Sectarian violence among Christians is a recurring phenomenon, in which Christians engage in a form ofcommunal violence known assectarian violence. This form of violence can frequently be attributed to differences of religious beliefs betweensects ofChristianity (sectarianism). Sectarian violence among Christians was common, especially duringlate antiquity, and the years surrounding theProtestant Reformation, in which the GermanmonkMartin Luther disputed some of theCatholic Church's practices; particularly the doctrine ofIndulgences, and it was crucial in the formation of a newsect of Christianity known asProtestantism.[1] During the latter half of theRenaissance was when sectarianism related violence was most common among Christians. Conflicts like theEuropean wars of religion orDutch Revolt ravaged Western Europe. In France there were theFrench Wars of Religion and in the United Kingdomanti-Catholic hate was heightened by theGunpowder Plot of 1605. And while sectarian violence may seem like an archaic footnote today, sectarian violence among Christians still persists in the modern world with groups such as theKu Klux Klan (which prominently uses the Bible along with the official KKK handbook, theKloran, to espouse its teachings)[2] perpetuating violence amongCatholics.[3]
The earliest period when widespread sectarian violence occurred among Christians was the period of late antiquity (3rd centuryCE to 8th centuryCE). Events like the wars which followed theCouncil of Chalcedon andConstantine's persecution of theArians caused late antiquity to be considered one of the worst periods of time for a person to be a Christian in. Other conflicts such as theAlbigensian Crusade, led to wars with over 1,000,000 casualties.[4]
Sectarian violence among Christians also became prominent during theRenaissance (from the 14th century to the 17th centuryCE) especially inWestern Europe. InFrance, there were incidents of violence against a religious sect which was known as theHuguenots, whose members followed the teachings of the religious reformerJohn Calvin. These events included (but were not limited to) theMassacre of Vassy (which subsequently started theFrench Wars of Religion) and theSt. Bartholomew's Day massacre. In Ireland some of the events that occurred during theCromwellian conquest of Ireland were so heinous, that they can be classified aswar crimes.[5]
In the 19th-century US,anti-Catholic hate was salient due to the influx of Catholic immigrants who came to the US from Europe. At that time, the US was still in its infancy as a nation and it was dominated bywhite English speaking protestants, who traced back their ancestry to Northern Europe. So the disparity between the non-english speaking multiracial Catholics who came from various parts of Europe and the whitenativist Protestant majority led to discrimination against the former by the latter.[3]
Andrew Stephenson describes late antiquity as "one of the darkest periods in thehistory of Christianity" characterizing it as mingling the evils of "worldly ambition, false philosophy, sectarian violence and riotous living."[6] Constantine initially persecuted the Arians but eventually ceased the persecution and declared himself a convert to their theology. Sectarian violence became more frequent and more intense during the reign ofConstantius II. When Paul, the orthodox bishop of Constantinople, was banished by imperial decree, a riot broke out that resulted in 3000 deaths. Paul was deposed five times before finally being strangled by imperial decree. Monks in Alexandria were the first to gain a reputation for violence and cruelty. Although less frequent than in Antioch and Constantinople, sectarian disturbances also racked Antioch. At Ephesus, a fight broke out in a council of bishops resulting inone of them being murdered. Gibbon's assessment was that "the bonds of civil society were torn asunder by the fury of religious factions."Gregory of Nazianzus lamented that the Kingdom of heaven had been converted into the "image of hell" by religious discord.[7]
There are at present two completely opposite views about the personality of Athanasius. While some scholars praise him as an orthodox saint with great character, others see him as a power-hungry politician who employed questionable ecclesiastical tactics.Richard Rubenstein andTimothy Barnes have painted a less than flattering picture of the saint. One of the allegations against him involves suppression of dissent through violence and murder.[8][9]
Following the abortive effort byJulian the Apostate to restorepaganism in the empire, the emperorValens—himself an Arian—renewed the persecution of Nicene hierarchs. However, Valen's successorTheodosius I effectively wiped out Arianism once and for all among the elites of theEastern Empire through a combination of imperial decree, persecution, and the calling of theSecond Ecumenical Council in 381, which condemned Arius anew while reaffirming and expanding the Nicene Creed.[10] This generally ended the influence of Arianism among the non-Germanic peoples of the Roman Empire.
TheCircumcellions were fanatical bands of predatory peasants that flourished in North Africa in the 4th century.[11] At first they were concerned with remedying social grievances, but they became linked with theDonatist sect.[11] They condemned property and slavery, and advocated canceling debts and freeing slaves.[12]
Donatists prized martyrdom and had a special devotion for themartyrs, rendering honours to their graves. The Circumcellions had come to regard martyrdom as the true Christian virtue, and thus disagreed with theEpiscopal see of Carthage on the primacy of chastity, sobriety, humility, and charity. Instead, they focused on bringing about their own martyrdom—by any means possible. They survived until the fourth century in Africa, when their desire for martyrdom was fulfilled due to persecution.
In 451,Pope Leo I urgedAnatolius to convene anecumenical council to set aside the 449Second Council of Ephesus, better known as the "Robber Council". TheCouncil of Chalcedon was highly influential and marked a key turning point in theChristological debates that broke apart the church of theEastern Roman Empire in the 5th and 6th centuries.[13]Severus of Antioch is said to have stirred up a fierce religious war among the population of Alexandria, resulting in bloodshed and conflagrations (Labbe, v. 121). To escape punishment for this violence, he fled to Constantinople, supported by a band of two hundred Non-Chalcedonian monks. Anastasius, who succeeded Zeno as emperor in 491, was a professed Non-Chalcedonian, and received Severus with honor. His presence initiated a period of fighting in Constantinople between rival bands of monks, Chalcedonian and Non, which ended in AD 511 with the humiliation of Anastasius, the temporary triumph of the patriarch Macedonius II, and the reversal of the Non-Chalcedonian cause (Theophanes, p. 132). At theCouncil of Constantinople in 518, Syrian monks placed the responsibility for the slaughter of350 Chalcedonian monks and the appropriation of church vessels on Severus' shoulders.[14] The associated theological disputes, political rivalry, and sectarian violence produced a schism that persists to this day betweenChalcedonian andnon-Chalcedonian churches.
Jonathan Barker cited theAlbigensian Crusade, launched byPope Innocent III against followers ofCatharism, as an example of Christianstate terrorism.[15] The 20-year war led to an estimated one million casualties.[4] TheCathar teachings rejected the principles of material wealth and power as being in direct conflict with the principle of love. They worshiped in private houses rather than churches, without the sacraments or the cross, which they rejected as part of the world of matter, and sexual intercourse was considered sinful, but in other respects they followed conventional teachings, reciting the Lord's prayer and reading from Biblical scriptures.[4] They believed that the Saviour was a "heavenly being merely masquerading as human to bring salvation to the elect, who often have to conceal themselves from the world, and who are set apart by their special knowledge and personal purity".[4]
Cathars rejected theOld Testament and its God, whom they namedRex Mundi (Latin for "king of the world"), whom they saw as a blind usurper who demanded fearful obedience and worship and who, under the most false pretexts, tormented and murdered those whom he called "his children". They proclaimed that there was a higher God—the True God—and Jesus was his messenger. They held that the physical world was evil and created by Rex Mundi, who encompassed all that was corporeal, chaotic and powerful; the second god, the one whom they worshipped, was entirely disincarnate: a being or principle of pure spirit and completely unsullied by the taint of matter – He was the god of love, order and peace.[16] According to Barker, the Albigenses had developed a culture that "fostered tolerance of Jews and Muslims, respect for women and women priests, the appreciation of poetry, music and beauty, [had it] been allowed to survive and thrive, it is possible the Europe might have been spared its wars of religion, its witch-hunts and its holocausts of victims sacrificed in later centuries to religious and ideological bigotry".[15]: 74 When asked by his followers how to differentiate between heretics and the ordinary public, Abbe Arnaud Amalric, head of theCistercian monastic order, simply said "Kill them all, God will recognize his own!".[4]
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Historically, the past governments of some Catholic countries once persecuted Protestants as heretics. For example, the substantial Protestant population of France (theHuguenots) was expelled from the kingdom in the 1680s following therevocation of the Edict of Nantes. In Spain, theInquisition sought to root out not onlyProtestantism but alsocrypto-Jews andcrypto-Muslims (moriscos); elsewhere thePapal Inquisition held similar goals.In most places where Protestantism is the majority or "official" religion, there have been examples ofCatholics being persecuted.[citation needed] In countries where theReformation was successful, this often lay in the perception that Catholics retained allegiance to a 'foreign' power (the Papacy), causing them to be regarded with suspicion. Sometimes this mistrust manifested itself in Catholics being subjected to restrictions and discrimination, which itself led to further conflict. For example, beforeCatholic Emancipation in 1829, Catholics were forbidden from voting, becoming MPs or buying land in Ireland.
As of 2010[update], bigotry and discrimination in employment are usually restricted to a few places where extreme forms of religion[clarification needed] are the norm, or in areas with a long history of sectarian violence and tension, such as Northern Ireland (especially in terms of employment; however, this is dying out in this jurisdiction, thanks to strictly enforced legislation.Reverse discrimination now takes place in terms of employment quotas which are now applied). In places where more "moderate" forms of Protestantism (such asAnglicanism or Episcopalianism) prevail, the two traditions do not become polarized against each other, and usually co-exist peacefully. Especially in England, sectarianism is nowadays almost unheard of. However, inWestern Scotland (whereCalvinism andPresbyterianism are the norm) sectarian divisions can still sometimes arise between Catholics and Protestants. In the early years following theScottish Reformation there was internal sectarian tension betweenChurch of Scotland Presbyterians and 'High Church' Anglicans, the former regarding the latter as having retained too many attitudes and practices from the pre-Reformation Catholic era.
Following the onset of theProtestant Reformation, a series of wars were waged in Europe startingcirca 1524 and continuing intermittently until 1648. Although sometimes unconnected, all of these wars were strongly influenced by the religious change of the period, and the conflict and rivalry that it produced. According to Miroslav Volf, theEuropean wars of religion were a major factor behind the "emergence of secularizing modernity".
The Low Countries have a particular history of religious conflict which had its roots in theCalvinist reformation movement of the 1560s. These conflicts became known as theDutch Revolt or the Eighty Years' War. By dynastic inheritance, the whole of the Netherlands (including present day Belgium) had come to be ruled by the kings of Spain. Following aggressive Calvinist preaching in and around the rich merchant cities of the southern Netherlands, organized anti-Catholic religious protests grew in violence and frequency. Repression by the Catholic Spaniards in response caused Dutch Calvinists to rebel, sparking devades of war until theDutch Republic won its independence from Spain.
TheFrench Wars of Religion (1562–98) is the name given to a period ofcivil infighting andmilitary operations, primarily fought between FrenchCatholics andProtestants (Huguenots). The conflict involved the factional disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, such as theHouse of Bourbon andHouse of Guise (Lorraine), and both sides received assistance from foreign sources.[17]
TheMassacre of Vassy in 1562 is generally considered to be the beginning of the Wars of Religion and the Edict of Nantes at least ended this series of conflicts. During this time, complex diplomatic negotiations and agreements of peace were followed by renewed conflict and power struggles.[citation needed]
At the conclusion of the conflict in 1598, Huguenots were granted substantial rights and freedoms by the Edict of Nantes, though it did not end hostility towards them. The wars weakened the authority of the monarchy, already fragile under the rule ofFrancis II and thenCharles IX, though it later reaffirmed its role underHenry IV.[18]
TheSt. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations, followed by a wave ofRoman Catholicmob violence, both directed against theHuguenots (FrenchCalvinistProtestants), during theFrench Wars of Religion. The massacre began two days after the attempted assassination of AdmiralGaspard de Coligny, the military and political leader of the Huguenots. Starting on 23 August 1572 (the eve of the feast ofBartholomew the Apostle) with murders on orders of the king of a group of Huguenot leaders including Coligny, the massacres spread throughout Paris. Lasting several weeks, the massacre extended to other urban centres and the countryside. Modern estimates for the number of dead vary widely between 5,000 and 30,000 in total.
The massacre also marked a turning point in theFrench Wars of Religion. The Huguenot political movement was crippled by the loss of many of its prominent aristocratic leaders, as well as many re-conversions by the rank and file, and those who remained were increasingly radicalized. Though by no means unique, it "was the worst of the century's religious massacres."[19] Throughout Europe, it "printed on Protestant minds the indelible conviction that Catholicism was a bloody and treacherous religion".[20]
Pope Gregory XIII sent the leader of the massacres aGolden Rose, and said that the massacres "gave him more pleasure than fiftyBattles of Lepanto, and he commissionedVasari to paint frescoes of it in the Vatican".[21] The killings have been called "the worst of the century's religious massacres",[19] and led to the start of thefourth war of theFrench Wars of Religion.
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Since the 16th century there has been sectarian conflict of varying intensity between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. This religious sectarianism is connected to a degree withnationalism.Northern Ireland has seen inter-communal conflict for more than four centuries and there are records of religious ministers or clerics, the agents for absentee landlords, aspiring politicians, and members of the landed gentry stirring up and capitalizing on sectarian hatred and violence as far back as the late 18th century (See 'Two Hundred Years in the Citadel')Inside the Orange Citadel
This has been particularly intense in Northern Ireland since the 17th century. There are records of religious ministers or clerics, politicians, and members of the landed gentry stirring up and capitalizing on sectarian hatred and violence as far back as the late 18th century.[citation needed]
William Edward Hartpole Lecky, an Irish historian, wrote "If the characteristic mark of a healthy Christianity be to unite its members by a bond of fraternity and love, then there is no country where Christianity has more completely failed than Ireland".[22]
Lutz and Lutz cited theCromwellian conquest of Ireland as terrorism; "The draconian laws applied by Oliver Cromwell in Ireland were an early version ofethnic cleansing. The Catholic Irish were to be expelled to the northwestern areas of the island. Relocation rather than extermination was the goal."[23]Daniel Chirot has argued that genocide was originally the goal, inspired by the Biblical account ofJoshua and the genocide following theBattle of Jericho:[24]: 3
Steve Bruce, a sociologist, wrote "The Northern Ireland conflict is a religious conflict. Economic and social considerations are also crucial, but it was the fact that the competing populations in Ireland adhered and still adhere to competing religious traditions which has given the conflict its enduring and intractable quality".[25]: 249 Reviewers agreed "Of course the Northern Ireland conflict is at heart religious".[26]
John Hickey wrote "Politics in the North is not politics exploiting religion. That is far too simple an explanation: it is one which trips readily off the tongue of commentators who are used to a cultural style in which the politically pragmatic is the normal way of conducting affairs and all other considerations are put to its use. In the case of Northern Ireland the relationship is much more complex. It is more a question of religion inspiring politics than of politics making use of religion. It is a situation more akin to the first half of seventeenth‑century England than to the last quarter of twentieth century Britain".[27]
The period from 1969 to 2002 is known as "The Troubles". Nearly all the people living in Northern Ireland identified themselves as belonging to either theProtestant or theCatholic community. People of no religion and non-Christian faiths are still considered as belonging to one of the two "sects" along with churchgoers. In this context, "Protestants" means essentially descendants of immigrants fromScotland and England settled inUlster during or soon after the 1690s; also known as "Loyalists" or "Unionist" because they generally support politically the status of Northern Ireland as a part of the United Kingdom. "Catholics" means descendants of the pre-1690 indigenousIrish population; also known as "Nationalist" and "Republicans"; who generally politically favour aunited Ireland.
Reactions to sectarian domination and abuse have resulted in accusations of sectarianism being levelled against the minority community. It has been argued, however, that those reactions would be better understood in terms of a struggle against the sectarianism that governs relations between the two communities and which has resulted in the denial of human rights to the minority community.[28]
There are organizations dedicated to the reduction of sectarianism in Northern Ireland. TheCorrymeela Community ofBallycastle operates a retreat centre on the northern coast of Northern Ireland to bring Catholics and Protestants together to discuss their differences and similarities. TheUlster Project works with teenagers from Northern Ireland and the United States to provide safe,non-denominational environments to discuss sectarianism in Northern Ireland. These organizations are attempting to bridge the gap of historical prejudice between the two religious communities.
Northern Ireland has introduced a Private Day of Reflection,[29] since 2007, to mark the transition to a post-[sectarian] conflict society, an initiative of the cross-community Healing through Remembering[30] organisation and research project.
TheAct of Supremacy of 1534 declared theEnglish crown to be 'the only supreme head on earth of the Church in England' in place of the pope. Any act of allegiance to the latter was considered treasonous because the papacy claimed both spiritual and political power over its followers. It was under this act that saintsThomas More andJohn Fisher were executed and became martyrs to the Catholic faith.
The Act of Supremacy (which asserted England's independence from papal authority) was repealed in 1554 by Henry's daughterQueen Mary I (who was a devout Catholic) when she reinstated Catholicism as England's state religion. Another Act of Supremacy was passed in 1559 underElizabeth I, along with anAct of Uniformity which made worship in theChurch of England compulsory. Anyone who took office in the English church or government was required to take theOath of Supremacy; penalties for violating it included hanging and quartering. Attendance atAnglican services became obligatory—those who refused to attend Anglican services, whether Roman Catholics orPuritans, were fined and physically punished asrecusants.
In the time of Elizabeth I, the persecution of the adherents of the Reformed religion, both Anglican andNonconformist Protestants alike, which had occurred during the reign of her elder half-sister Queen Mary I, was used to fuel strong anti-Catholic propaganda in the hugely influentialFoxe's Book of Martyrs. Those who had died in Mary's reign, under theMarian Persecutions, were effectively canonised by this work ofhagiography. In 1571 the Convocation of theChurch of England ordered that copies of theBook of Martyrs should be kept for public inspection in all cathedrals and in the houses of church dignitaries. The book was also displayed in many Anglican parish churches alongside theHoly Bible. The passionate intensity of its style and its vivid and picturesque dialogues made the book very popular amongPuritan andLow Church families, Anglican andnonconformist Protestant, down to the nineteenth century. In a period of extreme partisanship on all sides of the religious debate, the exaggeratedly partisan church history of the earlier portion of the book, with its grotesque stories of popes and monks, contributed to fuel anti-Catholic prejudices in England, as did the story of the sufferings of several hundred Reformers (both Anglican and Nonconformist Protestant) who had been burnt at the stake under Mary andBishop Bonner.
Anti-Catholicism among many of the English was grounded in the fear that the pope sought to reimpose not just religio-spiritual authority over England but also secular power in the country; this was seemingly confirmed by various actions by the Vatican. In 1570,Pope Pius V sought to depose Elizabeth with thepapal bullRegnans in Excelsis, which declared her aheretic and purported to dissolve the duty of all Elizabeth's subjects of their allegiance to her. This rendered Elizabeth's subjects who persisted in their allegiance to the Catholic Church politically suspect, and made the position of her Catholic subjects largely untenable if they tried to maintain both allegiances at once.
Elizabeth's persecution of CatholicJesuitmissionaries led to the executions of many priests such asEdmund Campion. Although at the time of their deaths, they were considered traitors to England, they are now consideredmartyrs by the Catholic Church.
Later several accusations fueled strong anti-Catholicism in England, including theGunpowder Plot, in whichGuy Fawkes and other Catholic conspirators where accused of planning to blow up the English Parliament while it was in session.
Sectarianism in Glasgow takes the form of religious and politicalsectarian rivalry betweenRoman Catholics andProtestants. It is reinforced by theOld Firm rivalry between thefootball clubs:Rangers F.C. andCeltic F.C.[31] Members of the public appear divided on the strength of the relationship between football and sectarianism.[31]
Anti-Catholicism reached a peak in the mid nineteenth century when Protestant leaders became alarmed by the heavy influx of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany. Some of them believed that the Catholic Church was theWhore of Babylon who is mentioned in theBook of Revelation.[32]
In the 1830s and 1840s, prominent Protestant leaders, such asLyman Beecher andHorace Bushnell, attacked the Catholic Church as not only theologically unsound but an enemy of republican values.[33] Some scholars view the anti-Catholic rhetoric of Beecher and Bushnell as having contributed to anti-Irish and anti-Catholic mob violence.[34]
Beecher's well-known "Plea for the West" (1835) urged Protestants to exclude Catholics from western settlements. The Catholic Church's official silence on the subject of slavery also garnered the enmity of northern Protestants. Intolerance became more than an attitude on 11 August 1834, when amob set fire to anUrsuline convent inCharlestown, Massachusetts.
The resulting "nativist" movement, which achieved prominence in the 1840s, was whipped into a frenzy of anti-Catholicism that led to mob violence, the burning of Catholic property, and the killing of Catholics.[35] This violence was fed by claims that Catholics were destroying the culture of the United States. Irish Catholic immigrants were blamed for spreading violence and drunkness.[36]In the late nineteenth century southern United States evangelical Protestants used a wide range of terror activities, including lynching, murder, attempted murder, rape, beating, tar-and-feathering, whipping, and destruction of property, to suppress competition from black Christians (who saw Christ as the saviour of the black oppressed), Mormons, Native Americans, foreign-born immigrants, Jews, and Catholics.[37]
EarlyMormon history is marred by many instances of violent persecution, which have shaped the faith's attitudes towards violence. The first significant act of violent persecution occurred inMissouri. the Mormons who lived there tended to vote as a bloc, which caused them to wield "considerable political and economic influence," and as a result, they often unseated local political leaders and earned long-lasting enmity in frontier communities.[38] These differences culminated in theMissouri Mormon War and the eventual issuing of anexecutive order (since called theextermination order within the LDS community) byMissouri governorLilburn Boggs, which declared that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State." Three days later, a renegade militia unit attacked a Mormon settlement atHaun's Mill. After the initial attack, several of those who had been wounded or had surrendered were shot dead, and Justice of Peace Thomas McBride was hacked to death by a corn scythe. As a result of the massacre, 18 Mormons were murdered, 15 more were injured, and the property of most of those who remained alive was stolen and they were left destitute as a result; none of the militiamen were killed. The expulsion of several thousand Mormons from Missouri occurred during the winter, which heightened the problems for many of the refugees, who lacked food, shelter, and adequate medicine.[39] The extermination order was not formally rescinded until 25 June 1976.[40]
InNauvoo, Illinois, persecutions were often based on the alleged tendency of Mormons to "dominate community, economic, and political life wherever they landed."[41] The city of Nauvoo had become the largest city in Illinois, it even rivaled Chicago in size, the city council was predominantly Mormon, and theNauvoo Legion (the Mormonmilitia) continued to grow. Other issues of contention includedplural marriage,freedom of speech, theanti-slavery views which Smith expressed during his 1844 presidential campaign, and Smith's teachings on thedeification of man. After the destruction of the press of theNauvoo Expositor, Smith was arrested and incarcerated in theCarthage Jail wherehe and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob on 27 June 1844. Thepersecution in Illinois became so severe that most of the residents of Nauvoo fled across theMississippi River in February 1846. Following the flight of the Mormons from Illinois, mobs poured in and desecrated theNauvoo Temple. For a short period of time, the Mormons were forced to establish refugee camps in the plains ofIowa andNebraska, before pushing further West to theGreat Basin in an attempt to completely escape the violence. An estimated 1 in 12 people died in these camps during the first year.[42]
Even after the Mormons established a community hundreds of miles away in theSalt Lake Valley in 1847, anti-Mormon activists in theUtah Territory convinced U.S. PresidentJames Buchanan that the Mormons in the territory were rebelling against the United States; critics pointed to theMountain Meadows massacre andplural marriage as signs of the rebellion. In response, President Buchanan sent one-third of the American standing army in 1857 to Utah in what is known as theUtah War.
TheMountain Meadows massacre of 7–11 September 1857 was widely blamed on the church's teaching of blood atonement and the anti-United States rhetoric which was espoused by LDS Church leaders during theUtah War.[citation needed] The widely publicized massacre was a mass killing of Arkansan emigrants by a Mormon militia and Paiute Indian recruits, led byJohn D. Lee, who was later executed for his role in the killings. Though widely connected with the blood atonement doctrine by the United States press and general public, there is no direct evidence that the massacre was related to "saving" the emigrants by the shedding of their blood (as they had not entered into Mormon covenants); rather, most commentators view it as an act of intended retribution, acted upon due to rumors that some members of this party were intending on joining with American troops in attacking the Mormons. Young was accused of either directing the massacre, or with complicity after the fact. However, when Brigham Young was interviewed on the matter and asked if he believed in blood atonement, he replied, "I do, and I believe that Lee has not half atoned for his great crime." He said "we believe that execution should be done by the shedding of blood instead of by hanging," but only "according to the laws of the land."[43]: 242
At the beginning of the 20th century, approximately one-sixth of the population of the United States was Roman Catholic.[44] Anti-Catholicism was widespread in the 1920s; anti-Catholics, including the Ku Klux Klan, believed that Catholicism was incompatible with democracy and that parochial schools encouraged separatism and kept Catholics from becoming loyal Americans. The Catholics responded to such prejudices by repeatedly asserting their rights as American citizens and by arguing that they, not the nativists (anti-Catholics), were true patriots since they believed in the right to freedom of religion.[45]
With the rise of theKu Klux Klan (KKK) in the 1920s, anti-Catholic rhetoric intensified. The CatholicChurch of the Little Flower was first built in 1925 inRoyal Oak, Michigan, a largely Protestant area. Two weeks after it opened, the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross in front of the church.[46]
The Harbour Grace Affray was an armed conflict of religious violence that happened onSaint Stephen's Day, 1883 in the town ofHarbour Grace,Colony of Newfoundland, now modern dayCanada, between members of theLoyal Orange Association and the Roman Catholics.[47]
Sectarianism in Australia is a historical legacy from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
Although theFirst Crusade was initially launched in response toByzantine EmperorAlexios I Komnenos's appeal for help in repelling the invadingSeljuq Turks fromAnatolia, one of the lasting legacies of the Crusades would "further separate the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity from each other."[48]
TheMassacre of the Latins occurred inConstantinople, the capital of theByzantine Empire, in 1182. It was a large-scale massacre of the "Latin" (Roman Catholic) merchants and their families, who at that time dominated the city'smaritime trade and financial sector. Although precise numbers are unavailable, the bulk of the Latin community, estimated at over 60,000 at the time,[49] was wiped out or forced to flee. TheGenoese andPisan communities were especially decimated, and some 4,000 survivors were sold to the Turks as slaves.[50]
TheSiege of Constantinople (also called theFourth Crusade) occurred in 1204; it destroyed parts of the capital of theByzantine Empire as it was captured by Western European andVenetianCrusaders. After the fall, the Crusaders inflicted a savage sacking on the city[51] for three days, during which many ancient and medieval Roman and Greek works were either stolen or destroyed. Despite their oaths and the threat of excommunication, the Crusaders systematically desecrated the city's holy sanctuaries by either destroying or stealing whatever they could lay their hands on; nothing was spared.
TheYugoslav wars are sometimes labelled religious/sectarian conflicts, which is disputed by academia. They were primarily interethnic wars which were waged between several states whichseceded from Yugoslavia prior to the wars. TheCroats and theSlovenes have traditionally been Catholic, theSerbs, theMontenegrins and theMacedonians have traditionally beenEastern Orthodox, and theBosniaks and mostAlbanians have traditionally beenSunni Muslim. Although the conflicts were not caused by religious differences, to some degree, religious affiliations served as markers of group identity during their durations, despite the relatively low rates of religious practice and belief among these various groups as a result of decades ofcommunist rule in the formally secular and irreligiousYugoslavia.
Sectarian violence Nestorianism.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)The Catholic system is adverse to liberty, and the clergy to a great extent are dependent on foreigners opposed to the principles of our government, for patronage and support.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Ku Klux Klan shrine of the little flower.