Replies

>>>> 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.