Deep reading

Witch hunts, Galileo and evolution — how do we speak honestly about the Church's history?

This piece does not repeat the short questions already published on “the Church's wounds,” “Galileo” and “science and faith.” Rather than delivering a one-line verdict on who was right, it separates what the documents establish, the rough consensus of historians, and interpretations still under debate.

Covers torture, executions and trial records.

First, some promises

  • We will not make the suffering of the victims smaller than the reputation of the Church.
  • Neither will we inflate that suffering with unverified figures such as “millions” or “tens of millions.”
  • We will not cancel responsibility by saying “everyone was like that then”; the context of an age is used only to make the judgment more accurate.
  • We will not pick one villain out of Catholics, Protestants and state power, but will check the differences between places and between the courts that tried the cases.
  • We will not force today's faith onto people of the past, nor assume that people then already knew what science knows now.
  • We will not call a person accused of witchcraft in history a real witch; we will call them a person accused of witchcraft or the defendant.

How we mark how certain a fact is

MarkMeaningExample in this piece
DocumentedMaterial that survives — trial records, bulls, letters, sentences
Example in this piece
Galileo's sentence and abjuration of 1633
Rough consensusA conclusion that modern research, gathering records from many regions, points to in much the same way
Example in this piece
The range of roughly 90,000 prosecuted and roughly 40,000–60,000 executed in Europe
Under debateSources are missing, or causes and effects can be read in several ways
Example in this piece
How much of the “Malleus Maleficarum” Sprenger actually wrote

A figure that looks precise is not always more certain. Trial records have been lost, and counts differ over what to include — formal prosecution, a death sentence, an actual execution, a death in prison — so estimates need a range.

A timeline to read first

  • 1484: Pope Innocent VIII issues the bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, backing the activity of Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger in parts of Germany.
  • c. 1486/1487: Kramer, as the leading author, publishes the “Malleus Maleficarum” (The Hammer of Witches).
  • c. 1450–1750: The broad period usually taken for the study of European witch trials. The centre of the great trials is not the “Middle Ages” but the early modern period, especially the later sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries.
  • 1542: The Roman Inquisition is established. It does not share organization, jurisdiction or period with the Spanish Inquisition.
  • 1600: Giordano Bruno, judged guilty by the Roman Inquisition, is handed to the secular power and burned.
  • 1616: A church measure forbids asserting Copernican heliocentrism as fact, and Galileo is warned.
  • 1632–1633: Galileo's “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” is published, and the Roman Inquisition tries him and makes him recant.
  • 1692–1693: The Salem witch trials take place in the English colony of Massachusetts.
  • 1950: Pius XII, in the encyclical “Humani generis,” permits research and discussion on the evolutionary origin of the human body.
  • 1992: In an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, John Paul II acknowledges the error of the theologians of Galileo's day in interpreting Scripture.
  • 1996: John Paul II tells the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that, in the light of accumulated knowledge, evolution is “more than a hypothesis.”

A short glossary

  • Witch trial: a trial in which the law and religion of the day investigated and punished a person believed to have made a pact with the devil and done harm. It is not a word that gathers up every folk belief about magic, or any religious tradition of today.
  • Inquisition: not one unchanging organization. The medieval papal inquisition, the Spanish Inquisition and the Roman Inquisition after 1542 have to be distinguished from one another.
  • Early modern period: a historical term for roughly the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, between the medieval and the modern.
  • Geocentrism: the system in which the earth stands still at the centre of the universe. Heliocentrism is the system in which the earth rotates and travels around the sun.
  • The Tychonic system: a hybrid model in which the earth stands still, the sun goes around the earth, and the other planets go around the sun. It matched several of Galileo's observations, so it matters for understanding the debate of the time.
  • The magisterium: the Church's office of teaching on faith and morals. One cleric's book or one judge's decision is not the same as universal doctrine.

1. Were the witch hunts something only the medieval Catholic Church did?

The question: “Wasn't it the medieval popes and the Inquisition hunting down and burning the witches of Europe?”

The short answer: No. The great witch trials happened mainly in the early modern period, in Catholic and Protestant regions alike and in many secular courts. That does not mean the responsibility of Christian leaders and institutions disappears.

Historical background: An old fear of harmful magic combined, around the fifteenth century, with a theological and legal imagining of “a sect in league with the devil.” After the Reformation, with Catholics and Protestants in competition and with war, disease, failed harvests and local conflicts following one another, accusations grew in some places. But not every region punished people at the same time or to the same degree.

What the sources establish: Modern research places the great European wave of trials broadly between 1450 and 1750, especially in the later sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries. Trials were held not only in church courts but in the secular courts of towns, lords and states; in Scotland, for example, most cases were handled by local criminal courts. Executions took place in both Catholic and Protestant regions, and the differences between regions are not explained by the name of a denomination. The Robbins Collection at UC Berkeley on witch trials in Europe and New England, University of Edinburgh, Scottish witch trials FAQ

Common misunderstandings: “Only Catholics did it” is wrong, and so is “mostly secular courts did it, so the Church is not involved.” Church and state were not neatly separated as they are today, and there were Christians and clergy who taught demonology or who took part in accusation, interrogation and sentencing.

What the Church learns from this: When the language of faith attaches itself to fear and to the coercive power of the state, it can demonize a neighbour. Rather than competing over whose fault was greater, the Church should first remember the participation of Christians and the failure of institutions, and defend freedom of conscience and of religion.

In one sentence: The witch trials were not a medieval Catholic event but a complex violence involving several denominations and many courts in early modern Europe, and the Church's share of responsibility in it has to be honestly acknowledged.

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2. Did millions, even tens of millions, die in the witch hunts?

The question: “Is it true that the Church killed nine million people, or more, as witches?”

The short answer: Records-based research today does not support such figures. The widely used central estimate is roughly 90,000 prosecuted and roughly 45,000 executed in Europe; it is safest to give the scale of executions as a range of roughly 40,000–60,000.

Historical background: Older polemics and popular books multiplied very thin local data across the whole of Europe, or mixed together accusation, prosecution, conviction and execution to arrive at millions. From the later twentieth century onward, researchers gathered the surviving court registers and local records region by region, and corrected the estimates dramatically.

What the sources establish: Recent research still uses Brian Levack's count — roughly 90,000 prosecuted and roughly 45,000 executed in Europe between 1450 and 1750 — as its reference point. But because of lost records, shifting regional boundaries, and disagreement over whether to include people who died in prison or were killed without a formal trial, no total accurate to the last digit can be produced. The Scottish data show the limits of estimation well: 3,212 named defendants, but the outcome is known for only a portion of the cases. Summary of European witch-trial figures in a Springer journal, University of Edinburgh survey data

Common misunderstandings: Correcting a legendary figure is not the same as minimizing violence. Tens of thousands of executions, and far more accusations, torture, banishments and ruined families, are an immense tragedy in themselves. Conversely, one should not count only the executions that appear in the records and then say the whole harm has been measured.

What the Church learns from this: Repentance has to stand on verifiable truth, not on inflated numbers. When facts are exaggerated, a single rebuttal can throw the real suffering of the victims into doubt as well.

In one sentence: There is no basis for the claim of millions or tens of millions of victims, and the safe present estimate is roughly 40,000–60,000 executions — but a smaller number does not make the tragedy or the responsibility smaller.

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3. Were all the victims of the witch trials women?

The question: “Was the witch hunt a slaughter of women that singled out herbalists and midwives?”

The short answer: It is clear that a large majority of defendants were women, but not all of them were, and the claim that “they were all midwives or healers” is not borne out by the records. The proportions by sex and the reasons for accusation varied by region.

Historical background: The society of the time widely held the prejudice that women were weaker in reason and more open to the devil's temptation. Poverty, age, widowhood, quarrels between neighbours and suspicion around caring work could make particular women more vulnerable. But in some places male defendants were numerous, because of male magical traditions or because accusations ran through whole families.

What the sources establish: Taken broadly across Europe, an estimate of roughly 75–85 per cent of defendants being women is common. In the Scottish data, about 84 per cent of the named defendants are women, while some studies of Estonia, Russia and Finland find an equal or higher proportion of men. So “a gendered persecution concentrated on women” and “all the victims were the same kind of woman” have to be kept apart. Comparison by sex and region in the Edinburgh FAQ, Introduction to the Edinburgh visualization

Common misunderstandings: “It was not only women” cannot erase the misogyny, and “most were women” cannot reduce the cause of every case to one thing. In particular, the single explanation that “the Church executed midwives systematically in order to destroy women's medical knowledge” is not the present consensus of historians.

What the Church learns from this: We should watch for anyone whose credibility is discounted because of sex, poverty or age. Religious stereotypes about women must never be allowed to function as evidence in a case of violence.

In one sentence: The great majority of witchcraft defendants were women, but there were male victims and large regional differences, and sexism and local circumstance have to be read together.

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4. What responsibility do the popes and the Inquisition bear for the witch hunts?

The question: “If secular courts killed more people, can we say the popes and the Catholic Inquisition bear no responsibility?”

The short answer: No. Some inquisitions did reduce death sentences by applying stricter rules of evidence than the local secular courts, but papal documents, church judges and theology also demonstrably strengthened the beliefs and the machinery of persecution.

Historical background: “The Inquisition” is not one thing. The 1484 bull of Innocent VIII confirmed the authority of Kramer and Sprenger to investigate charges of witchcraft in parts of Germany. The later Spanish and Roman Inquisitions were strongly centralized and followed procedures different from those of the many small secular courts.

What the sources establish: There is research showing that the Italian and Spanish Inquisitions imposed fewer death sentences than many secular courts and restrained chains of accusation. But recent work re-examines the conclusion that they were “always moderate,” given unexplored records and regional variation, and points out that procedural caution did not amount to respect for the rights of the defendant or to a rejection of belief in witchcraft. Even where the secular power carried out the execution after a church court's finding of guilt, “only the state killed” cannot detach the Church's causal and moral responsibility. Overview of the historiography of witch trials in early modern Italy, Analysis of the papal bull in the scholarly introduction to the “Malleus”

Common misunderstandings: “The Inquisition directed all the witch hunts” flattens institutions and regions; “the Inquisition actually saved people, so the Church is innocent” erases papal approval, the participation of churchmen, coercive interrogation and verdicts of heresy.

What the Church learns from this: Responsibility must not be evaded by comparison with others. Study the cases in which the Church reduced the number of executions — but confess plainly the words, laws and actions of churchmen that violated human dignity and conscience.

In one sentence: The Inquisition took many forms, but some instances of procedural restraint do not remove the actual participation and responsibility of popes, clergy and church institutions.

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5. Was the “Malleus Maleficarum” an official Catholic textbook approved by the pope?

The question: “Was the ‘Hammer of Witches' the Church's official code, so that every judge tortured and executed by its rules?”

The short answer: It was a famous book with harmful influence, but it was not a universal catechism or code of canon law approved by a pope. Conversely, it is not accurate to say it was a private book with no connection to the Church.

Historical background: Heinrich Kramer, a Dominican and a papally appointed inquisitor, brought the book out around 1486/1487. Jacob Sprenger is also linked to it as an author on the title page, but scholars debate how much he actually wrote. The book gathered blatant prejudice against women, demonology, and methods of investigation and trial, and spread through many printed editions.

What the sources establish: The papal bull of 1484 came before the book and supported the two men's authority to investigate; it was not a document approving every sentence of a book that did not yet exist. Later editions placed this bull, and an “approbation” from the theologians of the University of Cologne, at the front to lend the book authority. There is scholarly debate about how that approbation was produced, who signed it and what it meant. So both descriptions should be avoided: that the book was “the official Catholic doctrine of witchcraft,” and that “the Church immediately condemned it and placed it on the Index.” Introduction to the complete Cambridge translation, Introduction to the Cambridge edition of the Latin text

Common misunderstandings: It goes too far to say that one book “started” three centuries of trials or that every judge used it. But neither can the relationship be cut — the author was a papally appointed inquisitor, and a papal bull was printed at the front of the book to borrow its authority.

What the Church learns from this: A clerical title, a letter of recommendation and a long publishing history do not automatically make a book safe. Writing that portrays people as inferior and justifies coercion in order to manufacture a confession must be criticized by the standard of the Gospel and of human dignity.

In one sentence: The “Malleus Maleficarum” was not an official catechism but Kramer's highly influential trial manual — and the history by which it used church titles and papal documents to magnify harm cannot be hidden either.

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6. Were the Salem witch trials a medieval Catholic inquisition too?

The question: “Did Catholic priests burn witches at Salem the way the films show, and is Salem the representative case of the European witch hunt?”

The short answer: No. Salem was a separate event of 1692, in the Puritan society and the colonial civil justice system of the English colony of Massachusetts. It is connected to European trial culture, but it was neither a Catholic inquisition nor a medieval event.

Historical background: Religious and political conflict in Salem and the surrounding villages, wartime anxiety, quarrels between neighbours and belief in the devil combined with the testimony of young accusers and a special court's unstable use of evidence. The great European wave of trials was already weakening, but English law and religious culture carried on in the colonies.

What the sources establish: More than 150 people were investigated and imprisoned, and 19 who maintained their innocence were hanged. Giles Corey, refusing to plead, was pressed to death under heavy stones, and at least five people died in the harsh conditions of the jail. Those condemned at Salem were not burned. The University of Virginia archive of the period's documents shows civil and church records side by side, but the body that passed the death sentences was the colony's special court. The Salem documentary archive and historical overview at the University of Virginia, The Massachusetts State Library on the law of the trials

Common misunderstandings: Memorizing a new formula — “burning in Europe, hanging in the English-speaking world” — is just as risky. Law and punishment varied by period and by jurisdiction. And a single phrase like “mass hysteria” cannot explain all the choices made by accusers, courts, ministers and the community.

What the Church learns from this: A claim of invisible attack, the word of a child, and the certainty of a majority cannot serve as proof of guilt without verification. It is precisely in a time of fear that the presumption of innocence, the right to a defence, cross-checking, and the prohibition of torture and coercion are needed.

In one sentence: Salem was a civil trial in a Puritan colony in 1692 in which 19 people were hanged; it was neither a Catholic inquisition nor a case of burning.

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7. Did Galileo say “and yet it moves” and then get burned at the stake?

The question: “Is it true that the Church tortured the scientist Galileo, blinded him, and finally burned him?”

The short answer: Galileo was neither burned nor executed, and there is no evidence he was actually tortured. But it is a fact that the Inquisition interrogated him under the threat of torture, made him recant his convictions, and then kept him under house arrest for the rest of his life — an unjust coercion.

Historical background: In 1616 Galileo was warned not to assert heliocentrism as fact. After he published the “Dialogue” in 1632 he was summoned to Rome, and in 1633 the Inquisition judged that he had in effect defended the forbidden view.

What the sources establish: The sentence of 22 June 1633 declared Galileo “vehemently suspect of heresy,” banned the book, and had him kneel and read an abjuration renouncing heliocentrism. Formally he was sentenced to the prison of the Inquisition, but this was soon changed to house arrest, which continued until his natural death in 1642. The threat of torture was used in the interrogation, but the general conclusion of specialist research is that there is no evidence of actual physical torture. There is also no contemporary record that he said “and yet it moves” on the spot. The 1633 sentence and abjuration, provided by Ohio State University, The Museo Galileo on the sentence, Maurice Finocchiaro of UNLV on the trial

Common misunderstandings: Correcting the legend of blinding torture and burning does not erase the Church's fault. Conversely, it is not true that every cleric and every scientist of the day divided cleanly into geocentrists and heliocentrists.

What the Church learns from this: Even when you are convinced the content is right, a scholarly debate must not be closed by trial, censorship or threat. In 1992 the Church officially reflected on the error of the theologians of the time, who failed to distinguish Scripture from their interpretation of it.

In one sentence: Galileo was not burned and was not actually tortured, but the Inquisition's forcing of a recantation and the house arrest that lasted the rest of his life were a clear injustice.

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8. Galileo had already proved heliocentrism — did the Church simply appeal to the Bible?

The question: “Once you looked through the telescope it was certain the earth moves, so did the Church reject science because of some verses?”

The short answer: Galileo's observations badly shook the old Ptolemaic system, but by themselves they did not completely prove that the earth moves. Even so, for church judges to settle an open scientific question as a matter of faith contrary to Scripture was a misuse of authority.

Historical background: The moons of Jupiter showed that not every heavenly body circles the earth alone, and the phases of Venus did not fit the traditional Ptolemaic system. But these observations also fit the Tychonic system, in which the planets circle the sun and the sun circles a stationary earth. The annual parallax of the stars had not been observed at the time, and Galileo's theory of the tides, which he offered as evidence of the earth's motion, was wrong. Kepler's elliptical orbits and then Newtonian mechanics gave a fuller account. Overview of Galileo research in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

What the sources establish: In a letter of 1615 Cardinal Bellarmine granted that if the earth's motion were truly demonstrated, the relevant passages of Scripture would have to be interpreted anew — while judging that no such demonstration existed yet. The church decision of 1616 and the sentence of 1633 defined heliocentrism as philosophically false and contrary to Scripture. In 1992 John Paul II acknowledged that most theologians of the day failed to distinguish Scripture from the interpretation of Scripture, and moved a question that properly belonged to science into the sphere of the doctrine of faith. The documentary collection on the Galileo affair from UC Press, John Paul II's 1992 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences

Common misunderstandings: Neither the heroic legend that “all of Galileo's science was already perfect and his opponents were all ignorant” nor the excuse that “the proof was incomplete, so the Church's verdict was justified” will do. Incomplete evidence is a reason for freer testing, not a reason for a forced recantation.

What the Church learns from this: Scripture is true, but its interpreters can be wrong. Do not rush to make doctrine out of a provisional scientific conclusion about nature — and science, for its part, must be clear about the level of its evidence and about its own capacity for error.

In one sentence: There were gaps in Galileo's evidence, but the Church's closing of that debate with Scripture and its forcing of a recantation were a separate and real error.

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9. Was Giordano Bruno the first martyr of science, killed for heliocentrism?

The question: “Bruno also said the universe was vast and the earth moves, and the Church burned him — isn't he a martyr of science like Galileo?”

The short answer: Bruno's cosmology was not unrelated to his trial, but calling him a modern experimental scientist who died for a single scientific proposition loses the complexity of the record. That does not make his execution the least bit justified.

Historical background: Bruno was a philosopher who accepted the Copernican system and thought about an infinite universe and a plurality of worlds. At the same time he advanced a range of claims about the Trinity, Christ, the Eucharist, the soul and religious authority that clashed with the Catholic doctrine of the day. He was arrested in Venice in 1592, taken to Rome, and tried over many years.

What the sources establish: The Roman Inquisition judged Bruno an obstinate heretic in 1600, and the secular power burned him. The surviving trial materials show his philosophy, theology and cosmology entangled with one another, but they are not complete enough to settle every detail of the final judgment in one sentence. In 2000 the Vatican Secretariat of State, while noting the distance between his thought and Christian doctrine, described the coercive procedure and the violent outcome carried out by the secular power as a reason for the Church's “profound sorrow” today. Bruno research and a guide to the trial documents in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Vatican's 2000 letter on Bruno

Common misunderstandings: “He died solely for saying the universe is infinite” goes too far, and “he died for theological heresy, so science is not involved and there is no problem” is also wrong. Whatever he claimed, a religious court forcing a person into submission and handing him over to death is not justified.

What the Church learns from this: Truth is not imposed by violence. The Church may criticize the content of an idea, but it cannot serve the truth by means that injure a person's conscience, dignity or life.

In one sentence: Making Bruno into a simple “martyr of heliocentrism” misses the history, but the complexity of his thought does not justify the coercion and the fire either.

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10. After Galileo, did the Church go on rejecting evolution?

The question: “Didn't Catholics forbid Darwin's evolution too as contrary to the Bible, and then quietly change their story once science had won?”

The short answer: The Catholic reception of evolution was not a single declaration for or against but a long process of discernment. The Church today does not regard research on biological evolution as an enemy of faith in creation — but neither does it approve every evolutionary theory, or any materialist philosophy, as doctrine.

Historical background: From the nineteenth century onward the responses of Catholic thinkers and of church authorities were not uniform. The issues involved not only change in biological species but human dignity, the soul, the Creator, the interpretation of Scripture, and the atheistic philosophy attached to the scientific theory. So “the Church banned all of it from the start” and “there was never any conflict at all” are both too simple.

What the sources establish: In 1950, in “Humani generis” n. 36, Pius XII said that research and discussion were permitted on whether the human body arose from already existing living matter, while teaching that the soul is created directly by God. In 1996 John Paul II said that, because of accumulated research, evolution was “more than a hypothesis,” while distinguishing between differing evolutionary theories and their philosophical interpretations. In 2014 Francis told the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that the evolution of nature is not in contradiction with the notion of creation. Pius XII, “Humani generis”, John Paul II's 1996 message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Francis's 2014 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences

Common misunderstandings: “The pope proved evolution” and “Catholics believe every scientific account of evolution as an article of faith” are both false. An address at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences is neither a scientific paper nor a dogmatic declaration settling every detail. Conversely, faith in creation is not a claim that slots God into the gaps science has not yet explained.

What the Church learns from this: Ask science about observable processes of change and about evidence; ask theology about the meaning of existence as gift and about human dignity — and let each take the other's findings seriously. Revising an explanation in the light of new evidence is not a defeat for truth but learning.

In one sentence: Through a long discernment the Church accepts evolution as scientific research compatible with faith in creation, while distinguishing the scientific theory from the materialist philosophy laid on top of it.

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Principles for discussing this subject safely

  1. Acknowledge the suffering first. Do not begin with “but other denominations also…”; speak first of the wounds of those accused, tortured and executed, and of their families.
  2. Mark fact, estimate and interpretation. Distinguish “it is in the record,” “this is the broad estimate,” and “scholars are debating this.”
  3. Do not use “those times” as an indulgence. Context explains how such things became possible; it does not make a choice that injured human dignity good.
  4. Do not identify people today with the perpetrators of history. Do not lay ancestors' sins on Catholics or Protestants today as if they were personal sins.
  5. Do not use “witch” as an insult or a label. Do not attack a classmate, a religious person or a traditional healer with the words devil, witch or heretic.
  6. Do not turn cruelty into entertainment. Do not reproduce methods of torture in detail for young readers, and if someone needs help, let them talk to a trusted adult.
  7. Do not make science only a story of winners. Scientists get things wrong and theories are revised — but that revision has to come about through free testing.
  8. Listen for the worry behind the question. Hear and answer the heart that is asking “can I still trust the Church?” or “do I have to give up either the Bible or science?”

Official documents and primary sources

Historical research from universities and museums

A guide for parents and catechists

  • With older primary-school children read 1, 2, 6 and 7 first; go on to 4, 5, 8, 9 and 10 with secondary-school students and above.
  • To “can the Church be wrong?”, acknowledge the real faults of individuals and of institutions first, then answer by distinguishing the Gospel of Christ from the failures of Christians.
  • To “then can I believe anything at all?”, explain that faith does not forbid checking the record or thinking critically, and that a community which repents and learns is more trustworthy, not less.
  • Guide students not to use the harm of the witch trials as a tool for mocking any religion, people or sex today.
  • If a student says they are actually being labelled a devil or a witch, or threatened in religious terms, do not end with a discussion; connect them to a guardian, the school or a professional service.

This is not a verdict written to defend the Church's past, nor an indictment laying the sins of the dead on believers today. It is a resource for catechesis and for historical conversation: to state what can be verified, to remember the victims, and to keep the same wrong from being repeated.

Short questions that lead here