PAPISTS KILL/MURDER MANY
One might focus on the Crusades & the Inquisition, though the below doesn't focus exactly there.
Below is a quote from David A. Plaisted
ESTIMATES OF THE NUMBER KILLED BY THE PAPACY IN THE MIDDLE AGES AND LATER,
2006.
Quoting from Plaisted:
the figure of 50 million killed by the Papacy in Europe. . . . it is best to restrict the computation to massacres listed, for example, by Brownlee and others.
The time period for the figure of 45 million has now been reasonably established, but not the place. For this, Burton [Burton, Robert, Martyrs in flames: or, the history of Popery, Bettesworth and Batley, London, 1729] lists in the table of contents the following persecutions:
Piedmont, France, Orange, Bohemia, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Flanders, Scotland, Ireland, and England.
This seems to be the most exhaustive list of persecutions of any of the sources examined, indicating the areas in which the principal persecutions took place.
In fact, Buck [Buck, Charles, A Theological Dictionary, containing Definitions of All Religious Terms; ..., Philadelphia, Thomas Cowperthwait & Co., 1838, article Persecution ] writes, speaking of the time after the Protestant Reformation,
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 [p. 333].
This suggests that the principal areas of persecution included Germany, Bohemia, Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary. Also, Bennet [Bennet, Benjamin, Several discourses against popery, Lawrence and Midwinter, London, 1714, p. 457] writes
Germany, Bohemia, Poland, Lithuania &c. have in their turns been deluged in blood.
Thus the time and place of the major persecutions contributing to the 50 million figure have been determined with reasonable confidence. It remains to estimate numbers killed in each of these persecutions and show that they add up to 50 million. Although it is not yet possible to give a full accounting, one can assign reasonable totals to these persecutions that do add up to 50 million.
A large portion of the figure of 45 million is covered by the thirty years war, the conflict in Bohemia, the civil wars and persecutions in France, and 15 million killed from 1518 to 1548. Now, the thirty years war lasted from 1618 to 1648 and estimates for those killed in this conflict range up to 14 million.
The thirty years war started when Ferdinand II (1578-1648) tried to suppress Protestantism in the Holy Roman Empire. As for where Ferdinand II got his motivation, Emperor Ferdinand II, of the House of Hapsburg, had been educated by the Jesuits; and with their help undertook to suppress Protestantism. (Halley, p. 792) The sons and daughters of the rich and noble they [the Jesuits] sought by every means to bring under their influence, and they were soon the favorite confessors in the imperial court and in many of the royal courts of Europe. . It was their policy to instill into their minds [the rich and the noble] an undying hatred of every form of opposition to the Catholic faith. When they had once molded a ruler to their will and made him the subservient instrument of their policy, they were ever at his side dictating to him the measures to be employed for the eradication of heresy and the complete reformation of his realm according to the Jesuit ideal, and they were ever ready, with full papal authority, to conduct inquisitorial work. [Newman, pp. 374-375]
Lindsay [A History of the Reformation, Charles Scribner s Sons, New York, 1922, pp. 607-608] writes,
Many Romanist Princes had no wish to persecute, still less to see their provinces depopulated by banishment. Toleration of Protestants they [the Jesuits] represented to be the unpardonable sin. They succeeded in many cases in inducing Romanist rulers to withdraw the protection they had hitherto accorded to their Protestant subjects . The League was the symbol in France of this Counter-Reformation. they [the Jesuits] were the restless and ruthless organizers of the Holy League.
Clarke [Clarke, Samuel, A looking-glass for persecutors, London, Printed for W. Miller, 1674, p. 52] writes,
The emperor Ferdinand the second, was a great Persecutor of the Protestants in Bohemia and Germany, who after his victory over Frederick, Prince Palatine, and the Bohemian States, made it his work to root out the Protestant Religion in those Countries, and turned them into a very shambles of Blood, sparing neither Age, Sex, nor Rank that refused to abjure the Truth. But while he was in his full Career, God brought in against him a contemptible people [the Swedes] under whose swords most of those bloody wretches fell; who were the Bohemian scourges, so that much of Germany, and of the Emperors Country was a very Aceldama, a Field of Blood.
A high estimate for the Thirty Years War is that the population of Germany was reduced from 20 million to 7 million, implying 13 million killed [Cushing B. Hassell, History of the Church of God, Chapter XVII]; actually the population should have increased by about 3 million during this time, so we can estimate 16 million killed. Ploetz [Epitome of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern History, 1884, p. 312] writes of the Terrible ravages committed by the bands of Wallenstein in Germany in 1632 in Saxony. Also, in 1648, Ploetz [p. 315] writes
Terrible condition of Germany. Irreparable losses of men and wealth. Reduction of population; increase of poverty; retrogradation in all ranks.
The war extended to other areas of Europe, and there was also a tremendous population loss there, so it would not be unreasonable to estimate 18 million killed altogether. In fact, one edition of Halley s Bible Handbook states that estimates for this war reach as high as 20 million: