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Kill 'em all?© St. Petersburg Times published March 28, 2003 A sad sight in Tallahassee: prowar demonstrators clad in T-shirts saying, "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out." The slogan has ancient origins. It harks back to one of the bloodiest episodes of religious intolerance. A sect called the Cathars, also known as the Albigensians, flourished in southern France during the 12th and 13th centuries. They were ascetic, professed their own interpretation of Scripture, and were stridently critical of what they perceived as materialism and corruption in the Roman Catholic Church. In short, they were heretics. And because church and politics were inseparable, they also represented a political threat to the temporal powers. Church and state conspired successfully to exterminate the Cathars and subjugate the independent region of Languedoc. In July 1209 Pope Innocent III sent an army of Crusaders from northern France. The most notorious event was the massacre of the population of Beziers not sparing even women and children who had taken refuge in churches. "Kill them all, for God will recognize his own," cried the Abbott of Citeaux. It is doubtful that the young people sporting that slogan in Tallahassee a millennium later have studied enough history to know where it came from. Now that they do, will they still wear the shirts?
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From the Times Opinion page |
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