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.
Hmm.. now why does this sound so familiar? Wealthy and powerful nation.... at war with those of another faith... winning militarily... so their enemy turns to propaganda about abuse in prisons...
exterminate
\Ex*ter"mi*nate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Exterminated; p. pr. & vb. n. Exterminating.] [L. exterminatus, p. p. of exterminare to abolish, destroy, drive out or away; ex out + terminus boundary, limit. See Term.] 1. To drive out or away; to expel.
They deposed, exterminated, and deprived him of communion. --Barrow.
(SD: exterminated and deprived of communion? That's pretty bad. We usually give communion to the dead.)
2. To destroy utterly; to cut off; to extirpate; to annihilate; to root out; as, to exterminate a colony, a tribe, or a nation; to exterminate error or vice.
To explode and exterminate rank atheism. --Bentley.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc
Of course, to the Havoc-inclined, you are suppoed to remain ignorant of the meaning of words and believe that this Papal pronouncement is calling for the killing of all heretics, when it is instead calling for them to be removed from territories. As a source of division and conflict, seperation seemed only fitting. That is a discussion which can continue.
But put aside any notions that this means the Pope was whipping out a big can of Raid in order to kill. heretics. dead.
SD
Don't know that there have to be, but things are pretty slow on the BBS and most are drifting in and out, sometimes dropping in with something they think might be interesting. FR is getting multiple threads on just about every topic.
Where "unauthorized" means "in the common tongue" in many instances. And Catholics were hardly the only ones burning bibles and bible printers, too.
There isn't any myopia going on here. The protestants, in their defense (which you won't see much of from me), at least don't go on every board on the internet and to every paper trying to downplay and lie through their teeth about what they did. In every debate on the subject, it becomes an issue of Catholic apologists finger pointing at protestants that "well they did it too". Which isn't the point. They'll admit it and show they learned from it. You guys still think it a swell idea by and large from viewing these threads, and haven't learnt anything from history at all - much less from scripture.
As far as what you claim was stolen from you, you'll have to take that up with proper authorities.. Assuming you can tell the truth on that issue any better than you have on this one as an organization - or on the matter of fraudulent writings, documents and books, fruadulent relics, etc.
Ever hear the story of the boy that called wolf?
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again. (Exit and exeunt)
I like Mel, but this is a Monty Python sketch.
Cardinal Fang! Fetch...THE COMFY CHAIR!
It's not a synonym. Unauthorized means not authorized. The works in question contained flawed passages or in other ways were detrimental to the faith. To say they were forbidden just because they were in a common tongue is to do a disservice to the truth.
SD
Basically good. So if I violate Christ's directives while saying I'm "upholding the faith" it's my good intentions that should be weighed instead of the fact that the intentions led to murder? Is this what you intended to tell us?
Neither one of us is believing that.
SD
How good is your translation of the document? "Out" vs "in" would make a huge difference in action.
Regardless, I'm saddened to see a Vichy France standard used by a great religion.
"What gave the Catholic Church a rightful claim to ownership of the properties "stolen" by those who chose to remove themselves from the power of Rome?"
The Catholic Church had nothing more than MORAL AUTHORITY over the European monarchs. The Church was influential insofar as it lent legitimacy to the various secular regimes that were in existence. At that time, the radical protestant Kings or Queens demanded COMPLETE OBEISANCE from their "subjects", including the Catholic members within their realms. If the Catholics under their charge complained about royal abuses, as the English and German Catholics did when their monarchs were involved in Machiavellian courtly and political intrigues, they were MERCILESSLY SLAUGHTERED.
"Did they not have any claim to the property, as it had been their ancestors who had "donated" it?"
To enlarge the royal purses of the monarchs in protestant countries, the property that belonged to the CATHOLIC COMMUNITY (not just the "Church", as you say) was confiscated and STOLEN to enrich themselves.
The same thing is happening TODAY within the Anglican community. Those members of the Anglican Church who don't agree with heretical practices (gay marriage, female and gay bishops, etc.) who want to protest are forced to deal with the fact that THEIR PROPERTY is being held hostage by apostates in the Anglican hierarchy. It is ironic, indeed, to watch this happen to the very people who originally STOLE what they have from Catholics in the first place.
I would think it within the Church's power to clearify it's position if it felt it's intent was misunderstood.
"William Tyndale was the Captain of the Army of Reformers, and was their spiritual leader. Tyndale holds the distinction of being the first man to ever print the New Testament in the English language. Tyndale was a true scholar and a genius, so fluent in eight languages that it was said one would think any one of them to be his native tongue. He is frequently referred to as the “Architect of the English Language”, (even more so than William Shakespeare) as so many of the phrases Tyndale coined are still in our language today. Tyndale used Erasmus Greek NT to produce the first primary English translation of the New Testament. Forced to flee England, because of the wide-spread rumor that his English New Testament project was underway, causing inquisitors and bounty hunters to be constantly on Tyndale's trail to arrest him and prevent his project. God foiled their plans, and in 1525-1526 the Tyndale New Testament became the first printed edition of the scripture in the English language. Subsequent printings of the Tyndale New Testament in the 1530’s were often elaborately illustrated. Many copies were burned as soon as the Bishop could confiscate them, but many also trickled through to the people and one actually ended up in the bedroom of King Henry VIII. The more the King and Bishop resisted its distribution, the more fascinated the public at large became. The church declared it contained thousands of errors as they torched hundreds of New Testaments confiscated by the clergy, while in fact, they burned them because they could find no errors at all. One risked death by burning if caught in mere possession of Tyndale's forbidden books."
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