Can a Pro-Life Activist Defend The Inquisition?

By Julio Severo

The answer to the title of this article is: Of course not! I, for example, have never defended any kind of Inquisition, and if someday I will do it, obviously I will have to abandon the pro-life fight, because it makes no sense selectively to condemn a genocide and support another.

Pope John Paul II, author of the encyclical “The Gospel of Life,” was a pro-life champion and he did not defend the Inquisition. On the contrary, he had the honesty to ask forgiveness for what the Inquisition and its agents were.

This explicitly pro-Inquisition Facebook comment could be seen as an isolated case, but it was “liked” (or signed) by some Midia Sem Mascara columnists.

Let us return now to the comment by Jack Man, which shunned this central problem:

Logan, you have the right to your own opinion, but not to defame the Church legacy by distorting historical facts. Anti-Catholic bigotry is well and alive when fanatics base their hatred in ignorance.

As professor Philip Wayne Powell stated: “When Spaniards expelled or punished dissidents, this came to be known as ‘bigotry,’ ‘intolerance,’ fanaticism,’ and a cause of their decline. When Englishmen, Dutchmen, or Frenchmen did the same thing, it is known as ‘unifying the nation’ or safeguarding it against treason or foreign conspiracy. The killing of Indians by Spaniards became ‘atrocities,’ or ‘ruthless extermination’; but when Englishmen ran Irishmen to death by the thousands in their own bogs, or slaughtered them after surrender, this was called ‘the Irish problem.’”

Dr. Philip Wayne Powell, Emeritus Professor of history at the University of California, in his research on the “Black Legend” titled the “Tree of Hate”, (a book that every American should read) asserts that the study of 16th century Europe clearly reveals the universal pattern of cruelty, intolerance, and inhumanity which characterized the social, religious, and economic life throughout the continent...Examples of this were the reigns of Elizabeth I of England and her successor James I which were known for their most barbarous cruelty. However, Dr. Powell affirms “that the Spain of the conquest period was a deeply civilized nation by all discernible European standards of that day, ...In jurisprudence, diplomacy, monarchical, religious and imperial concepts, and total culture, Spain was a European leader throughout the sixteen century and in much of the next.”

The University of Salamanca and the College of San Gregorio of Valladolid, recognized the Indian’s rights to keep their own laws and territories.

In Spain, well-respected people like Cardinal Cisneros, and a group of professors of the University of Salamanca also fought for the rights of the Indians, among them was the famous theologian Melchor Cano. Another group of professors from “Colegio de San Gregorio” in Valladolid also played and important role in this struggle.

However, in the history of the human rights the works of the Dominican priest, Francisco Vitoria, are paramount. Considered the founder of modern international law, Vitoria published in 1532 his famous treatise De Indis in which he “established the right of the Indians to their territories and laws and denied to the Spaniards any right to be in the Indies at all, other than that of every man peacefully to go and trade everywhere and the duty of every Christian to convert the heathen.”

This document would have transcendental repercussions not only in America but also throughout the whole European jurisprudence. Spain showed the world a humanistic vision unequaled at that point in time. American historian Lewis Hanke corroborates this when he attests that: “ ...The clash of arms was not the only struggle during the conquest. The clash of ideas that accompanied the discovery of America and the establishment of Spanish rule there is a story that must be told as an integral part of the conquest, and endows it with a unique character worthy of note... The widespread criticism permitted, and even stimulated, by the crown really constitutes one of the glories of Spanish civilization... It is to Spain’s everlasting credit that she allowed men to insist that all her actions in America be just...”

It is no wonder that by the end of the 18th century the famous German scholar and naturalist Alexander Humboldt declared: “The work of the mines” -he pointed out- “is absolutely free in the whole kingdom of New Spain; no Indian, no Mestizo, can be forced to work in the mines. It is absolutely untrue that the Court of Madrid sent convicts to America to make them work in the gold and silver mines...This policy was in striking contrast with that of England in her North American colonies. The transportation of English felons to America was also a practice of the British Government... in some instances felons were not the only involuntary emigrants from England whose labor was appropriated. Towards the end of the 18th century it became common practice for captains of English and Dutch vessels to entice ignorant peasants from England, Ireland and Germany, by flattering promises of wealth, to accompany them to America, where they had no sooner arrived than they were sold as bondsmen to defray the cost of their passage and entertainment.”

At the beginning of the 19th century, Von Humboldt, after traveling throughout the American Continent wrote a four volume treatise titled Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain published in London in 1811. “In this work he attested to the riches of the Indians which they preserved throughout the 300 years of Spanish rule.” (13) “In the Kingdom of New Spain,” affirmed Humboldt, “at any rate for the last thirty years work in the mines is free. Nowhere are the people allowed to enjoy more completely the fruit of their labors than in the mines of Mexico; no law can force the Indian to choose this kind of work or to prefer this or that mine; if he is displeased with the owner of the mine, the Indian forsakes it to offer his work to another one who pays him more regularly or in cash. These facts are correct and comforting and should be known in Europe...the Mexican miners are the best paid of all the miners. He receives six to seven times more for his labor that a Saxon miner. A carpenter in New Andalucía is paid per day more than a Saxon miner per week.”

The way Indians were treated varied according to the place, but generally they were treated better in the Kingdom of New Spain than in Peru. With great vision, Hernán Cortés, who had studied law at the University de Salamanca, tried to save the Indian monuments and with his own money paid for the construction of schools and hospitals providing for them in his will. On the other hand, Francisco Pizarro, an illiterate adventurer without an education, was not as capable handling the extraordinary enterprise that had been provided by his fate. According to Lesley Byrd Simpson, renown North American scholar in Latin America: “It seems to me that the average stature of the viceroys of New Spain was so great that no country to my knowledge was ever more fortunate in its rulers...(Mexico) enjoyed a long life (three hundred years!) of relative peace, stability, and prosperity, in marked contrast to the squabbling nations of Europe. Some of the men who made this possible are worth our knowing.”

“Look, I’m not asking you to agree with the world-view of the Inquisition here,”

There’s a world-view? Singular? One “world-view”? Is this “world-view” accurate? Factual? Largely indisputable? Commonly accepted? Forgive me, but I don’t think so.

“I’m just asking you to understand it.”

Understand what? Your “world view” of the Inquisition? No? Then, whose “world view” of what?

“. . . we don’t have a single dominant church here like they did in medieval times, and Calvin’s Geneva, and Tudor England, and the Old Testament.”

You’re speaking of Religious Establishment, I take it, and the one establishment that our society has seen fit to prohibit. The prohibition against the establishment of religion is an onus that falls entirely on the state. The Regime may not establish a religion or prohibit its free exercise. The prohibition cannot act on individuals or private institutions; it may act only on the Regime. The Constitution limits and defines only the powers of government. It is the one thing that changes a regime into a government.

I’m very much aware of the multiplicity of Judeo-Christian doctrines that have sprouted in Liberty’s soil, allowing a variety of doctrines to flourish, but I know of no Judeo-Christian adherent who does not, as an article of faith, believe that God created Mankind and the Universe. Do you know of such a person? We all seem to agree on the essentials (depending, of course, on how “essentials” are defined). Why limit your observation to the Judeo-Christian religion? Does it not apply equally to all religions? Well . . . almost equally.

What of other doctrines, perhaps less obviously religious? What have we learned about the dangers of religious establishment, that we can apply to other doctrines? Such as, for example, of the Political “Correctness” Establishment?

“I’m talking about the view of the world that the medievals had—and really most Christian civilization.

Before the advent of Protestantism, you mean? A reaction to medieval RC doctrines and practices? The questions remain; Is this “world-view” accurate? Factual? Largely indisputable? Commonly accepted?

“Slight correction—the Constitution limits the power of the *federal* government in this regard. Many states had established churches into the 1800s.

Slight addendum to your slight correction.

That the Constitution forbade the power of the federal government to establish a religion and did not address the issue as it effected the several states, was the argument of Jefferson, Madison, and virtually all the Founders. Nonetheless, even prior to the general constitutional discussion on religious establishment, a considerably intense debate on the desirability of religious establishment had been going on for some time (the 1740s) in many of the several states. By the 1830s, this debate had largely subsided with the conclusion that religious establishment is not a beneficial state objective. Hence, no state supported a religious establishment. And this sentiment remains today.

See: Library of Congress Website; Religion and the Founding of the American Republic; V. State Governments; and particularly VIII. Religion and the New Republic,
“With the disappearance of efforts by government to create morality in the body politic (symbolized by the termination in 1833 of Massachusetts's tax support for churches) evangelical, benevolent societies assumed that role, bringing about what today might be called the privatization of the responsibility for forming a virtuous citizenry.”
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/religion.html
In fact, I would recommend a thorough reading of the entire contents of this website.

“I don’t see anything wrong with religious establishment.

I take it, then, that you would be just as comfortable residing any one of some 49 Islamic nations as you would be in a Christian nation (assuming there are any of the last remaining)? Or even in nations no more than nominally hostile to all religion?

I take it that your actual reasoning is that you see nothing wrong with a religious establishment of which you would approve.

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