Someone recently made a comment about wishing that the “Holy Inquisition” was still around. I found that to be a very strange and twisted desire and I think it speaks volumes about that person’s mental state. But what about the Inquisition? When we think about it, we conjure up images of people being tortured, body parts being cut off, people being stretched on “the rack” until their joints were dislocated, people being fed to wild animals and all sorts of heinous treatment.
And these
things did indeed happen. These
unfortunate people were usually first tried in court, yet many times the
victims were not even able to confront their accusers, since the state kept
their identity a secret. But who caused
this and why were these people treated in such a horrible manner? What did they do to deserve this?
Well, the
Inquisition happened because the Catholic Church considered these “offenders”
heretics who went against the teachings of the Church. The Catholic Church claims that they were
simply trying to remove heresy, and if that involved threatening “heretics” with
using such severe tactics, causing obedience to the Catholic Church, then so
much the better.
According to
the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia (online),
there were actually three different periods of “Inquisition” in history.
The first
one, in southern France in the early 1200’s A.D., was known as the Medieval
Inquisition. A little later began the Spanish
Inquisition (probably the most infamous one) at about 1478 A.D. And finally came the Roman Inquisition at
about 1542 A.D. See here:
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm
But was the
Inquisition really that barbaric, that horrific? Maybe so, maybe not. Some tell of extreme horror stories, of
atrocities done against Protestants (and other groups) by the Catholic Church. Others downplay the stories, asserting that
these punishments were “necessary” to keep heresy at bay.
I would not
doubt that some of those claims are most likely exaggerated. But on the other hand, I would think that many
of them are indeed true.
Admissions
One article
on the Catholic Straight Answers
website concerning the purpose of the Inquisition claims:
“Not only
was a heretic’s soul in jeopardy, but also his false teaching jeopardized the
souls of others. The [Catholic] Church,
as the guardian of souls, had to ‘root out’ any such heresy.”
This is
actually an admission of the Catholic
Church’s involvement in the Inquisition(s).
We need to remember this admission when they tell us that the Church had
nothing to do with it, and that they simply turned over the “violators” to the state authorities to be punished.
This article
also admits that the Church and the state often “worked together in this
endeavor,” since “the Roman Catholic Church was the only Church in western
Europe until Martin Luther started the Protestant movement in 1517.”
I make this
point because Catholics often try to push off the blame onto the state for such cruel abuse. But when the Catholic Church turned someone
over to the authority of the state to be punished, they knew exactly what to
expect, so they can’t plead ignorance or innocence in this matter. In fact, the Catholic Church brags that her
authority is higher than the state’s
authority. Pope Nicholas I (858 A.D. – 867 A.D.) was
quoted as saying:
“Fear, then, our wrath and the thunders of our vengeance, for Jesus Christ has appointed us with his own mouth absolute judges of all men, and kings themselves are submitted to our authority..."
See here:
Also, according
to Catholic priest, theologian, and church historian Johann Joseph Ignaz von
Dollinger:
“It is the
office of the Papacy to tread under foot kings and emperors.” (The Pope and
the Council, London 1869, p. 339)
It is a
well-known fact that kings/emperors/monarchs feared the pope because they knew
that he could excommunicate them. This
gave the pope great leverage, since they feared for their souls and they
believed that the Catholic Church could actually keep them out of Heaven.
Here is a
list of examples of kings/emperors/monarchs who were excommunicated from the Catholic
Church:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_excommunicated_by_the_Catholic_Church
And here are
examples of kings who were deposed (removed from office) by popes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_deposing_power
So, there is
certainly blood on the Church’s hands and they can’t blame the Inquisition on
the state.
A Catholic Event
The article by
Catholic Straight Answers also states
that after the Inquisition climaxed, it began a decline, which continued
throughout most of Europe and was finally suppressed in 1834.
Ok,
interesting thought here. If the
Inquisition was the right thing to do, if it was rooting out heresy (like the
beginning of this article said it was), then why did it fade out? Why did the Catholic Church allow the
Inquisition to decline and be suppressed?
Didn’t they consider it God’s will to extinguish heresy and wouldn’t
they try to continue with a new Inquisition?
Was there no one left in all Christendom at this time who was involved
in heresy? I believe that it stopped
because the Church was losing its grip on its reign of terror and the people
were seeing the truth of what was happening.
At the end
of the article, it claims that the Inquisition was not a “Catholic event.” But that contradicts what they said earlier
about the Church being the “guardian of souls” and their responsibility to
“root out heresy.” But it is interesting
that now they want to distance
themselves from it? Why? Again, because they know it was wrong.
Torture
The article
also admits that the Inquisition sometimes used torture to gain a confession of
heresy, but not everyone thought that this was a moral thing to do:
“Bernardo
Gui, one of the most famous inquisitors, commented that torture was deceiving
and inefficacious because it forced
the confession.” (Emphasis added)
I absolutely
agree.
Furthermore,
there is much quibbling today about the accuracy of the actual numbers of those
killed. But even if there was only ONE
person wrongly killed, tortured or punished by the Inquisition, it was still too many! Instead of arguing about numbers, how about
showing some legitimate regret for
those poor souls who suffered under the boot of the Church? Indeed, the Catholic Church will have to
answer for that.
See the
article by Catholic Straight Answers
here:
What Would Jesus Do?
The highly
influential and very popular Catholic
Answers website also weighed in on this topic of the Inquisition. See their article here:
https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-inquisition
In their
article, it states that the purpose of the Spanish Inquisition was:
“To identify
conversos – Jews and Muslims who
pretended to convert to Christianity for political or social advantage and
secretly practiced their former religion.
More importantly, its job was also to clear the good names of many
people who were falsely accused of being heretics.”
But what
would Jesus Christ say about this? How
did He go about trying to “root out heresy” when He was here on earth? Did He advocate the burning at the stake of
those who didn’t obey what He taught? No,
He set no such example, nor did He encourage it. But rather, He left that judgment for the
afterlife. He just preached the
gospel. Those who refused His message He
neither chased nor punished. They made
their decision and they would have to live with it.
Also, 2
Peter 2:1-22 has some harsh things to say about the promoters of
heresy, but suggests nothing about civil penalties or punishment in man’s court. We could also mention 1 Corinthians 11:19, Galatians
5:20, and Titus 3:10, which all mention heresy, but say nothing about civil penalties for it. I hope the reader can see a pattern here. Heresy is wrong, but we don’t kill people for
that today (in the New Testament).
Whitewashing the Inquisition
That
Catholic Answers article goes on to mention two “Fundamentalist” authors who
wrote about the Inquisition, claiming that they harbored fierce animosity
toward the Catholic Church “that had little to do with the Inquisition
itself.” In other words, Inquisition or
no Inquisition, they had an agenda against Holy Mother Church. Well, maybe they had some hostility toward
the Church, but remember again, this is the same Church who claims that her job
was to “root out heresy,” thus, starting this whole reign of terror. This doesn’t sound like a Church that had “little
to do” with the Inquisition. In my
opinion the Catholic Church is indeed the cause
of it all.
Right after
that, the article states that some Catholics (knowing that something is amiss) have
glossed over the admittedly incontrovertible
facts and tried to whitewash the Inquisition, fearing that the facts about
the Inquisition might prove the illegitimacy of the Catholic Church. But the author goes on to assure Catholics
that “no account of foolishness, misguided zeal, or cruelty by Catholics can
undo the divine foundation of the Church.”
Well, I’m
sorry, dear Catholics, but it is far too late for that. The “divine foundation” of the Catholic
Church is, and always was, a fallacy. This
whole blog (and many other sources) is a testament to that. The events of the Inquisition are only one of the many things that points to
the illegitimacy of the Catholic Church.
But more devastating than that, it is the God-breathed Scriptures (2
Timothy 3:16-17) that clearly demonstrate the corruption, heresy and
false teachings of this Church. The
Inquisition was only one symptom of
the real problems.
Ok, I’ll
stop for now and continue with Part 2 next time. To be continued…
