[George W. Bush]

Protestant countries don't burn people at the stake for religious offences. Rome has patented rights on that one.

Our courts and legislatures have the power to do the right thing if we make them do it. It's a sad state of affairs that they no longer do their duty to protect children from sexual predators as they once did. The pedophile priests should all be locked up for life.

The current pedophile chic is all the more ironic when one recalls how many people were accused of behaving inappropriately with children, even their own children, in the Eighties and Nineties. Now, homosexual pedophilia is all the rage academically. The resulting code of conduct is: you can't molest your own children because that would be incest and Roman priests can't molest little boys. But, under these new enlightened academic standards, little boys may be freely molested by men except those who are Roman priests or blood relatives.

It must take a lot of education to figure these issues out.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Protestant countries don't burn people at the stake for religious offences.

You need to brush up on your history of England, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, France, etc. Not just burning, but drawing and quartering, hanging, etc.

Some of my relatives were chased out of Protestant Cantons in Switzerland for being Anabaptists. Exile or death.

[Antoninus]

Protestant countries don't burn people at the stake for religious offences. Rome has patented rights on that one.

Yeah, they had other ways of killing Catholics. Do you know who these people were?

Thomas More, Augustine Webster, John Houghton Robert Lawrence, Richard Reynolds, John Stone, Alexander Briant, Edmund Arrowsmith, Edmund Campion, David Lewis, Henry Morse, Henry Walpole, Nicholas Owen, Philip Evans, Robert Southwell, Thomas Garnet, Alban Roe, Ambrose Barlow, John Roberts, John Jones, John Wall, Cuthbert Mayne, Edmund Gennings, Eustace White, John Almond, John Boste, John Kemble, John Lloyd, John Pain, John Plesington, John Southworth, Luke Kirby, Polydore Plasden, Ralph Sherwin, John Rigby, Philip Howard, Richard Gwyn, Swithun Wells, Anne Line, Margaret Clitherow, Margaret Ward.

[Polycarp]

Protestant countries don't burn people at the stake for religious offences.

More witches were burned at the stake by protestants. Many "heretics" (Catholics) were also tortured, killed, sometimes burned at the stake, by protestant countries. You're a good guy, but your ignorance of history and your bigotries are showing here, GW.

[B-Chan]

Protestant countries don't burn people at the stake for religious offences. Rome has patented rights on that one.

God bless you, my poor, empty-headed brother in Christ, but that is the most flat-out stupid thing I have ever read on FR. Pray, does the name Michael Servetus ring a bell?

Michael Servetus, 1511-53, Spanish theologian and physician. His name in Spanish was Miguel Serveto. In his early years he came in contact with some of the leading reformers in Germany and Switzerland—Johannes Oecolampadius , Martin Bucer , Wolfgang Fabricius Capito , and probably Martin Luther . But he held views, concerning the Trinity in particular, that brought condemnation from the theologians of the Reformation as well as from those of the Roman Catholic Church. When he published De trinitatis erroribus (1531) and De trinitate (1532), the feeling of opposition was so strong that he assumed the name of Michel de Villeneuve, from the family home, Villanueva, and spent some time in Lyons, working on an edition of Ptolemy's geography and other scientific works, then in Paris studying medicine. There he is said to have seen John Calvin . He became well-known for his ability in dissection and had unusual success as a physician; he discovered that some of the blood circulates through the lungs. From 1541 to 1553 he lived in the palace of the archbishop of Vienne as his confidential physician. When (1553) he had a work setting forth his ideas of Christianity secretly printed, investigation was begun by the Inquisition. Servetus, arrested, tried, and condemned, escaped from prison. Several months later, while making his way to Italy, he was seized in Geneva by Calvin's order. There, after a long trial, in which Calvin's condemnation was a stern factor, he was burned on Oct. 27, 1553. [Source]

And that's only one out of a zillion similar cases I didn't mention due to space and time limitations. I also left outI those cases in which Protestants hanged, beheaded, and drowned their victims; for example, I didn't even mention Matthew Hopkins, the Puritans' official "Witchfinder General" during the English Civil War (remember the movie Witchfinder General starring Vincent Price as Hopkins? Best of the Hammer Horror pics, in my opinion!). And let's not forget the "saintly" Elizabeth I, daughter of arch-Protestant Henry VIII Tudor. The Virgin Queen's favorite pastime was killing Catholics and stealing their stuff, just like Dad did.

I have no beef with Protestants; I'm a former Protestant myself. But in the end there's plenty of error to go around. Please don't further its spread by talking about the thoroughly-disproved "black legend" as if it were fact.

[d-back]

Can you really be that ignorant of Protestant history? Do you know nothing of what happened in England in the 1600s? In Ireland thereafter? In Geneva? Prussia?

I am regularly astounded at the intelligence and erudition of Freepers. Today, I am astounded at your profound lack of knowledge and your not-so-hidden anti-Catholic bias.

Here's a hint, GWB: The Salem Witches weren't killed by Catholics. Read a book or two, would you?