One of the many struggles former Catholics had with leaving the faith is finding out about some of the harsh history of the church.  This history is not intended to offend, but to open peoples hearts and eyes to some of the dark truths of the Catholic Church. 

Please click link below each fact to learn more.





1236 - Roman Catholic crusaders slaughter Jews in the Anjou and Poitou regions of western France in a severe wave of persecution 





1540 - 1570 - Roman Catholic armies butcher at least 900,000 Waldensian Christians of all ages during this 30-year period (source: Halley's Bible Handbook).

1553 - 1558 - Roman Catholic Queen Mary I of England (aka bloody Mary) attempts to bring England back under the yoke of papal tyranny. During her reign, nearly 300 men and woman are burned to death at the sake. Her victims include bishops, scholars, and other Protestant leaders 














"The Catholic crusade against the Albigenses in Southern France (from 1209-1229), under Popes Innocent III., Honorius III. and Gregory IX., was one of the bloodiest tragedies in human history ... The number of Albigenses that perished in the twenty years war is estimated at from one to two millions." (Cushing B. Hassell, History of the Church of God, Chapter XIV)

"Need I speak to you of the thirty years war in Germany, which was mainly instigated by the Jesuits, in order to deprive the Protestants of the right of free religious worship, secured to them by the treaty of Augsburg? Or of the Irish rebellion, of the inhuman butchery of about fifteen millions of Indians in South America, Mexico and Cuba, by the Spanish papists? In short, it is calculated by authentic historians, that papal Rome has shed the blood of sixty-eight millions of the human race in order to establish her unfounded claims to religious dominion." (The Glorious Reformation by S. S. SCHMUCKER, 1838 -- citing Dr. Brownlee's 'Popery an enemy to civil liberty', p. 105)



"There perished under pope Julian 200,000 Christians: and by the French massacre, on a moderate calculation, in 3 months, 100,000. Of the Waldenses there perished 150,000; of the Albigenses, 150,000. There perished by the Jesuits in 30 years only 900,000. The Duke of Alva destroyed by the common hangman alone, 36,000 persons; the amount murdered by him is set down by Grotius at 100,000! There perished by the fire, and tortures of the Inquisition in Spain, Italy, and France 150,000 ... In the Irish massacres there perished 150,000 Protestants! To sum up the whole, the Roman Catholic church has caused the ruin, and destruction of a million and a half of Moors in Spain; nearly two millions of Jews South America in Europe. In Mexico, and , including the islands of Cuba and St. Domingo, fifteen millions of Indians, in 40 years, fell victims to popery. And in Europe, and the East Indies, and in America, 50 millions of Protestants, at least, have been murdered by it! Thus the church of Rome stands before the world, 'the woman in scarlet, on the scarlet colored Beast.' A church claiming to be Christian, drenched in the blood of sixty-eight millions, and five hundred thousand human beings!" (W. C. Brownlee, Letters in the Roman Catholic controversy, 1834, pp. 347-348)

"Alexander Campbell, well known religions leader of the nineteenth century, stated in debate with John B. Purcell, Bishop of Cincinnati, in 1837 that the records of historians and martyrologists show that it may be reasonable to estimate that from fifty to sixty-eight millions of human beings died, suffered torture, lost their possessions, or were otherwise devoured by the Roman Catholic Church during the awful years of the Inquisition. Bishop Purcell made little effort to refute these figures." (Citing A Debate on the Roman Catholic Religion, Christian Publishing Co., 1837, p. 327.) ... (The Shadow of Rome, by John B. Wilder; Zondervan Publishing Co., 1960, page 87)


"Mede has calculated from good authorities 'that in the war with the Albigenses and Waldenses there perished of these people, in France alone, 1,000,000.'" (Christ and Antichrist, by Samuel J. Cassels, 1846, page 257)

"Who have their dungeon cells under their cathedrals, in which they claim, as inquisitors of their own diocese, to imprison free men in our republic? Foreign popish bishops! And the facts respecting a man being so confined and scourged, in the cells at Baltimore [AMERICA], until he recanted, have been published, and not to this day contradicted! ... Who are in the habit of uttering ferocious threats to assassinate and burn up those Protestants who successfully oppose Romanism? The foreign papists! I have in my possession the evidence of no less than six such inhuman threatenings against myself." (W. C. Brownlee, Popery the Enemy of Civil and Religious Liberty, J. S. Taylor, New York, 1836, p.210-211)

"It is reckoned that during the reign of Justinian, Africa lost five millions of inhabitants; thus Arianism was extinguished in that region, not by any enforcement of conformity, but by the extermination of the race which had introduced and professed it. - History of the Christian Church, J.C. Robertson, Vol. 1, p. 521." (Bunch, Taylor, The Book of Daniel, p. 101)

[footnote, speaking of Pope Innocent VIII] "Yet on the papal throne he played the zealot against the Germans, whom he accused of magic, in his bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, etc., and also against the Hussites, whom he well nigh exterminated." (Williams, Henry Smith, The Historian's History of the World, vol. 8, p. 643)

"The inquisitor Reinerius, who died in 1259, has left it on record: 'Concerning the sects of ancient heretics, observe, that there have been more than seventy: all of which, except the sects of the Manichaeans and the Arians and the Runcarians and the Leonists which have infected Germany, have through the favour of God, been destroyed." (Broadbent, E.H., The Pilgrim Church, Gospel Folio Press, 2002, p. 90 (originally published in 1931)

"An edict was issued under the regency of Theodora, which decreed that the Paulicians should be exterminated by fire and sword, or brought back to the Greek church ... It is affirmed by civil and ecclesiastical historians, that, in a short reign, one hundred thousand Paulicians were put to death." (Andrew Miller, Short Papers on Church, London, Chapter 16)

"The whole number of victims who have been offered up in Europe since the beginning of the Reformation? Partly by war, partly by the Inquisition, and a thousand other methods of Romish cruelty? No less within forty years, if the computation of an eminent writer be just, than five and forty millions!" (John Wesley, 'Doctrine of Original Sin', Part I, section II.8, 1757, Wesley's Works, edited by Thomas Jackson, vol. 9, pp. 217-19)

"The inquisition, which was established in the twelfth century against the Waldenses ... was now more effectually set to work. Terrible persecutions were carried on in various parts of Germany, and even in Bohemia, which continued about thirty years, and the blood of the saints was said to flow like rivers of water. The countries of Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary, were in a similar manner deluged with Protestant blood." (Buck, Charles, A Theological Dictionary, containing Definitions of All Religious Terms; ..., Philadelphia, Thomas Cowperthwait & Co., 1838, article 'Persecution')

"Those who were not put to death suffered imprisonment, had their houses pulled down, their lands laid waste, their property stolen, and their wives and daughters, after being ravished, sent into convents ... If any fled from these cruelties, they were pursued through the woods, hunted and shot like wild beasts...At the head of the dragoons, in all the provinces of France, marched the bishops, priests, friars, &c. the clergy being ordered to keep up the cruel spirit of the military. An order was published for demolishing all protestant churches." (Southwell, Henry, The new book of martyrs; or complete Christian martyrology. Containing an authentic and genuine historical account of the many dreadful persecutions against the Church of Christ, in all parts of the world, ... Imprint London : printed for J. Cooke, [1765?] page 108-109)

"In Bohemia, by 1600, in a population of 4,000,000, 80 per cent were Protestant. When the Hapsburgs and Jesuits had done their work, 800,000 were left, all Catholics ... In Austria and Hungary half the population Protestant, but under the Hapsburgs and Jesuits they were slaughtered ... In Poland, by the end of the 16th century, it seemed as if Romanism was about to be entirely swept away, but here too, the Jesuits, by persecution, killed Reform. In Italy, the Pope's own country, the Reformation was getting a real hold; but the Inquisition got busy, and hardly a trace of Protestantism was left." (Halley's Bible Handbook, p.798)

"The Horrors of the Inquisition, ordered and maintained by the Popes, over a period of 500 years, in which unnumbered millions were Tortured and Burned, constitute the MOST BRUTAL, BEASTLY, and DEVILISH PICTURE in all history." (Halley's Bible Handbook, p.732)


LIST OF BAD POPES... These are just a few.


Pope Benedict IX

Benedict IX was Pope from 1032 to 1044, again in 1045, and finally from 1047 to 1048, the only man to have served as Pope for three discontinuous periods, and one of the most controversial Popes of all time.Benedict gave up his papacy for the first time in exchange for a large sum of money in 1044. He returned in 1045 to depose his replacement and reigned for one month, after which he left again, possibly to marry, and sold the papacy for a second time, to his Godfather (possibly for over 650 kg /1450 lb of gold). Two years later, Benedict retook Rome and reigned for an additional one year, until 1048. Poppo of Brixen (later to become Pope Damascus II) eventually forced him out of Rome. Benedict’s place and date of death are unknown, but some speculate that he made further attempts to regain the Papal Throne.St. Peter Damian described him as “feasting on immorality” and “a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest” in the Liber Gomorrhianus, a treatise on papal corruption and sex that accused Benedict IX of routine homosexuality and bestiality.


While Pope Innocent III didn’t reach the epic numbers of slaughters that his predecessor Urban II had, he still aided and abetted in the murder of well over one million people during his papacy between 1198-1216. His were words of war: he rallied military support in favor of the Inquisition after excommunicating Philip II of France and had put both France and England under interdict which was the Pope’s granted power of punishment. What was unique was that the Crusade he waged after supporting the Inquisition was not against heathen scum following a far carried faith – he went from the Vatican directly to England and had his military might wage war against European brothers. He had also began a Crusade against the Albigenses where upon his military constituents were ordered to butcher them by the tens of thousands in horrid and unholy ways.   Pope Innocent made Transubstantiation official doctrine in 1215 ad.   


Pope Sixtus IV

Pope Sixtus IV financed his wars by selling church offices to the highest bidders. He used the papacy to enrich himself and his family, for no less than eight cardinals were his nephews, some being given the position of cardinal even as a boy.

Pope Pius II

Pope Pius II was said to have been the father of many illegitimate children. He spoke openly of the methods he used to seduce women and he encouraged young men to also seduce women and even offered to instruct them in methods of self-indulgence.

3Pope Sergius III:

Ordered the murder of another pope and started the “pornocracy”.  Sergius III was Pope from 897 to 911, and has been the only pope known to have ordered the murder of another pope and the only known to have fathered an illegitimate son who later became pope; his pontificate has been described as “dismal and disgraceful.”The pontificate of Sergius III was remarkable for the rise of what papal historians call a “pornocracy,” or rule of the harlots, a reversal of the natural order as they saw it, according to Liber pontificalis and a later chronicler who was also biased against Sergius III. This “pornocracy” was an age with women in power: Theodora, whom Liutprand characterized as a “shameless whore… [who] exercised power on the Roman citizenry like a man” and her daughter Marozia, the mother of Pope John XI (931–935) and reputed to be the mistress of Sergius III.


Pope John XII


Pope John XXII

Pope John XXII was said to have seduced and violated three hundred nuns. He must have had a strong and insatiable libido for he kept a harem of no less than two hundred girls. He was called "the most depraved criminal who ever sat on the papal throne." A Vatican record says this about him, "His lordship, Pope John, committed perversity with the wife of his brother, incest with holy nuns, intercourse with virgins, adultery with the married, and all sorts of sex crimes... wholly given to sleep and other carnal desires, totally adverse to the life and teaching of Christ... he was publicly called the Devil incarnate."

Pope Alexander VI

Pope Alexander VI won the election of the papacy by bribery. He lived with a woman with whom he had a daughter; whom afterward he committed incest with and produced five children. He also lived in public incest with his two sisters. He conducted a sex orgy in the Vatican in which he had a banquet featuring fifty nude girls who danced and serviced the guests – and even offered prizes to the man who could engage in sexual intercourse the most times.


Pope Leo X

Leo X was Pope from 1513 to his death in 1521. He is known primarily for the sale of indulgences to reconstruct St. Peter’s Basilica and his challenging of Martin Luther’s 95 theses.


According to Alexandre Dumas, “under his pontificate, Christianity assumed a pagan character, which, passing from art into manners, gives to this epoch a strange complexion. Crimes for the moment disappeared, to give place to vices; but to charming vices, vices in good taste, such as those indulged in by Alcibiades and sung by Catullus.”When he became Pope, Leo X is reported to have said to his brother Giuliano: “Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it.”


His extravagance offended not only people like Martin Luther, but also some cardinals, who, led by Alfonso Petrucci of Siena, plotted an assassination attempt. Eventually, Pope Leo found out who these people were, and had them followed. The conspirators died of “food poisoning.” Some people argue that Leo X and his followers simply concocted the assassination charges in a moneymaking scheme to collect fines from the various wealthy cardinals Leo X detested.


Pope Alexander VI



Pope Innocent IV

Innocent IV was Pope from 1243 to 1254.Certainly the Inquisition represents the darkest of Roman Church history, and it was Innocent IV who approved the use of torture to extract confessions of heresy. He aggressively applied the principle that “the end justifies the means.” It is shocking to learn about the deranged instruments of torture that were used on so many innocent people. One of the most famous people to suffer at the hands of Roman inquisitors was Galileo. The church condemned Galileo for claiming that the earth revolved around the sun.


Pope Urban VI

Urban VI was Pope from 1378 to 1389. He was the first Pope of the Western Schism (which ultimately lead to three people claiming the Papal throne at the same time). Once elected, he was prone to outbursts of rage. The cardinals who elected him decided that they had made the wrong decision and they elected a new Pope in his place, so he took the name of Clement VII and started a second Papal court in Avignon, France. Later he would launch a program of violence against those he thought to have been conspiring against him, imprisoning people at will and mistreating them brutally. Later historians have considered seriously that he might have been insane.

The second election threw the Church into turmoil. There had been antipopes, rival claimants to the papacy, before, but most of them had been appointed by various rival factions; in this case, the legitimate leaders of the Church themselves had created both popes. The conflict quickly escalated from a church problem to a diplomatic crisis that divided Europe. Secular leaders had to choose which pope they would recognize.The schism was repaired forty years later when all three of the (then) reigning Popes abdicated together and a successor elected in the person of Pope Martin V.


Pope John XV

John XV was Pope from 985 to 996. The Pope’s venality and nepotism had made him very unpopular with the citizens, as he split the church’s finances among his relatives and was described as “covetous of filthy lucre and corrupt in all his acts.”

Pope Boniface VIII

Pope Boniface VIII maintained his position through lavish distribution of stolen money. He was quoted saying, "to enjoy oneself and lie carnally with women or with boys is no more a sin than rubbing one's hands together."


Pope Clement VII

Clement VII was Pope from 1523 to 1534. A member of the powerful Medici family, Clement VII possessed great political and diplomatic skills – but he lacked the understanding of the age necessary to cope with the political and religious changes he faced. His relationship with Emperor Charles V was so bad that, in May 1527, Charles invaded Italy and sacked Rome.  Imprisoned, Clement was forced into a humiliating compromise which forced him to give up a great deal of secular and religious power.Eventually, Clement became ill and never recovered. He died on September 25, 1534, hated by the people of Rome, who never forgave him for the destruction of 1527

Friends, please open your eyes to this antichrist church. This is not God's church whatsoever. It is an apostate church and history PROVES her status as the main Bible 'antichrist' system. The pope thinks he sits IN PLACE OF Christ, acting as if he is God, which is what antichrist actually means in the original language. Someone who puts himself IN PLACE OF Christ. And the doctrines of this church are an abomination to our Holy Heavenly Father. Heed the call today! COME OUT OF HER MY PEOPLE! (Revelation 18:4).  Visit www.romancatholicism.com


In addition to the below list, please see the following article.









4,000+ children sexually abused in Australia since 1980



Hundreds of thousands of children abused in Catholic and Protestant 'care homes' in Germany between 1950 to 1970 



Pope John Paul II ignored the abuse of 2,000 boys in Austria over decades and covered up 'innumerable' cases of abuse 



700,000+ men women and children in Croatia tortured and killed by Catholic Church in 1940's 



20,000+ children abused by Catholic Church since 1945 in Netherlands 







1,700+ Catholic priests accused of abuse in Brazil 



Catholic Church sends paedophile priests to South American churches
















Thousands of children and adults abused in Catholic 'care homes' in Scotland in the 60's and 70's 



300,000 babies stolen from mothers by Catholic Church in Spain between 1930 - 1990 


