The Inquisition: Facts and Fictions

They didn't mean to rip the skin from hundreds of thousands of naughty people, you know.

From the article:

Some of the devices and inventions used to torture the “heresy” out of those rejecting the Catholic Church’s authority included “The Iron Maiden,” “Hanging Cages,” “The Judas Cradle,” “Skinning the Cat,” “The Head Crusher,” “The Heretic’s Fork,” “The Barrel Pillory,” “The Rack,” “The Knee Splitter,” “The Breast Ripper,” and other devices too numerous to mention or too heinous to describe in any detail. The inquisitor was commissioned directly by the pope and acted directly on his behalf. The trials were held in secret and the inquisitor acted as judge, jury and prosecutor. The accused was never represented. The Inquisition resulted in the torture and murder of millions of Christians whose only crime was a rejection of Catholic heresy and a commitment to follow the Bible as their sole authority for faith and practice. John Paul II has not confessed the Inquisition; he has failed to label his fellow popes the murderers they were.”4

Kaifetz, writing on the cusp of the New Millenium, neatly summarizes the falsehoods, exaggerations and myths of the inquisition established in the religious wars of the 16th Century. While he approaches the inquisition from the perspective of a more traditional form of religious anti-Catholicism, the image he presents would be shared by many today, including some Catholics.

Please, S.O., read the article. There may be hope for your edification yet.

Considering 2 papacies were bought discuss apostolic succession,what would the current market rate be,'even greater things than these shall be done in my name' please post examples of even remotely equivalent Papal achievements such as curing lepers,deaf people,blind people,raising the dead etc...Id rely more on your belief in God and Jesus than your church...sorry.

Hey, as long as we're arguing history, lets pull in debate on the other two parts of the standard anti-Catholic bigot's triad, with a

new thread on the Crusades,

and a and new thread on Galileo.

Thou shalt count to three, thrice is the number thou shalt count, being the third number....

Best book on the subject I've read is "Inquisition" by Edward Peters of Berkeley (what a surprise! And the man isn't even Catholic.) Very balanced, good read. He outlines what actually happened in the inquisitorial courts, shows what the civil courts were like at the time (hint: most civil courts made the Spanish Inquisition look like a trip to Six Flags) and then goes through the rise of what he calls the "myth" of the inquisition as portrayed in popular literature and art.

even remotely equivalent Papal achievements

Singlehandedly bringing down the largest, most murderous atheistic government in the history of man...I guess that would be downright miraculous. Pope John Paul II the Great is more of a Christian leader than any other man in the last 5 centuries combined, regardless of denomination.

Oh, yeah, one more thing..."it is a wicked generation that seeks after signs"...

Why are people always attacking freemasonry around here? If you were one, you would know how ignorant it all seems.

Not interested in historical revisionism from quite biased sources.

Singlehandedly bringing down the largest, most murderous atheistic government in the history of man...

This will come as a shock to Ronald Reagan & Co.

The crimes of the Spanish Inquisition were not mythical.

The heinous acts towards Iberian Jews alone are sufficient to cast a cloud over the Roman enterprise for a thousand years.

So wait for another 5 centuries and we'll talk about forgiveness.

Of course, individual Catholics neither share this guilt, nor require forgiveness.

The institution, however, should escape the judgment of neither man nor God.

.

From an old post by Royalist: '

THE INQUISITION
Castille is traditionally called "the Kingdom of the three religions", namely Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Islam: despite the Reconquista, a certain number of Muslims kept their property and the right to practise their religion. These mudejares became less and less numerous in the 15th century.
Judaism: Christian Spain was traditionally a welcome haven for the Jews. They came from Islamic countries, whence they had been chased out by "fundamentalist" waves of Almoravides and Almohades, and also from the Christian countries of north west Europe, which expelled them in large numbers, Edward I of England having expelled the Jews in 1290. Their numbers therefore increased, and under the reign of isabella and Ferdinand they had reached two hundred thousand, without counting the very large number of Jews who had converted to Chrisitianity. Whence, in Christianity there were two categories: the "old Christians", who belonged to ancient Christian families, and the conversos (also called marranes in a pejorative sense): Jews who had converted often through conviction, sometimes through social pressure, never by force. Were they, because of their race, regarded as second class Christians and socially discredited?
We can judge from the positions held by conversos under the reign of isabella and Ferdinand. Among the conversos were the Constable of Castile, the Treasurer of Aragon, the Grand Master of the Order of Calatrava (the Spanish equivalent of the Templars), to whom Henry IV had thought of giving his sister Isabella in marriage, the Bishop of Burgos formerly Rabbi Salomon Ha-Levi, the bishops of Segovia, Coria, Plasencia, Cuenca, etc.; finally Queen Isabella's own confessor and the Inquisitor General Torquemada himself. And there were many others who today would be called the "decision makers".
The danger was that some of the conversions were not genuine: the converts had either returned to their former ways or, having been baptised purely for self interest, had never left them. From the middle of the 14th century, there is abundant testimony of conversos spiritual directors preaching Judaism in the confessional, monks celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, bishops judaising to the point of not believing in the Holy Trinity or in Christ's Passion, etc. Blasphemy and sacrilege abounded.
In addition, the false conversos constituted a political danger. Their influence extended to the highest spheres of State; they controlled the municipalities of several castilian towns, where they maintained armed bands. The "old Christians" were less and less tolerant of their power, and their were frequent clashes, often bloody. Ferdinand and Isabella could not but be moved by so great a danger for the State and for the Catholic faith.
Besides which, the sincere conversos urged them to intervene, for they were worried by the threats to themselves caused by the treachery of their false brethren. The true conversos had to be protected from the anger of the old Christians, which was breaking out into massacres followed in turn by reprisals against themselves. Above all, the false conversos had to be stopped from spreading sacrilege and blasphemy. Near Toledo, for example, the Hieronymite Prior, Garcia Zapata, always pronounced words of blasphemy instead of the words of consecration at his daily Mass. Such revelations filled the Spanish old Christians with a holy anger. Their forebears had given their lives for the cause of Christ during the Reconquista. Had it been for nothing? Whence the setting up in 1478 of the Inquisition by Pope Sixtus IV at the request of Ferdinand and Isabella. Its aim was to flush out the judaising conversos, to lead them to be converted, or, if that were impossible, to chastise them with discrimination. After a big campaign of catechising the conversos, meant to give the judaisers one last chance, the Inquisition began to function.
Jean Dumont reminds us that the accused had recourse to lawyers; that if witnesses remained anonymous for rear of eventual reprisal, false witnesses were severely punished; that torture was hardly ever used. He shrewdly remarks that the old engravings figuring the tortures of the Inquisition portray gabled buildings, showing only too well that they were printed in Holland or along the banks of the Rhine by Protestant propaganda... As for the "butchers' victims", numbered at one hundred thousand by the said propaganda, modern historians more modestly put the number at four hundred for the twenty four years of Isabella's reign. Then came "irremissible" condemnation to prison (which meant for eight years!), then "perpetual" imprisonment (meaning for three years!). Furthermore, conditions in the inquisitorial prisons were so superior to those prevailing in the secular prisons, that many common law prisoners feigned heresy in order to be transferred... These are all truths that have been undeniably proved in learned works, but they remain unknown by the public at large. It is hoped that Jean Dumont's book will help to fill this gap.
Finally, after the most obdurate judaisers had been flushed out and chastised, Isabella thought she could show mercy. In 1495, she pardoned all the condemned conversos and anulled all the consequences of their condemnations against 5% of their fortune, which was not negligible. But this was possible only after the expulsion of the Jews.

(to be continued next post)

THE JEWISH QUESTION

I said that an important Jewish community had settled in Castile owing to the favorable conditions to be found there. Still in 1477, Isabella declared: "I take under my protection the Jews of the Jewries in general and each one of them in particular, their persons and their property: I guarantee them against all attack of any nature whatsoever." So why the apparent reversal of her policy?
On the one hand, it was because the presence of the Jews was less and less tolerated by the ordinary Christian people, who had been heavily taxed during the war against Portugal and were deeply in debt to Jewish usurers. Hostility developed from the year 1450, marked by pograms and a massive refusal to repay the debts due to them. The affair was soon brought before the Royal Council, who decided the matter with admirable justice: the Christians could not cancel their debts to the Jews; the Jews, on the other hand, were not entitled to demand interest on loans greater than that of other money lenders.
The hostility was appeased somewhat, but the real cause for the expulsion lies elsewhere. Ferdinand and Isabella enunciated it themselves in their expulsion decree of 1492: it is "the great harm that has come and is coming to the Christians from participation, conversation and communication with the Jews." The Jewish community had in fact become an active centre for proselytism. The judaising conversos, in particular, found constant support and encouragement among them to continue in their error. Thus, Ferdinand and Isabella acted as good Catholic sovereigns: for a long time, the Jews had been tolerated in Spain and had even enjoyed royal protection. It was hoped to convert them with gentleness, which was no illusory hope as the great number of conversos bear testimony. The high posts of resposibility reached by some of them after their conversion is proof that racism was unknown in the Spain of the Middle Ages. But when the Jews began to present a danger for the faith of the Christians, old and new, it was necessary to 'exterminare' them, that is to cast them out of the kingdom's frontiers.
The expulsion decree gave them four months to leave Spain. They could take with them their movable goods but not their reserves of gold and silver, for the exportation of those metals was forbidden to all Spaniards. On the other hand, they could deposit their reserves with the bank and recuperate the value overseas by means of letters of exchange. The sovereigns protected their interests with the greatest care, for many Jewish debtors hoped to be free of their debts as a result of their expulsion. Judges were installed with responsibility for quelling such abuse. Finally, the emigrants were protected during their exodus by a "letter of security". So sweet was their life in Spain that one hundred thousand Jews, that is about half, preferred to convert and stay. Facade conversions you will say. But they seem to have been sufficiently sincere for the problem of judaising conversos never arose again. In this Jewish affair, in which Spain and the Christian faith were really imperilled, Jean Dumont shows that Ferdinand and Isabella conducted themselves with wisdom, justice and charity, as befitting great Christian sovereigns.
THE RECONQUISTA

The last complaint against them, and not the least, is that of having completed the reconquista by conquering the Muslim kingdom of Grenada. At the end of the 15th century, this conquest was a vital strategic necessity. After the capture of Constantinople in 1453, the Muslims never ceased scoring successes in the Mediterranean. Christiandom was in retreat everywhere. In 1480, the Turks ransacked the Italian port of Otranto and provoked panic stricken fear throughout the Christian Mediterranean. The Muslim kingdom of Grenada then appeared to be a potential bridgehead for a renewed advance towards the west. It had to be brought down, and Ferdinand, whose political and military genius is shown here by Jean Dumont, strove victoriously to that end from 1482 to 1492. It is held against him today. At the time, he was famed throughout Christendom for having been the only sovereign capable of conquering Islam.
THE CATHOLIC KINGS
The preceding lines are sufficient demonstration, I think, of the greatness of Ferdinand and Isabella. They had defended the Church and the faith so well that in 1496, the Pope conferred on them the title of "Catholic Kings". But holiness? Since the suspension of Isabella's beatification process, twenty eight volumes of documents gathered by the postulator of her cause are now slumbering in the Vatican's cellars. But the few witnesses at our disposal are eloquent enough.
Isabella had an immense devotion for the Blessed Sacrament: in 1501, it was pointed out to her that in several parishes "the Blessed Sacrament was not treated with becoming solemnity and reverence." She immediately wrote to all the bishops of her kingdom to see that good order be restored. Furthermore, nearly one hundred years before the Council of Trent, she master-minded the necessary reform of the Church in her kingdom, aided by Cardinal Cisneros, tussling with popes if necessary, so much so that it was written of her: "No one like Isabella stood up to Rome."
Her piety was manifest in all sorts of ways. In 1475 (she was twenty four years old), her counselor wrote for her use "The Government of Princes". He recommended her "to put the tasks of government before pious practices, prayers, hair shirts, and various disciplines of mortification". Isabella was, however, very far from neglecting her duty of state: "How many long winter nights, says a chronicler, were employed until the small hours, by this great-hearted and wise woman, in holding successive Councils and governing many and great affairs." But above all it was her charity that impressed the witnesses. Her secretary wrote: "She gave alms in secret and with discernment." At the chancellory of Valladolid, she funded lawyers for the poor. In 1492, she redeemed, in order to free them, all the Moorish slaves taken in the reconquest of the kingdom of Grenada.
During the last months of her life, she had to endure a painful illness. She offered her suffering for Christendom and asked all her subjects to do the same. In her will she wrote: "In the faith, I am prepared for death, which I shall receive as a special and excellent gift from the Lord's hands." Admirable, incomparable Isabella! With all our heart, we subscribe to the judgment of Christopher Columbus: "She always led a life worthy of the Catholic faith, holy and full of zeal for everything concerning God's service. There are grounds for believing, therefore, that she is now in her holy glory."
One day, the Pope will have to decide to raise to the altars this queen who equaled Saint Louis in wisdom and charity, and Joan of Arc in heroism and piety.

The above was a commentary/summary of M. Jean Dumont's book, "The Incomparable Isabella the Catholic"