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[The] Spanish Inquisition
OSV.com ^ | 07-17-15 | Msgr. Charles Pope

Posted on 07/18/2015 9:34:09 AM PDT by Salvation

Spanish Inquisition

Question: What was the Church’s involvement with the Spanish Inquisition? It seems clothed in shadows. Dorothy Perez, San Antonio

Answer: This brief column cannot cover all the details and provide extensive references. However, the Spanish Inquisition was run by the secular government, not by the Church. The Church did have its own inquisition, distinct from the secular government of Spain. Most people preferred the Church’s inquisition and often appealed cases there since it was more clement and just by their estimation.

The term “inquisition” simply refers to an inquiry into charges leveled against a person, usually of heresy. They were questioned as to their true views rather than be condemned on hearsay or rumors. If a person was found guilty of heresy, they were permitted to recant or clarify their views. If they would not, the solutions ranged from exile and imprisonment to, in rarer cases, death.

In an age of secularism and wider religious liberty (though it is increasingly threatened), such severe measures strike moderns as excessive and reactionary. However, until recent times, religion, social order and justice were strongly tied to proper religious practice and understanding. For one to adopt heretical views and encourage others to do so posed a serious threat to the social order and peace. The state, even more than the Church, would seldom abide religious rebellion and knew by instinct that social disorder and chaos often followed religious squabbles.

Did the Church cooperate with the Spaniards? To some degree yes, to others degrees no. The Church’s hands are not likely pure in the matter. But neither are the Protestants who ran a tight ship in places like Geneva and England. There are many Catholic martyrs to show that Protestants, too, worked with local governments to shut down dissent from Protestant notions and punish noncompliance, often with death.


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; History; Theology
KEYWORDS: catholic; globalwarminghoax; inquisition; msgrcharlespope; popefrancis; romancatholicism; spanishinquisition
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To: Iscool

hey Is

history has a real way of correcting BS

after all these years why isn’t it called the ‘Catholic Inquisition’ instead of the Spanish Inquisition??

It is called the Spanish Inquisition for a reason that still eludes many folks who flunked history and geography.


61 posted on 07/18/2015 4:02:13 PM PDT by LurkingSince'98 (Ad Majoram Dei Gloriam = FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD)
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To: Wyrd bið ful aræd

It never ceases to amaze me how Catholics can blow off as nothing some of most henous sin their church has engaged in throughout its history.


62 posted on 07/18/2015 6:45:52 PM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: metmom
Be amazed all you want. It doesn't change the fact that the Inquisition was fighting Islamic subversion while Protestants were working WITH the Muslims.

Anyway, I doubt you are amazed in the least at what Protestant inquisitions did.

63 posted on 07/18/2015 7:09:57 PM PDT by Wyrd bið ful aræd
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To: GreenHornet
how many of you opened up this thread to look for the Monty Python references?

It's a fair cop.

64 posted on 07/18/2015 7:41:41 PM PDT by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
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To: Salvation

The first stirrings of Due Process. i.e. we give the defendant a chance to speak/recant and then we burn them instead of just burning them first. Hey, its a start.


65 posted on 07/18/2015 7:42:37 PM PDT by Mercat (Donate to Stop the HildeKraken PAC)
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To: metmom

One good aspect of the Spanish Inquisition, was Christopher Columbus coming to the West searching for a destination for the Jews being driven out of Spain.


66 posted on 07/18/2015 7:57:29 PM PDT by Cvengr ( Adversity in life & death is inevitable; Stress is optional through faith in Christ.)
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To: Salvation
The Church needs to re-establish the Inquisition today.

Candidates for their loving touch include Pelosi, Biden, Kerry, Kennedy (take your pick...or the whole lot of them), Kasper, Wuerl, Dolan, Mahony, the German, French, and Swiss bishops...and that's just a small start.

And if the State has a criminal penalty for heresy, so be it. If a person was to be found guilty of heresy and refuses to repent, they have already condemned themselves to eternal perdition...what happens to their earthly bodies as a result of government action pales in comparison to that.

67 posted on 07/19/2015 2:49:08 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: Dqban22
One could say that there was one big similarity between Catholic and Protestant Inquisitions. The Protestant Inquisition targeted people who claimed to be Catholic. The Catholic Inquisition targeted people who claimed to be Catholic.
68 posted on 07/19/2015 2:52:55 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: BipolarBob
rather than Sola Scriptura which would have guided them away from this shameful sinful path.

You mean like God ordering Joshua to wipe out all the other residents of the promised land. Or how about Abraham rescuing Lot by waging war against the 5 kings?

Keep in mind the times these events all occurred in.

69 posted on 07/19/2015 4:51:16 AM PDT by verga (I might as well be playng chess with pigeons.)
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To: BipolarBob

Wow great use the logical fallacy of Reductio ad absurdum /SARC


70 posted on 07/19/2015 4:56:22 AM PDT by verga (I might as well be playng chess with pigeons.)
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To: roamer_1
The main difference being that the protestants did not do so for nearly a millennia - Protestantism righted itself in a matter of decades. And ALL of Protestantism cannot be painted with that brush - The Anglicans and Calvinists perhaps, but not the whole lot... One of the virtues of a distributed model

Pssst, Baptists, KKK, Slavery, Did you manage to forget that connection?

71 posted on 07/19/2015 5:00:12 AM PDT by verga (I might as well be playng chess with pigeons.)
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To: roamer_1

“...Protestants did not do so for nearly millenia...”

This statement is not supported by actual history.

The Arians murdered St. Paul of Constantinople circa 350 A.D. for his adherence to the correct understanding of the Trinity. The Arians were protestants who did not believe in the Trinity - they were responsible for many persecutions and cruelty against the early Christians who held onto the correct doctrine (the Catholics) handed down from the Apostles.

Medivial peasants on both sides were unlearned peasants who were prone to viciousness and violence. Virtually none could read.

Almost everyone was illiterate. Research the sack of Rome in 1527; Protestants had no qualms pillaging and burning with the rest.

St. Melletius ora pro nobis


72 posted on 07/19/2015 5:04:09 AM PDT by stonehouse01
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To: markomalley
The Church needs to re-establish the Inquisition today.

Is it to late for me to change my "nick" to Tomás de Torquemada?

73 posted on 07/19/2015 5:04:36 AM PDT by verga (I might as well be playng chess with pigeons.)
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To: BipolarBob
That's because they followed the commandments of men (and their base desires) rather than Sola Scriptura which would have guided them away from this shameful sinful path.

Read the accounts in this thread of Protestant inquisitions (presumably guided by "Sola Scriptura") against Catholics.

There are also conflicts between Protestant sects with different interpretations of Sola Scriptura. What? Oh, I see, only YOUR sect's interpretation is the real Sola Scriptura...

74 posted on 07/19/2015 5:23:22 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (You don't notice it's a police state until the police come for you.)
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To: Wyrd bið ful aræd

Yup.

Riiiight.....


75 posted on 07/19/2015 5:25:34 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: Wyrd bið ful aræd; Iscool

Yes, convert or die.

Where have we heard that before?


76 posted on 07/19/2015 5:27:40 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: markomalley

It would only be a start.

Then it would go beyond that to whomever they deem to qualify.

NOWHERE does Jesus ever condone the kind of actions sanctioned by the church towards those who were part of the body.


77 posted on 07/19/2015 5:30:58 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: metmom
From nearly everybody until about 300 years ago give or take, including from your own brand of Protestantism.

Unless of course, your favored brand wasn't made up until much more recently, which is entirely possible.

78 posted on 07/19/2015 5:39:47 AM PDT by Wyrd bið ful aræd
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To: metmom
Where have we heard that before?

Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, James the flamer, that gave us the error laden KJV, Calvin,. Let's not forget the Salem witch trials that had their beginnings in Sola Scriptura.

79 posted on 07/19/2015 6:58:40 AM PDT by verga (I might as well be playng chess with pigeons.)
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To: verga
You mean like God ordering Joshua to wipe out all the other residents of the promised land.

God is sovereign over the universe. Unlike man.

80 posted on 07/19/2015 7:40:14 AM PDT by BipolarBob
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