The history of the Catholic church is well-documented, and in which there are those who saw (or was living during that time) the atrocities of the Catholic church some five hundred years ago, when had reached its height of dominate power and documented it, as well as historians who have researched it.
Throughout the Catholic church's history, degraded, murderous and wicked behavior has occurred, such as Pope Alexander VI (Spaniard Rodrigo Borgia who reigned 1492-1503 C.E.) buying the papacy by bribing one of his rivals with "four mule-loads of bullion" and who illegitimately fathered at least 12 children through a number of mistresses, held sexual orgies within the Vatican (and often attended by his illegitimate children), had sex with his own daughter and murdered several Cardinals (who paid Pope Alexander bribes for the position before their deaths) with poison (possibly Cantarella) in order to bring more money into his "treasury".(this was chronicled by Catholic priest Johann Burchard [1450-1506 C.E.] who was Master of Ceremonies during Pope Alexander and four other popes while living in the Vatican during the Italian Renaissance [that ran from the 14th to the 16th centuries])
Of Pope Alexander VI, Johann Burchard wrote that his son Cesare "went so far as to have the square of St Peter enclosed by a palisade, into which he ordered some prisoners - men, women and children - to be brought. He then had them bound, hand and foot, and being armed and mounted on a fiery charger, commenced a horrible attack upon them. Some he shot, and others he cut down with his sword, trampling them under his horse's feet. In less than half-an-hour, he wheeled around alone in a puddle of blood, among the dead bodies of his victims, while his Holiness (Pope Alexander VI) and Madam Lucrezia (his daughter), from a balcony, enjoyed the sight of that horrid scene". Cesare also is the main suspect in the murder his own brother Juan, over sexual rights to their sister Lucrezia.
The corruption within the Catholic Church was indeed seeping down from the top. Historian Barbara W. Tuchman further wrote in her book The March of Folly (pub in 1984) that the six popes who were in office from 1471 onward (starting with Pope Sixtus IV) carried on “an excess of venality (open to bribery), amorality (without moral standards), avarice (greed for wealth), and spectacularly calamitous power politics.”
Former Catholic priest Peter de Rosa noted in his book, Vicars of Christ - The Dark Side of the Papacy (pub in 1988), that with the appointment of Tomas de Torquemada in 1483 by Pope Sixtus IV, that "in the pope’s name, [the inquisitors] were responsible for the most savage and sustained onslaught on human decency in the history of the race.”(pg 123) Of Dominican inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada in Spain, he says: “Appointed in 1483, he ruled tyrannically for fifteen years. His victims numbered over 114,000 of whom 10,220 were burned" on the stake.(pg 129)
Pope Innocent III (reigned 1198-1216 C.E.) sent monk Arnold Amalric with 300,000 crusaders to Beziers, in southern France in 1209 C.E. and murdered some 20,000 men, women and children who followed the Cathari teachings and was the beginning of the Albigensian Crusade.
And when Arnold Amalric men asked how to distinguish between Catholics and "heretics", he reportedly told them: "Slay them all; God will recognize His own", this being the beginning of a deadly crusade that would end some twenty years later in 1229 C.E., and would cost possibly one million - Cathari, Waldenses and even Catholics - of their lives.
Catholic king Francis I of France (reigned 1515-47 C.E.), signed an edict to wipe out "heretics" or Protestants, so that in 1545 C.E. some 2,700 men met their deaths, and 600 were sent to work on the galley's in the Luberon region of southern France.
Those killed belonged to a religious movement dating back to 1170 C.E., whereby a wealthy French merchant named Vaudes (also called Peter Waldo) became deeply interested in learning how to please God (whose personal name is Jehovah, Ps 83:18)
He followed Jesus words spoken to a rich young ruler, that of to "go sell your belongings and give to the poor" (Matt 19:16-22) and therefore gave up his rich lifestyle and started the group later called the Waldenses, who began public preaching.
This preaching as well as Vaudes commissioning a translation of the Gospels and other Bible books into Franco-Provencal, the language understood by the common people in many parts of France, became a decisive issue in the Catholic church.
The Catholic church felt that only it had the right to preach or those whom it granted authority to, and considered the Waldeneses as ignorant and illiterate. Vaudes sought the approval of Pope Alexander III, which was given, but with the stipulation that the local priests approve, which according to historian Malcolm Lambert "was the near-equivalent of total refusal".
Archbishop Jean Bellesmains of Lyons formally forbade lay preaching, to which Vaudes replied from Acts 5:29, that "we must obey God as ruler rather than men". He was then excommunicated for his failing to comply with the Archbishop's orders.
It came down to the anathema or "curse" at Fourth Latern Council, issued against the Waldenses in 1215 C.E., and after Vaudes death in 1217 C.E., along with persecution, caused his followers to disperse to various regions around Europe.
But another of the Catholic church's "weapons" were the Inquisitions, such as the Spanish Inquisition (Nov 1, 1478-1834 C.E.) that was established to combat "heresy" originally in Spain and "achieved that end through infamously brutal methods" (website Britannica dot com) as well as the Roman Inquisition that began in 1542 C.E. under the reign of Pope Paul III (reigned 1534-49 C.E.), who was alarmed at the spread of Protestanism, and in which both were preceded by the deadly Catholic Crusades from the 11th to 13th centuries.
John Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" was originally titled Acts and Monuments of the Church that was published initially in 1554 C.E. and was republished in 1559 with an enlarged volume that chronicled the slaughter of thousands of men, women and children at the hands of the Catholic church, that brought to focus the deadly reign of such ones as Catholic "Bloody Mary" of England (1553-58 C.E.), whose five year reign saw the burning of some 300 men and women on the stake as "heretics", while those who were Protestant died in prison.
He also wrote of a woman in England named Smythe who had taught her children the Ten Commandments and Jesus' model prayer in English instead of Latin. For this "crime", she was burned on the stake, along with six men who were similarly charged. Because this wicked injustice angered the people, the local bishop spread the word (or lies) that the victims were burned for the "greater crime" of eating meat on Fridays and other fast days.(John Foxe's, Acts and Monuments of the Church, 1554 C.E. edition)
The list of Catholicism's "crimes against humanity" are well documented and should serve as "an eye opener" to the sins it has committed "in the name of God". But Catholicism is not the only one Jehovah God will call to account.
His anger will be also be directed against all the religions of the world called by the mystic name Babylon the Great (Rev 17:5, and whereby ancient Babylon was the prototype, being a center of false religion (and mentioned some 360 times in the Bible and noted as "the Mistress of Kingdoms" and as being filled with "many sorceries and all your powerful spells", Isa 47:5, 9)
Only the "one faith" that honors Jehovah God will survive what Jesus called "the great tribulation", a two part series.(Matt 24:21; 1 Sam 2:30; Eph 4:5; Rev 7:9-17)
In the near future, Jehovah will cause this happen to the religions of the world: "And the ten horns (or all political governments, and in which almost all are members of the United Nations) that you saw (Rev 13:1, 2; 17:12) and the (scarlet-colored) wild beast (Rev 17:3, the United Nations), these will hate the prostitute (Rev 17:1, 2, that shows that the political governments and their leaders are embraced in an intense "love affair", like a prostitute with its customers, with the prostitute (or religions of the world) "pulling the strings" or able to manipulate them as she wishes) and will make her devastated and naked (taking away all the religions of the world assets, properties and monies), and they will eat up her flesh and completely burn her with fire. For (Jehovah) God put into their hearts (not minds, but hearts that is the seat of motivation, see Matt 15:19) to carry out his thought, yes, to carry out their one thought by giving their kingdom (or ruling authority as one body, the only time this will happen, giving the United Nations real "teeth" instead of just "bark", with the power to shred the religions of the world to "ribbons") to the (scarlet-colored) wild beast, until the words of God will have been accomplished".(Rev 17:16, 17)