Geez, *daylia*, medaeval Christianity was pretty unenlightened, wasn't it?

I don't usually find myself in the position of an apologist for Catholicism, but when you go that far back into pre-Reformation history to find something to criticize, you're really confronting the shared history of all western-Christian churches, Protestant as well as Catholic.

And while I'm at it: GUEST of 01:16 PM ~

Fundamentalist/Evangelical Protestantism is doing quite well gaining converts in Latin American, better than Roman Catholicism in many areas, but I don't believe that it is at all valid to characterize the successful Protestant proseletyzers either as "stridently Calvinist" or as less likely than Catholic missionaries to offer financial/material charity to those they seek to convert. They make a very emotional appeal ~ generally, less ascetic/intellectual than that presented by Catholicism ~ and they have plenty of American dollars to spread around. I'm not saying that one group is appreciably better or worse than the other, but I think you're way off base in characterizing Catholic missionaries as greater offenders than their Protestant counterparts either in theological style or for "buying" allegiance with handouts.