condemns the
separation of church and state, and to the Syllabus of Pius IX., who "noted many false opinions and ordered them to be collected together
in order that in so great a conflux of errors Catholics might have something which they might follow without stumbling."
(^57) Thus, in 1852, the Madiai family were imprisoned in Florence for holding prayer meetings and reading the Bible, and in 1853,
Matamoras, Carrasco and their friends were imprisoned and condemned to the galleys at Madrid for the same offense, and were only
released after a powerful protest of an international deputation of the Evangelical Alliance. No public worship except the Roman Catholic
was tolerated in the city of Rome before 1870.