Are you sure this isn’t a satire?
The RC closed book, discouragement of reading, earthcentric theories, inquisition contributed to the dark ages.
Freedom - in NORTH America is a result or the Reformers.
Each of us is responsible to God.
I respect your right to your assertions, but the Inquisition created the first real due process in world law, cross-examination, discovery and even the right to public statement of charges, at a time when civil governments engaged in routine torture and prosecuted heresy as a kind of treason, a juridical policy they inherited from the Romans, who used it against Christians. Civil prisoners were known to blaspheme specifically to have their venue transferred to comparatively milder ecclesiastical courts. A Roman Pontiff around 1475 forbade the Spanish monarchy from holding the Spanish Inquisition, 50 years later a Spanish monarch sent a menacing letter to a Roman Pontiff warning him against interfering with the Spanish Inquisition, which was a Spanish civil institution despite being staffed by Dominicans. The Spanish attitude towards our Hebrew elder brethren has to be tempered by the fact that Jews had recruited the Almoravids to invade Spain 700 years earlier. Though the various parties were distinguished by religion, the conflict had a strong civil involvement. A secular writer unsympathetic to the Spanish and the Church reackons an average of 3 executions per year for hundreds of years over a geographical expanse of Spanish occupation ranging from Sicily to Peru. Heretics couldn’t be summarily executed, only upon relapse/recidivism a second time. Even today the civil heresy of defense of traditional marriage is ruthlessly suppressed. Finally, the dark ages were done by the 10th century.
“The RC closed book, discouragement of reading, earthcentric theories, inquisition contributed to the dark ages.”
Your comments are completely out of touch with reality. First of all, the “Dark Ages” is largely an Renaissance/Enlightenment construct with little or no truth to do it. Secondly, if there were any “Dark Ages” they were OVER by the time of the “Inquisition”. The inquisitions - and there was no single, dominant entity covering all of Europe called “The Inquisition” - were first set up in the thirteenth century - the same century in which Aquinas, Gothic Cathedrals, and dozens of universities came into being and thrived. That was not a “dark age” by any stretch of the imagination.
Also, the Church had no “earthcentric” theories. And the correct term is “geocentric” not “earthcentric”. If you’re going to attack a thing, should you at least know its correct name?
Quite frankly, since Henry Ansgar Kelly’s famous 1989 article about the false understanding of the inquisition came out - called something like “Inquisition and the Prosecution of Heresy: Misconceptions” and available online just recently - there has been no reason for such ignorance about the inquisition to continue. Yet it does. Prejudiced people often don’t care about evidence.
Even liberal academics know:
“A misconception about the medieval and Renaissance tribunals collectively known as the Inquisition is that they represent a unified movement of the Catholic
Church to repress intellectual progress and the scientific pursuit of knowledge. This particular falsehood is often cited in popular discourse when wanting to
characterize Christianity as inherently anti-science. However, an exploration of the patterns of obedience and resistance to Church authority in the trial histories
of Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, and Domenico Scandella reveals a different picture.” http://kritiki.hpdst.gr/sites/kritiki.hpdst.gr/files/articles/kritikh_11_083-088.pdf
Some inquisitors - with horrible modern reputations - genuinely cared about the rights of the accused:
“The Spanish Inquisition, which was getting under way at the time that Regnier was writing, seems to have had, at least at the beginning, a similar concern for observing the rule of law. In the trials held in Ciudad Real from 1483 to 1485, the procedure was to bring an unconfessed suspect to court and give him detailed charges and to allow him to select a lawyer and a proctor before denying the charges.32 Undoubtedly, abuses did develop, especially in connection
with holding suspects for a long period of time in the hope of generating proofs; but the Grand Inquisitor, Thomas de Torquemada, took steps to stop such irregularities. In the Instructions of Avila, dated 25 May 1498, he insisted that suspects were not to be arrested unless proof of specific
crimes had been assembled, and the arrestees were to be formally charged within ten days.33” http://faculty.smu.edu/bwheeler/Joan_of_Arc/OLR/cr_Kelly_theright.pdf
And we hear about exactly none of that in school, or on television, etc.
I don’t know if it were satire, but for some of the humor challenged anti-Prod bashers, it wouldn’t matter.
They’d treat it as fact anyway.
Somehow Puritans = Catholic just doesn't work.....