You wrote: "The crime in question involved an act of vandalism on a creche at a Presbyterian church by persons of unknown motive. You decided to drag in the red herring of Presbyterian overreaction to Catholic church art that occured 300-450 years ago. At that time, freedom of speech and religion was largely nonexistent anywhere in Europe (with partial exceptions in France and Holland), most nations were mercantilist in economy, suspected witches were often burned at the stake, and monarchs were essentially dictators with little popular input into government decisions. "L'etat, c'est moi" was the motto of the days for monarchs from Portugal to Prussia."
And none of that changes the facts of what I said.
"As you so well put it, the era of the religious wars was marked by the overthrow of regimes, the squelching of opposition, imposition of new and unheard of laws, etc. The actions you describe were also done by the 20th Century totalitarians. If there was a difference, it was one of degree, not intent."
Yes, the intent was different. If you think the intent of Communists, Nazis an Christians was not different then you don't understand any of those groups.
"True, but the Catholics did the same things, sometimes on a grander scale, e.g., Latin America."
No. The Protestants did what they did for power and it had the official sanction of their sects. The Catholic Church did not do those things, and when Catholics did so, it was often in opposition to what the Church actually taught.
"Does that make the Catholics revolutionaries as well? As far as it goes, the term "Protestant Revolution" is not currently used in mainstream Catholic apologetics, but remains popular among Feeneyites, sedevacantists, and other fringe traditionalist types."
Incorrect. In fact, there's much you don't know, or haven't thought through on this. First, the term "Protestant Revolt" and even "Protestant Revolution" are used by mainstream apologists. Here's Dave Armstrong: http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ407.HTM And EWTN sure seems mainstream orthodox to me: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:9FZ7gp0f-y4J:www.bringyou.to/apologetics/audio.htm+Protestant+Revolution+karl+keating&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=7&ie=UTF-8
Secular scholars from the Ivy League, meaning all Protestants at that time, have been familiar with the term "Protestant Revolution" since at least 1915 (there's a book on Questia from 1915 with that as part of the title). The term Protestant Revolt is much older.
Even Germans sometimes use the term (scroll til you see it in yellow and green): http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:dSmpl4nGgPMJ:www.bi-on.de/mixed/pdf/r2_text.pdf+protestantische+revolution&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=38&ie=UTF-8
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:sycjIUkzVXEJ:www.fraenkisch-crumbach.de/index.php%3Fid%3D133+protestantische+revolution&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=43&ie=UTF-8
And, of course, the term "religious revolt" is also quite old: De Haller, Histoire de la revolution religieuse ou de la reforme protestante dans la Suisse occidentale, 1837.
Murder is murder. If one middle class Jew were killed by the Nazis for being Jewish and another middle class Jew was killed for being bourgeois, both men were just as dead, irrespective of the ideology. Thomas More and Edward Campion were murdered by government courts as much as were Thomas Cramner and Nicholas Ridley. The fact remains that neither Catholics nor Protestants acted in a Christian manner toward one another or toward non-believers, e.g., the persecution of Jews and Muslims in Spain and Luther's anti-Semitic rants. Most governments of this era were authoritarian in any case, more like modern day dictatorships than representative governments.