There used to be a walnut tree that grew from the ruins of Nero's grave which the locals claimed was full of demons who were beating up passing pedestrians. So the pope Pope Paschal II led a great crowd to the base of the infernal walnut, exorcised the tree, and sank an ax into its roots—whereupon a great crowd of demons took flight from its branches. And the church Santa Maria del Popolo was built in its place.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"