“Of the 3,000 people actually killed by the Spanish Inquisition, the vast majority were Catholic priests. “
Oh, I know. It was evil to the core and not godly at all. The violence of man doesn’t accomplish the righteousness of God. It is a time to be ashamed of the behavior of those who claimed to act in the name of Christ.
None what you wrote excuses a single life taken.
No, it's not.
As for those Catholic priests, that was over a 300 year history, at a time when the Protestants were burning witches by the thousands at the stake for imagined heresy in German. So what did the dozen or so priests sentenced to death do? Pedophilia, illicit homosexual relationships, simony, etc. You sure you want to condemn the reformers cleaning up the Church against corruption? Really? I'll defend fighting pedophilia over killing women for turning people into newts, any day.
Was the taking of human life "excused?" It was primitive jurisprudence, and severe, and the Catholic Church finds that the rule of law is now firmly enough established that it opposes the death penalty in the Western world. Compare to Luther preaching that peasants were born to be slaughtered as fodder in war, and Calvin ordering the murder of anyone who attends a mass.
I think we know them by their deeds.
Your point goes to the core of what we are supposed to be. The Apostles did not teach that we are supposed to destroy those who don't know Jesus Christ as their LORD and Savior. We are supposed to be a light that shines because of the Holy Spirit in us. We are supposed to share The Gospel.