Have you heard about Pope Urban II? Pope Eugene III? (Crusades)
Pope Sixtus IV launched the Spanish Inquisition. What about him?
All religious beliefs taken to extreme are dangerous.
All religious beliefs taken to extreme are dangerous.
How about Gandhi? That was one mean dude, let me tell ya'.
The Crusades were "launched" to take back the Holy Lands from the Muslims and free the Christian captives. Conversion of any kind was really not one of their objectives.
The SPanish Inquisition was initially to purify the Spanish Church, which because of the long Muslim domination had had many sees with no bishops and no teaching. In addition to the invasion of Lutheranism in the north, as well as the resurgence of some other heresies and the large masses of poorly instructed Jewish converts, clergy who were married to avoid detection by the Muslims, etc., Spain was in sad shape.
The Inquisition initially focused on clergy and was restricted to Catholics only. Practicing Jews were not affected by the Inquisition. Conversos were, but Jewish converts had simply not been properly instructed, and in many cases were reprimanded and reinstructed. However, there were some who had "converted" simply to be able to marry into the local rich family, and they were generally exiled.
What happened, however, was that the Inquisition became very political very rapidly, because the Church did not punish on the secular level and relied on the state to order and perform punishments. But such great power can never go unabused, and it was.
Relatively speaking, it was a much fairer judicial process than secular trials (the Inquisition forbade anonymous complaints, for example), and that is why we have so many records of it. But it was heavily manipulated by a combination of the rising Spanish middle class and petty nobility (both very jealous of the Jews, who had done very well in Spain at a time when Northern European countries had long ago expelled their Jewish populations) and some power-crazed clergy such as Savonarola who took advantage of the fact that Rome was relatively far away and Spain was in administrative disorder after its long Islamic captivity. Subsequent popes tried several times to stop the Inquisition, btw, but it had taken on a life of its own in Spain, thanks to its usefulness to the political powers.
In any case, my point in 25 words or less, is that it is not the same. You're comparing apples and - well, grapefruit.