2006: Catholics Promise to “Cleanse” Town of Pagan Presence and “Burn the Witches”
“In scenes reminiscent of medieval witchhunts, Catholic pilgrims in Glastonbury have attacked pagans and threatened to “cleanse” them from the town.
Local pagans were pelted with salt and branded witches who “would burn in hell” during a procession organised by Youth 2000, a conservative Catholic lay group. The Magick Box, a pagan shop on the route of the march, was also singled out and attacked.
Maya Pinder, the owner of the shop, said: “We’ve had to hear comments such as ‘burn the witches’, we’ve had salt thrown in our faces and at our shop, people were openly saying they were ‘cleansing Glastonbury of paganism’.”
“”It was as if we had returned to the dark ages. This is hugely damaging to Glastonbury … it is hard enough to trade in Glastonbury as it is, if you were to take away the pagan element it would be a dead town.” The Somerset town is known for having a large population of resident and visiting pagans.”
From The Guardian >
This isn’t a current news story (it’s actually from November of 2006) but I couldn’t resist posting it simply because it is stupefyingly medieval what happened here. We really haven’t progressed much intellectually as a species over the last thousand thousand years if people can still say things like “burn the witches” and not be laughed at as they are hauled away to the mental hospital.
This event should have had coverage by CNN, CBC , & the BBC , with requests for input from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops , and Vatican officials in high office. It is indeed stupefyingly medieval.
Although ……I’ve toyed with the idea of taking some of the enormous task burden off the hands of Holy See bureaucracy, by offering , for example ; discount canonizations , certificates of Salvation (expensive ,, but with a money back guarantee), and an eclectic variety of ‘pre-planning’ indulgences…….whaddya think? Keep my day job ?