From little that I know, I understand that Albigenses were rather extreme in their beliefs. I also understand that, when looking back this many centuries, one has to view that world through the standards of that time. Yet, I do not find it normal to write about a mass slaughter matter-of-factly. The human sacrifice of the Incas was not up to our standards of civility, and yet I cannot imagine that someone would write today, "They have been finally wiped out by ..." And if someone did, I would consider that an abomination.
As for the insane people who claim that millions and millions were killed by inquisition, thank you for letting me know; this is new for me; the claim is clearly ridiculous. However, Fiske is one of the majot historians of the XIX century, he knows the difference between "slaughtered for herecy" and "killed in fighting." I suspect that you have read something by him, and can attest yourself that, while his interpretations may be in question, his motivations are not.
I certainly hope that you do not question my motivations either: it is not my intention to show the Church in a bad light (in fact, I wish it was more proactive in claiming its rightful place in history of Europe, as Pope only recently asserted). Yet, the ending of the article on Albigenses did leave a bad feeling in my mouth. Despite your very informative reply, which I read with great interest, that feeling has not dissipated, I am sorry to say.
Here's the scenario: Spanish soldiers are sent to Holland by their king, who also happens to be the duke of Ghent and sovereign of other areas in Holland. They are foreign troops sent in to quell a rebellion.
They are attacked by partisans or militia from a local town. They roll into the town, don't speak the language, have little means of determining who's hostile and who's neutral. They kill all the men of fighting age, since they have no other practical means of neutralizing the threat.
This is certainly a war crime. It's despicable behavior. They shouldn't even be in a country that's not their own at war with people who have no quarrel with them personally. They're analogous to the Hessians in America during the Revolutionary War.
That's the human situation as it probably was on the ground: emperor's occupation forces march into a village that's offering guerrilla resistance and sheltering rebel troops. The occupiers kill all the menfolk. The way it reads to Fiske is this: Papist soldiers invade a righteous Protestant village and kill all the Godfearing men of that town whose only crime was to read their Bible. Chalk that up as 300 people executed for heresy by the Roman Church.
That's Fiske's spin - I'm not saying he's making it up (although he admits that 75,000 is a bit high), but that he's interpreting it in a sense amenable to his thesis.
As far as the Albigensians are concerned - the Catholic Encyclopedia does not say that the war was well and righteously conducted and the outcome was wonderful. It's more like: what if a few thousand Muslim fanatics took over a swath of southern Michigan and started instituting Sharia law and killing people who defied Sharia. Then the Michigan National Guard units come in - they're overzealous and kill a hundred thousand Muslims, killing fanatics along with many more who were just along for the ride. My reaction: it really is a shame about all those people who died who may or may not have sympathized with the jihad in Southern Michigan, but thank God those jihadis were stopped and they can no longer use America's heartland as a base of terrorist operations.
Substitute Albigensians for Muslims, the Languedoc for Southern Michigan and Christendom for America and you've captured the Encyclopedist's sentiment.
The Albigensian War wasn't pretty - but consider the alternative: a fanatical death cult conquering the heart of Europe.
Catholics, being a very large aggregation of human beings, have inevitably done some pretty inexcusable things, are doing some inexcusable things (like the disgracefully evil pedophilia scandal) and will continue to do inexcusable things, I'm afraid.
And we should be prepared to answer for them.
At the same time there are always those who exaggerate things and present things in a worse light than is really justified.
America is an English-speaking, largely Protestant society, and therefore most English-language medieval historiography that Americans encounter comes from a triumphal, XIXth century Protestant perspective as far as the Church is concerned.
Fiske would never mention Margaret Clitheroe, for example. She was a pregnant mother of nine children who was formally charged with the crime of allowing a Catholic priest to say Mass in her home. She was put on trial, tortured, and then slowly crushed to death with millstones over a period of ten hours while a large crowd of the sensitive, compassionate British Protestants Fiske writes of cheered loudly.
Some of the crowd were so delighted that they composed ballads and poems celebrating her gruesome death, some of which have come down to us.
Catholics aren't the only ones who should hang their heads inj shame about that period in Western history.
But both Protestants and Catholics can demonstrate that they have changed their ways and have moved their discourse to a much higher and more humane level. That's something of which Marxism, for example, has proved incapable so far.
So as long as people like you keep forcing us to reexamine our past, I have high hopes for the future.