Oh, um... not to beat a dead horse, but this is something I feel pretty strongly about. I am by no means apt to defend the Church or Christianity for it's own sake. But, to be fair, while it seems outrageous to us in a post-enlightenment culture to imagine, we have to recognize that at least a majority honestly thought that heretics were in danger of going to hell, and they needed help. For the medieval mind, if the torments of the flesh could save your soul, they were wholly justified - look at the ascetic orders, for example.
I'm not trying to be relativist here, but it's not really accurate to say that they thought the Cathars were evil as such. They thought Catharism was like a disease that threatened the health of society, and would needlesly result in the damnation of countless souls to hell. Keeping in mind the state of medieval medicine at this point, they were prepared to do what they had to to save the 'body' of Christendom from the spread of a disease that would endanger it. I know from a modern perspective it sounds like I am trying to justify genocide, but even as we have to learn from the mistakes of the past, I think it is terribly important that we remember they simply didn't see the world like we do. To the medieval mind, this was not genocide.
If you are thinking this sounds much like the right wing rhetoric of today, you are not wrong. The difference is that we DO live in a post-enlightenment culture, we have wrestled with these problems for centuries, and WE should know better. In many ways, the issues of different beliefs and different peoples co-existing was a very new one in the medieval period. If we can demand of our own society that we 'live and let live,' we must recognize the sources of that ideal, and also recognize that the medievals didn't have the advantage of the enlightenment, humanism, etc. on which to draw.
Not to be preachy, or anything, but as I said, this is something I feel strongly about. And it's not like there isn't there is plenty on which to convict the Church anyway!
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I'm not trying to be relativist here, but it's not really accurate to say that they thought the Cathars were evil as such. They thought Catharism was like a disease that threatened the health of society, and would needlesly result in the damnation of countless souls to hell. Keeping in mind the state of medieval medicine at this point, they were prepared to do what they had to to save the 'body' of Christendom from the spread of a disease that would endanger it. I know from a modern perspective it sounds like I am trying to justify genocide, but even as we have to learn from the mistakes of the past, I think it is terribly important that we remember they simply didn't see the world like we do. To the medieval mind, this was not genocide.
If you are thinking this sounds much like the right wing rhetoric of today, you are not wrong. The difference is that we DO live in a post-enlightenment culture, we have wrestled with these problems for centuries, and WE should know better. In many ways, the issues of different beliefs and different peoples co-existing was a very new one in the medieval period. If we can demand of our own society that we 'live and let live,' we must recognize the sources of that ideal, and also recognize that the medievals didn't have the advantage of the enlightenment, humanism, etc. on which to draw.
Not to be preachy, or anything, but as I said, this is something I feel strongly about. And it's not like there isn't there is plenty on which to convict the Church anyway!