I suspect that what this person knows about the Inquisition is what Protestants and antiCatholics have said about the Inquisition. Most of that is what we now term “disinformation.”
“I am I and my Circumstances”, Ortega y Gaset
There is a deep discrepancy and polarization regarding the Catholic Inquisition; an event which is probably one of the most hated events in the history of mankind. In stark contrast, the Protestant Inquisition is never mentioned, much less condemned. We must distinguish between what is myth and what is reality. Historical events as complex as the horrors committed 500 years ago in the name of religion, must not be judged through the ethical and moral standards of our times, but rather they should be analyzed in accordance with the prevailing norms of the times in which they occurred. There is not defense for the Inquisition, either Catholic or Protestant. But these events should be approached analyzing the circumstances prevailing at the time with an auto-critical attitude, leaving preconceived ideas behind. Today we recoil in horror remembering the Holocaust or the “rape on Peking”, but, Would be accepted uncritically today the total obliteration of Dresden, an open city with no military or strategic value, by incendiary bombs, or the nuclear attacks to Hiroshima y Nagasaki?
THE SPANISH INQUISITION VS. THE PROTESTANT
The Inquisition was established in Spain in 1242 and was not formally abolished until 1834. His strongest activity is recorded between 1478 and 1700, during the reign of the Catholic Kings followed by the Hapsburgs. In terms of the number of executed, the studies by Heningsen and Contreras 44,674 causes open between 1540 and 1700, concluded that stake in the burned 1346 people (less than 9 people per year throughout the Empire).
The British Henry Kamen, known non-Catholic scholar of the Inquisition Spanish, has calculated a total of some 3,000 victims over its six years 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 Europe: for every one hundred death sentences handed down by courts, the Inquisition issued one”.
The wars of religion in Germany and France lasted for more than one century and there were hundreds of thousands of deaths. The Inquisition was created by the Kings of Spain to avoid that you happened the same.
Sir James Stephen calculates that in 300 years there were in England 264,000 sentenced to death for various crimes. About 800 per year (more than two per day).
Martin Luther, founder of Protestantism: in 1525 preached the nobles: “to kill wound, decapitate, disgorge as many famers you can” Happy if you die in it, you die in obedience to the word divine”. More than one hundred thousand peasants perished.
In Protestant Saxony, blasphemy was death penalty. Calvin sent burning Servet (Catholic physician who discovered the circulation of the blood, and who were eliminated by “counter” to the Bible with such discovery) and many others.
In Germany, more than 100,000 witches were burned. Even children of seven years and the dying elderly. A single judge burned in 16 years 800 witches (an average of 50 people a year).
In 1560 the Scottish Parliament decreed 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.”
“If a Catholic acquires land, all Protestant has the right to deprive him.”
“Perpetual banishment to every Catholic priest; those who evaded it, are half hanged but kept alive and then dismembered”. What followed?
The Calvinist communities of Paris, Orleans, Rouen, Lyon, Angey at general synod in 1559, enacted death penalty to the heretics.
Do you not know that United States owes its foundation to Puritans fleeing religious persecution in England?
The Spanish Inquisition was not free of the ideas of his time, and participated in general cruelty. But you keep in mind the following points: According to American historian, Philip Wayne Powell (Tree of Hate), “barely more than one hundred persons were executed in Spanish America as a result of Inquisition action during its some 250 years of formal existence.” (31 by the Tribunal of Lima, 47 in Mexico and 3 in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia).
Stark contrast with the Protestant persecution of Catholics in Elizabethan England (in 70 years) where were tortured and executed 130 Catholic priests and 60 laymen, or a total 250 killed by the state if one includes those dying in prison.
The last execution of the Inquisition was finally carried out in Spain on July 26, 1826. According to Ernst Schafer, a German Protestant researcher, the number of Protestants in Spain condemned to death in 300 years, from 1520 until 1834, was 220; of them, only 12 were burned.
You see: does not touch nor to one per year. What happens with the image of the Inquisitor stood in front of endless rows of pyres with doomed? It becomes that he is lying.