You’re right about the Cathars and Waldensians being violent. It was actually a rather common occurrence.
Most Protestant anti-Catholics have never read the following:
Susanna K. Treesh, “The Waldensian Recourse to Violence”
Church History, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Sep., 1986), pp. 294-306.
In February 1199 there was a near civil war in Orvieto when Cathars took to the streets with swords and clubs to attack Catholics. See Power & Purity : Cathar Heresy in Medieval Italy, by Santa Barbara Carol Lansing - who is no apologist for the Catholics either.
There were times when the Waldensians and Cathars came to blows against EACH OTHER as well.
Also, if you look at Table 5.1 in James B. Given, Inquisition and Medieval Society: Power, Discipline, & Resistance in Languedoc, Cornell University Press, 1997, 113-115, you’ll see something really interesting. The table documents dozens and dozens of acts of violence committed by Cathars and other heretics against inquisitors, those they believed had talked to inquisitors or other church officials, and even against heretics who had converted to the Catholic faith. Things like:
1237 - Murder of Raimond Bru
1240 - Murder of nephew of priest of Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux
1241-42 Murder of Pierre Capellanus’ clerk
1242, 28 May - Murder of Guillaume Arnaud by men from Montségur
1244 - Priest’s house attacked
1245 - Two sergeants who had arrested 7 female heretics hanged
1245- Imprisonment of Emersene Viguier and her son
1247 - Messenger and clerk of inquisition killed and records stolen
1268 - Murder of Pestilhacus, inquisitorial sergeant
1283-84 - Plot to steal inquisitorial registers
ca.1295 - Nicholas D’Abbeville attacked
1296 – Inquisitors attacked at Franciscan convent
1302, - 11 Feb. Riot against Bishop Castanet
1302, 2 Dec. Riot against Dominicans
1302 Murder of Guillaume Dejean
1303, 10 Aug. Riot against former consuls
1303, Aug. Dominican convent stoned
1303, late Aug. Assault on mur
1303, early Sept. Attack on Dominican convent
1309 Tongue of Mengarde Maurs cut out
1310 Arnaud de Sobrenia of Tignac drowned
1310 Murder of brother of Guillaume Peyre
1310 Murder of unidentified man
1310 Murder of Pierre Marty
1311 Murder of Arnaud Lezerii
1319 Plot against life of Bernard Gui
1320, Sept. Murder of Brother Raimond de Ponte of Mérens
Now, remember, these were acts of violence against those the heretics believed were connected with the inquisition. The acts of violence against common everyday Catholics were even more numerous is not as noteworthy.
LOL, so the Cathars attacked the representatives of the Church who were trying to judge them as heretics and burned them at the stake. A full 90 times over 90 years? Why, that's once a year! How did the Catholic Church stand it?
It's such a mystery. Why would they do such a thing? You mean some of them actually broke under the strain of someone trying to kill them, and fought back, against their pacifist beliefs? Well then, that means no Cathar was pacifist! Kind of like the French Resistance in WWII. Did you know they actually attacked Gestapo agents? What other choice did the Nazis have than to murder entire villages? So you can see the source of the terrible choice those poor inquisitors were forced to make by the savage Cathars.
Not to mention the fact that the inquisitors were there to save the Cathars souls - so that makes any attacks especially bad. You know, the more you point these things out, the more I realize that Jesus Christ Himself wanted those millions of Cathars killed. I mean just LOOK at their attitude! You don't let people live who act like that. Especially when they influence the peasants not to pay tithes and taxes to your Church! It's not only heresy, it's the collapse of civilization itself.
The acts of violence against common everyday Catholics were even more numerous is not as noteworthy.
But you also say that the Cathars attacked even Catholics who were NOT attacking them - even though you don't have any records of that. But you KNOW they attacked Catholics everywhere BECAUSE there are no records of this. Now that's what I call true scholarship. Any layperson would think that the lack of records within the environment of meticulous recordkeeping of the inquisition meant that nothing happened. But a true Catholic scholar understands that that is the where the most horrible sins are to be found. Those records that don't exist are why millions of Cathars had to die. Just as what a person doesn't actually have in his mind is precisely why a good inquisitor would know they had to be burned at the stake to save their souls.
Historically speaking, these have been the true mysteries of the Church which have perpelexed and enraged millions - and thereby identified them as heretic who needed to be destroyed. See the brilliance? And they still work, for they are being exhibited here in their full glory on this very thread by YOUR monumental efforts, at which I stand in awe.