Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Rotarians Learn of Religious Intolerance

Religious wars, violence and bloodshed were the topic of discussion at the Gurdon Rotary Club Thursday, as Terry Thomason discussed his trip to Southern France and Northern Italy.

The trip was in connection with Landmark Media Production of Benton's documentary on the history of churches in the region.

Thomason said there was a lot of bloodshed and persecution by the Catholic Church to the Cathars in Southern France, as the Cathars refused to embrace the new Christian religion. The violence, he said, was done with the permission of the Pope at that time, on conjunction with the Crusades. He said those who helped wipe out the Cathars were forgiven by the priests for the atrocities committed.

According to Thomason, members of the Catholic army starved 200 Cathars from their stronghold at the top of Montsegur, and burned those who refused to convert at the base of the mountain. Montsegur, translated, ironically means Secure Mountain.

He said the tour visited Nime, France, which was established by Roman soldiers around 200 A.D. The Rotarians were informed there is a Roman-style Coliseum which still stands in Nime. In addition, the Romans constructed 30 miles of aqueduct to get water to the city.

Interestingly, Thomason said Nime is the root of a well-known English word, denim, because this is where the heavy cotton-based material was first developed.

From Nime, the production crew went to Cannes, during the annual film festival, and Monaco, where the Monte Carlo Grand Prix was being ran.

Comparing Southern France to Northern Italy, Thomason said the French region is much cleaner. He compared Tolouse, France to the French Quarter of New Orleans, saying the French city is extremely clean and well preserved.

In Italy, the group went to small villages in the mountains. Huts, he said, were made of flat rocks stacked together without any type of mortar to hold them together.

Those people who lived there in the early days of Christianity suffered the same or similar fates of the Cathars, who were persecuted and executed by the Catholic Church.

In one instance, 150 women and children were hiding in a cave to avoid the Catholics. When they were discovered, the Catholics built a fire in the front part of the cave to force the people to stay in, then covered the entrance and a hole in the top of the hill. This suffocated all 150 inside.

The production company, Thomason said, shot about 18 hours of footage during the 10-day trip, while he shot several rolls of print film, and his pastor shot a number of rolls of slide film, which the Rotarians saw during the presentation.