The Inquisition executed between 8 and 12 thousand people over its entire 300 year history. Soviet Russia executed 15 thousand people *a month* for political crimes under Lenin, and that was before Stalin really got things going.
The people executed under the Inquisition actually got trials, to boot. Not so much in Russia.
“Comparing the Inquisition (by itself) to Nazism and Communism is ridiculous on its face.”
Only to a collectivist point of view that sees masses. If the power that be, calls in an individual, examines his theological views, and tortures or executes, yes, they are as bad as Nazis or communists.
If it was your wife, father, son or daughter that got called in and tortured or murdered, yes, it is not ridiculous. A person caught in the inquisition would find much in common to discuss with a Jew in Poland, or a Kulak in Ukraine.
And an inquisition trial had very much in common with soviet justice circa 1933. They were both solely for show, with rigged rules and insane evidence.
Its insane to resent the RCC of today because of the inquisition. Its just as evil to defend and minimize it by saying it was only 8,000 to 12,000.
I notice no Pope today would dare say something that nutty, “hey, it was only 12,000 or so. And Nazis were even worse”.
John Paul II would have never said that.
What about Protestants apologizing for their murder of Catholics?
The Spanish Inquisition should be compare with the Protestant Inquisition during the same historical context.
The British Jewish historian Henry Kamen, well-known scholar of the Spanish Inquisition, has calculated a total of some 2,000 victims put to death along its four centuries of existence.
Kamen adds that “ it is interesting to compare the statistics on sentences to death of civilians and inquisitorial tribunals between the 15th and 18th centuries in Protestant Europe: for every one hundred death sentences handed down by courts, the Inquisition (Catholic) issued one.Â
According to Professor Philip Wayne Powell, were executed just over 100 people in the 250 years in which it was acting the Inquisition in the Spanish America.
The number of Protestants condemned to death by the Catholic Inquisition, from 1520 until 1820 that was deleted, or in 300 years, according to the German Protestant researcher who specialized in this subject, Schafer, was 220; of them, only 12 were burned.
Allow me to present historical facts regarding the Protestant Inquisition.
Sir James Stephen calculates that in 300 years there was in Protestant England 264,000 sentenced to death for various crimes. About 800 per year (more than two per day).
Luther, founder of Protestantism, in 1525 writes the nobles: “how many farmers can kill: wound, paste, disgorging to himself.†Happy if you die in it, you die in obedience to the word divine. More than one hundred thousand peasants perished. Luther also demanded that the heretics must be condemned without hearing them... “ (Amazing parallel with the current Islamofascism).
Luther wrote in July 1525 in his open letter against the peasants: “If you believe that this answer is too hard and that its only purpose is to let them shut up by violence, I reply that this is true - a rebel does not deserve to be replied with reasons, because does not accept them.†The appropriate response is a punch that causes you to bleed nose. The farmers don’t want to hear... need to open them ears with bullets until they their heads explode. Who does not want to hear the word of God when is told with goodness has to listen to the executioner when it arrives with his axe... I don’t want to hear or know nothing of mercy.â€
About Jews in his famous lectures of desktop Luther said: “throwing the Jews sulfur and tar, if one could throw them fire from hell, so much better.... and this must be done in honor of our Lord and of Christianity¦Their houses must be chipped and destroyed... be removed their books of prayers and Talmud, their rabbis are prohibited from teaching, under the penalty of death, from now on. And if all this were little, they must be expelled from the country as rabid dogs.â€
In Protestant Germany, more than 100,000 witches were burned. Even children seven years old and dying elderly. A single judge burned in 16 years 800 witches (an average of 50 people a year).
In 1560 the Scottish Parliament decreed the death penalty against all Catholics. Here are some articles of the English code for Ireland:
“Catholic teaching to other Catholic or Protestant shall be hanged.â€
“If a Catholic acquires land, all Protestant has the right to deprive him.â€
“Perpetual exile to every Catholic priest; those who evaded it, be half hanged alive and then dismemberedâ€.
The Calvinist communities of Paris, Orleans, Rouen, Lyon, Angey at their general synod in 1559, enacted death penalty to the heretics.
Should be taken into account that the Protestant Inquisition existed in most of Europe in which inmates lacked any legal protection and of which no one speaks.
Catholics on the other hand not enjoyed any legal protection under the Protestants, standing out for its cruelty the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I of England when Catholics were dismembered tied to the legs of four horses. They were times of great barbarity when attached to an English monarch the privilege of the divorce by beheading of his wife.
“Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it”Jorge Santayana
Soviet Russia executed 15 thousand people *a month* for political crimes under Lenin, and that was before Stalin really got things going.
To get a feel for this watch “The Chekist”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RQVSHfuPCQ
Remember, there are socialists in this country,
like Bill Ayers, who would have no problem with this.