"...Sadly, each of these schisms has led to large-scale violence. Coming myself from a western nation where Christianity has always been the most numerous religion, I shall look more closely at the impact of religious divides in western Europe. The birth of modern Protestantism in 16th-century Germany triggered civil wars, initially resolved in 1555 by granting to the rulers of individual German states the right to decree the state religion. In the second half of the sixteenth century a violent civil war between French Catholics and Protestants raged for decades, concluding only when the French King Henry IV converted from Protestantism to Catholicism and specified particular areas where Protestants could worship freely. The conflict in Germany began again in 1618 and continued for thirty bloody years, inflicting terrible human and economic damage before a new compromise was finally reached in 1648. The civil war in Britain in the 1640s also turned largely on religious differences. In 1685, the French monarchy banned Protestant worship, driving hundreds of thousands of Protestants out of the country. It would be very difficult, I think, to find Germans, Frenchmen or Britishers today who would argue that any of these terrible events reflect credit on their ancestors. All were tragedies of history..."
Here was DK, Kennedys and Ambassadors, with some discussion some of his ideas about Africa etc....
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