Posted on 06/18/2004 9:55:45 AM PDT by xsysmgr
When the sins of the Catholic Church are recited (as they so often are) the Inquisition figures prominently. People with no interest in European history know full well that it was led by brutal and fanatical churchmen who tortured, maimed, and killed those who dared question the authority of the Church. The word "Inquisition" is part of our modern vocabulary, describing both an institution and a period of time. Having one of your hearings referred to as an "Inquisition" is not a compliment for most senators.
But in recent years the Inquisition has been subject to greater investigation. In preparation for the Jubilee in 2000, Pope John Paul II wanted to find out just what happened during the time of the Inquisition's (the institution's) existence. In 1998 the Vatican opened the archives of the Holy Office (the modern successor to the Inquisition) to a team of 30 scholars from around the world. Now at last the scholars have made their report, an 800-page tome that was unveiled at a press conference in Rome on Tuesday. Its most startling conclusion is that the Inquisition was not so bad after all. Torture was rare and only about 1 percent of those brought before the Spanish Inquisition were actually executed. As one headline read "Vatican Downsizes Inquisition."
The amazed gasps and cynical sneers that have greeted this report are just further evidence of the lamentable gulf that exists between professional historians and the general public. The truth is that, although this report makes use of previously unavailable material, it merely echoes what numerous scholars have previously learned from other European archives. Among the best recent books on the subject are Edward Peters's Inquisition (1988) and Henry Kamen's The Spanish Inquisition (1997), but there are others. Simply put, historians have long known that the popular view of the Inquisition is a myth. So what is the truth?
To understand the Inquisition we have to remember that the Middle Ages were, well, medieval. We should not expect people in the past to view the world and their place in it the way we do today. (You try living through the Black Death and see how it changes your attitude.) For people who lived during those times, religion was not something one did just at church. It was science, philosophy, politics, identity, and hope for salvation. It was not a personal preference but an abiding and universal truth. Heresy, then, struck at the heart of that truth. It doomed the heretic, endangered those near him, and tore apart the fabric of community.
The Inquisition was not born out of desire to crush diversity or oppress people; it was rather an attempt to stop unjust executions. Yes, you read that correctly. Heresy was a crime against the state. Roman law in the Code of Justinian made it a capital offense. Rulers, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did common people, who saw them as dangerous outsiders who would bring down divine wrath. When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig or damaged shrubbery (really, it was a serious crime in England). Yet in contrast to those crimes, it was not so easy to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. For starters, one needed some basic theological training — something most medieval lords sorely lacked. The result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent assessment of the validity of the charge.
The Catholic Church's response to this problem was the Inquisition, first instituted by Pope Lucius III in 1184. It was born out of a need to provide fair trials for accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges. From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the king and therefore deserved death. From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the pope and bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them. So, while medieval secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls. The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community.
As this new report confirms, most people accused of heresy by the Inquisition were either acquitted or their sentences suspended. Those found guilty of grave error were allowed to confess their sin, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ. The underlying assumption of the Inquisition was that, like lost sheep, heretics had simply strayed. If, however, an inquisitor determined that a particular sheep had purposely left the flock, there was nothing more that could be done. Unrepentant or obstinate heretics were excommunicated and given over to secular authorities. Despite popular myth, the Inquisition did not burn heretics. It was the secular authorities that held heresy to be a capital offense, not the Church. The simple fact is that the medieval Inquisition saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.
During the 13th century the Inquisition became much more formalized in its methods and practices. Highly trained Dominicans answerable to the Pope took over the institution, creating courts that represented the best legal practices in Europe. As royal authority grew during the 14th century and beyond, control over the Inquisition slipped out of papal hands and into those of kings. Instead of one Inquisition there were now many. Despite the prospect of abuse, monarchs like those in Spain and France generally did their best to make certain that their inquisitions remained both efficient and merciful. During the 16th century, when the witch craze swept Europe, it was those areas with the best-developed inquisitions that stopped the hysteria in its tracks. In Spain and Italy, trained inquisitors investigated charges of witches' sabbaths and baby roasting and found them to be baseless. Elsewhere, particularly in Germany, secular or religious courts burned witches by the thousands.
Compared to other medieval secular courts, the Inquisition was positively enlightened. Why then are people in general and the press in particular so surprised to discover that the Inquisition did not barbecue people by the millions? First of all, when most people think of the Inquisition today what they are really thinking of is the Spanish Inquisition. No, not even that is correct. They are thinking of the myth of the Spanish Inquisition. Amazingly, before 1530 the Spanish Inquisition was widely hailed as the best run, most humane court in Europe. There are actually records of convicts in Spain purposely blaspheming so that they could be transferred to the prisons of the Spanish Inquisition. After 1530, however, the Spanish Inquisition began to turn its attention to the new heresy of Lutheranism. It was the Protestant Reformation and the rivalries it spawned that would give birth to the myth.
By the mid 16th century, Spain was the wealthiest and most powerful country in Europe. Europe's Protestant areas, including the Netherlands, northern Germany, and England, may not have been as militarily mighty, but they did have a potent new weapon: the printing press. Although the Spanish defeated Protestants on the battlefield, they would lose the propaganda war. These were the years when the famous "Black Legend" of Spain was forged. Innumerable books and pamphlets poured from northern presses accusing the Spanish Empire of inhuman depravity and horrible atrocities in the New World. Opulent Spain was cast as a place of darkness, ignorance, and evil.
Protestant propaganda that took aim at the Spanish Inquisition drew liberally from the Black Legend. But it had other sources as well. From the beginning of the Reformation, Protestants had difficulty explaining the 15-century gap between Christ's institution of His Church and the founding of the Protestant churches. Catholics naturally pointed out this problem, accusing Protestants of having created a new church separate from that of Christ. Protestants countered that their church was the one created by Christ, but that it had been forced underground by the Catholic Church. Thus, just as the Roman Empire had persecuted Christians, so its successor, the Roman Catholic Church, continued to persecute them throughout the Middle Ages. Inconveniently, there were no Protestants in the Middle Ages, yet Protestant authors found them there anyway in the guise of various medieval heretics. In this light, the medieval Inquisition was nothing more than an attempt to crush the hidden, true church. The Spanish Inquisition, still active and extremely efficient at keeping Protestants out of Spain, was for Protestant writers merely the latest version of this persecution. Mix liberally with the Black Legend and you have everything you need to produce tract after tract about the hideous and cruel Spanish Inquisition. And so they did.
In time, Spain's empire would fade away. Wealth and power shifted to the north, in particular to France and England. By the late 17th century new ideas of religious tolerance were bubbling across the coffeehouses and salons of Europe. Inquisitions, both Catholic and Protestant, withered. The Spanish stubbornly held on to theirs, and for that they were ridiculed. French philosophes like Voltaire saw in Spain a model of the Middle Ages: weak, barbaric, superstitious. The Spanish Inquisition, already established as a bloodthirsty tool of religious persecution, was derided by Enlightenment thinkers as a brutal weapon of intolerance and ignorance. A new, fictional Spanish Inquisition had been constructed, designed by the enemies of Spain and the Catholic Church.
Now a bit more of the real Inquisition has come back into view. The question remains, will anyone take notice?
— Thomas F. Madden is professor and chair of the department of history at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. He is the author most recently of Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice and editor of the forthcoming Crusades: The Illustrated History.
oh boy is this gonna be a good one.
>> The only thing that would convince me a 99% survival rate is good, would be New Testament justification for one execution for the sin/crime of heresy.<<
I can't find a new testament justification for death sentences for sedition, treason, terrorism, etc., either. Did you ever think that 99% of the heretics were NOT killed that maybe the 1% that were were involved in something along the lines of sedition, treason, incitement to riot, etc.?
>>>> Now THERE'S an impartial, level-headed sort *eyeroll*<<<<
>> Um, excuse' but how impartial does one need to be to list the torture devices used by the inquisition? <<
I'm not even going to deny that they were used or not. I don't know. I do know that people could be tortured only once and for only up to fifteen minutes, but I do imagine that fifteen minutes probably felt like a lifetime. I'm just saying your source is notorious for slander.
>>The guy happens to be accurate. <<
Well, that's where the issue of impartiality comes in. Is he?
>> Ah, so murder in defense of the church isn't counted as a murder. <<
*KILLING* in defense of legitimate government is not called murder. In primitive times, justice was difficult to establish. Basically, all this was saying was that defense of the legitimate authority constituted a valid defense in court. Not advisable in today's society, but not exactly horrific, or unique to the Catholic church.
>> It is noteworthy that Lateran IV Canon 3 is still the Law of the Church and that it is still lawful in the church of Rome to murder heretics.. or should we qualify that and say "people whom Rome deems to be heretics". <<
That is ridiculous. It is not lawful in the Church to disobey civil authority.
>>It only excommunicates people from your religious organization for listening to heretics. If they recanted, they could be brought back in - just as with the nobles; but, if after a year they had not recanted, then they were deemed heretics and their lives were then considered forfeit. <<
Before there was a separation of Church and state, sedition and heresy blur together. As the article makes clear, 99% of the time, the people accused of heresy were NOT put to death. You apparently read this statement as if there was no distinction, just 1% were randomly chosen for death. I would submit that although primitive justice can be rather capricious, there was some *reason* why 99% were spared, and only 1% executed.
Is this justice acceptable in modern society? No. But please don't pretend that such severe justice was limited to the Catholic Church, or that Protestants never imposed the death penalty for heresy. Lutherans, Anglicans, Calvinists... there is no branch that did not spill great quantities of blood, or align themselves with the Muslim horde.
Members of the Catholic Church *did* commit great sins, and no-one denies that. The Church never claimed to be inerrant. But the Church was fighting to preserve unity and civilization itself, while the Protestants joined forces with the Armies of the Dark Prophet, Muhammed, himself.
This article exposes how the ugly deeds of the church were exaggerated many times over. It reminds me of the liberals who claim hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, and make the abuses of Abu Ghraib seem like the standard policy.
By the way Havoc, I'm still looking for your brilliant rebuttals.
Still handwringing I see.
Now we're getting somewhere. Has the RCC taken a position on them?
I Have seen the future and it works!
You sound like a Westerm "progressive" in the thirtes defending Stalinism on the basis of the test of the Soviet Constitution, and the danger of the "counter-revolutionary elements"
LOL Good one. Bet you were one of the kids on the playground when I was a kid, telling me I was going to hell & couldn't play on their swings.
And you are saying that the execution of heretics, as defined by the Church, could not be a good thing. Since the reason for the execution of heretics was to protect civil society, then I say it would depend on what danger the heretics presented to society. You think that heresy can never be a crime under any circumstances. I think this is a delusion.
So what's the harm of printing in English, German, French, etc.? The NT was written in what, Aramaic and Greek? The Church was OK with translating to Latin. How come? My theory is to make it harder for common people to read the Bible.
Joan of Arc. Saint or sinner deserving death?
Doesn't one have to be a believer in order to be a heretic?
So you don't think you should stand in judgement over your fellow humans, eh? Doesn't it give you pause that others Christians who believe just as passionately as you, and maybe more, have a different conclusion? It's historical fact that standards and beliefs have changed dramatically over time and from place to place. To me that is powerful evidence that absolute values, should they exist, are unknowable by us.
I didn't say it is inevitable; it's conceivable that things and people could start getting worse and keep on doing so. By that's not the historical pattern and as a conservative I bet with the history, not against it.
Only in retrospect do things always "come out right."
Isn't that what history is all about? The long view, lessons learned and all that?
I should think that after looking at the events of the 20th Century that you might see that things can turn out very badly indeed.
And amazingly, in the end they didn't - again. Hitler was defeated. The Jews have a country. The Soviet empire defeated. China is still an issue but I'm hopeful on that front. Islamic terror will be overcome also.
It is certainly true that events often take a turn for the worse. That's historical fact too. With some ingenuity and effort perhaps we can reduce the severity and frequency of those setbacks as we appear to have done with the economic cycle.
lol. Right, I've never been a catholic but these guys think me a heretic. As Catholicism goes, I am. As Christianity goes, I'm not.
As far as standing in judgement, sorry, try again. You essentially have done what others always do - you've abused the standard and misconstrued it to mean something it doesn't.
Something a Christian would understand.
As far as what is believed - there is One belief. Christ said in Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
There are two ways to read this; but, only one is right. There are two baptisms listed in the New testament - water baptism and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. John's Baptism was of water. Jesus' baptism was of the Holy Spirit. To say that they are interchangeable is fallacy. It is not a matter of who's interpreting it. Nor can one say that believeing either makes one right.
Now, can people look at that and get it wrong legitimately - yep. And that is why Christ spoke in parables - knowing that those who weren't of him would misread what he said, get it wrong and thusly betray themselves simply by opening their mouths to pronounce the misunderstanding. This is why we look to Scripture as the final authority.
You're empassioned plea that other "christians" believe somethin different is begging the question and on it's face faulty. Simon Magus was born again and yet believed he could buy the Holy Spirit. That didn't make his belief valid and he was duly rebuked. And there are plenty of people out there claiming Christianity that haven't the first clue what it is. Christianity is not a matter of diverse opinions. Christianity is an agreement penned by God and handed to us to accept or decline. Failing to accept it doesn't mean that interpreting it a different way than was intended becomes the norm. And there is no matter in language in normal daily life where such a standard is applied accept in investigation - trying to use one's intellect to figure out something that is not a blatent given.
I don't know where you got your notions of understanding truth; but, they aren't spiritual and they sure aren't christian.
Saying that standards and beliefs have changed is suspect on it's face. Christianity was handed us as a completed work. Christianity is unchanging. Other religions might change based on fads; but, God isn't into fads. God is consistent.
And Christianity as a covenant was delivered as the promise of his original covenant with Israel. There may be a bunch of sects out there that have changed over time because they've been following philosophy instead of Christ. But Christianity is the same covenant it was when it was delivered and sealed by the blood of Christ.
It's hilarious to sit on a thread where we hear that getting something wrong is heresy worth putting someone to death over and at the same time, one can sit and beg reason over the ability to interpret something differently and it should be "ok". It's not ok. But at the same time, it's also not ok to murder someone for being wrong. That we get from scripture. And no, there isn't another way to interpret it.
Finally, absolute values are knowable to us because God gave us his word on it in scripture. If you don't have the capacity to believe his word, then this is all elementary - you've failed the first requirement of being Christian - that is believing God.
Hey, psst, remember, they rewrote history on Joan - blamed her death on the civil authorities and then made her a saint. We even get goofy movies about it now...
"Your Holiness, the Queen does not believe in God."
ROTFL From some of the stuff I've read, dare I say he could have just said, "Your Holiness, the Queen is a de' Medici."?
Okay, ducking for cover, cuz I'm pretty sure that might not be taken too kindly by some around here.
Well, from where I sit, their symmetric claim about you is just as valid, which is to say not at all or at least not knowably so.
Saying that standards and beliefs have changed is suspect on it's face. ... God isn't into fads. God is consistent.
It's amazing that you think standards and beliefs have not changed over history and geography. Even within Christianity they have done so. And the tensions between the Old and New Testaments is plain - in the one it's smite thy neighbor and in the other love him as yourself.
On this judging thing, didn't Christ authorize his disciples to judge the sinfulness of men? My recollection is that the authority was unconstrained.
Oh well, that's enough for me. Feel free to have the last word.
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