When we were little and got in trouble (fighting with each other, disobedience, etc.) we were sometimes given the choice of punishments. We could either get a spanking with the belt by Dad or have to spend all day Saturday in our rooms. We always picked restrictions because nobody liked getting hit with the belt by Dad.
Saying The hardest penalty the Inquisition had was excommunication, and that was applied rarely is kind of like asking a person do you want to be tortured or be excommunicated? Many styles of torture had been invented during the inquisition so as to inflict the most horrific pain on the poor victim without killing them.
From the source: www.paralumun.com/inquisition.htm comes:
Millions of innocent people were tortured and murdered during the inquisition. The inquisitors followed procedures set forth by the Dominican monks of Pope Innocent V111. At first the poor accused were told to confess. They were then stripped naked, shaved, pricked with needles for insensitive spots and then examined for marks of the devil.
Before the torture started, the victim was told what was about to happen and in many cases this forced the accused to commit to whatever the inquisitors wanted.
It was noted that a person who refused to talk even under torture was being aided by the devil. While the poor victim was being tortured a clerk recorded what was said. In many cases the clerk recorded things that were not even said.
Each subsequent round of torture was much worse than the one before. The torturer was paid out of seized funds belonging to the victim. If the victim had no money then the relatives were made to pay.
While the poor victims screamed with pain the childish torturers carried on like sadistic maniacs. They sprayed their instruments with so called holy water, wore amulets, herbs and crossed themselves. The exact method of torture varied from place to place. The rack was well used in France during the inquisition.
Some victims were horsewhipped. A sharp iron fork was used to mangle breasts. Red hot pincers were used to tear off flesh. Red hot irons were inserted up (body cavities). A device named the turcas was used to tear out fingernails.
After the nails were ripped out needles were shoved into the quicks. Boots called bootikens were used to lacerate flesh and crush bone. Thumbscrews were used to crush the fingers and toes. Acid was poured on victims and hands were immersed into pots of boiling oil and water.
Eyes were gouged out by irons. Alcohol was poured on the head of the poor victim and set alight. Water was poured down the victims throat with a knotted cloth. The cloth was then jerked out tearing up the victims bowels.
There was no limit to the types and cruelty of the tortures. The inquisition meant anything was allowed. The inquisitors were sadistic and mentally disturbed.
From the book The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe, page 80 , Victims were tortured in one room, then, if they confessed, they were led away from the chamber into another room to confess to the inquisitors. This way it could be claimed the confessions were given without the use of force. The Inquisitional law replaced common law. Instead of innocent until proven guilty, it was guilty until proven innocent.
Inquisitors grew very rich, accepting bribes and fines from the wealthy who paid to avoid being prosecuted. The wealthy were prime targets for the church who confiscated their property, land and everything they had for generations. The Inquisition took over all of the victims' possessions upon accusation. There was very little if any chance of proving ones self innocent, so this is one way the catholic church grew very wealthy. Pope Innocent stated that since "god" punished children for the sins of their parents, they had no right to be legal heirs to the property of their parents. Unless children came forth freely to denounce their parents, they were left penniless. Inquisitors even accused the dead of heresy, in some cases, as much as seventy years after their death. They exhumed and burned the accused's bones and confiscated all property from their heirs, leaving them with nothing.
So if I was faced with the option of torture or excommunication, I'd take the out simply because I believe in what Scripture teaches and the Holy Spirit illuminates the truth in my heart. I do not need to be formally bound to a religion to be in a relationship wit God. If my choice instead is confess and forsake my faith in favor of the one in charge for the time that I know is wrong or else suffer death, there's no contest. I will die for my faith. I would refuse to allow anyone to force me to give up the truth of the Gospel.
Just doing the little reading online to put this post together made me sick. That people, who claimed to be followers of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, became so overcome with power, greed, blood lust, whatever, that they did these things under the illusion that they were doing it for Him, for his glory was quite disturbing. I really don't care what the times were like back then, I cannot imagine any excuse that can rationalize or justified the barbarity that was done.
I can hardly believe some actually here on this thread are advocating for its comeback. They should be ashamed and take some time off to understand what evil has taken hold of them to even bring up the idea in the first place.
I researched also on the Inquisition awhile back and read many accounts such as you posted here. Additionally there are not only written accounts...but wood drawings and artists drawings of the torture racks etc. which were built...further there was a push to see who could build one which would inflict the most pain. Many of these are in museums, which I also visited on line. You can actually see these from the chairs full of spikes to the cones they used which they let people down onto.
I could not help but wonder if the people who did this, and the Monks who stood by and recorded it all..weren't straight from the depths of hell...and yet they were under orders from the catholic leadership to do these atrocities...and the leadership was well aware these means of torture were being used.
The Church actually pioneered modern jurisprudential practices such as giving representation to the accused. It is also known that many prisoners would blaspheme intentionally in order to get under the Inquisitorial jurisdiction and away from secular courts, which were harsher.
A lot of Protestant sources describe all incidents of torture without distinction and associate them all with the Inquisition. In fact, what you describe were univerally accepted practices of interrogation, and of course every time a person was suffering, a priest would be available to assist the sufferer. That does not make the court one of the Holy Inquisition.
If, or when, an Inquisition convenes in the United States, it will employ methods of our (supposedly enlightened) time. Then, if guilt is found, the faaithless Catholic will be publicly excommunicated, and will no longer able to call himself Catholic yet teach against the Church. If any civil law were broken, as in case of child molestation, the District Attorney can handle it promptly and not 30 years after the fact based on accusations that cannot be proven. This would be a vast improvement over the state of American Catholicism today, and I advocate it with passion.
That should shut the mouth of any Catholic in defending the Inquisition and the history of their church, but without reading any further, I am going to say that I fear we will STILL see the RCC defenders defend and excuse their church’s history instead of acknowledge it and renounce it.
In that case, however, it puts them in a serious bind. They are then forced to admit and concede that their church is not only infallible, but has been filled with vice, sin, and corruption. To call that organization with that kind of behavior in instrument of God, the very church established by Christ Himself, is a lie of the greatest magnitude.
NO ONE, nor any one organization, can claim to be Christ’s representative on earth and engage in that kind of demonically inspired evil.
It’s not simply a matter of *Yeah, some mistakes were made. After all, they’re only human.* This is Satanic barbarity of the greatest degree, not only in the horrible scenarios you described, but worst yet, doing it in the name of Christ and God.
And then Catholics have the audacity to shred someone who disagrees with them and end with the smarmy *May God have mercy on your soul*.
The level of delusion and denial that makes someone deny and excuse and even defend this kind of behavior is breathtaking.
You guys are the ones wallowing in Inquisitional glee. Me, I look at it this way - energy prices are very high nowadays, so, sometimes two problems will solve each other...
Just doing the little reading online to put this post together made me sick. That people, who claimed to be followers of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, became so overcome with power, greed, blood lust, whatever, that they did these things under the illusion that they were doing it for Him, for his glory was quite disturbing. I really don't care what the times were like back then, I cannot imagine any excuse that can rationalize or justified the barbarity that was done.
I can hardly believe some actually here on this thread are advocating for its comeback. They should be ashamed and take some time off to understand what evil has taken hold of them to even bring up the idea in the first place.
Yours is the Christian response to this barbarism and to those who desire its return who show themselves to be no better than those torturers who grew rich off the blood of their victims.
And this is a "religion" we should respect?