Throughout history the church has been against any beliefs and people who practice them because they are afraid of losing complete control and power over people.

Yes, that's been a big issue. However, the "church's persecution of midwives and women in general" has been pretty much debunked.

Not only that, but a lot of people (including many Pagans I know) conflate the actions taken agains witches with the punishment of heretics. Many more heretics were prosecuted and killed than witches (one of Ronald Hutton's books has a well-researched estimate that's nowhere near the 7,000,000 figure that gets bandied about a lot). Furthermore, the most frequent method of execution for witches was hanging - burning alive was usually reserved for heretics. However, the bodies were usually burned after execution in order to ensure that they were no longer intact and couldn't be accidentally resurrected on the last day.