What is the background behind Catholic and Protestant conflicts?
To put it simply, the Roman Catholic church dominated the religious practices of most of Western Europe since sometime during the fourth century(?) AD when Emperor Constantine made it the official religion of Rome. Then in 1517 Martin Luther, noting the corruption that had developed in the leadership of this religion broke away for the Catholic church. (This is credited as being the beginning of the Protestant movement.) The Catholic church quite correctly saw this as an assault on its authority and initiated a program of persecution against Protestants. This persecution was carried out both by agents of the church itself and by those monarchs that remained loyal the the Catholic church. In retaliation, the Protestants often persecuted Catholics that lived in countries that were dominated by Protestants. As with any institutionalized conflict, one round of violence led to another until it was not so much about the differences in religious beliefs as it was about vengeance for the last
