Jewbacca:
I am not going to engage your Catholic bashing. I am Catholic born, Catholic bred and will die a Catholic. So lets get that out in the open.
Now, to your post. It did not mean death. The Inquisition did not have any jurisdiction over Jews.
The facts are that many Jews conspired with the Moslems against Catholic-Spain. In those days, individual rights were not such that while some Jews did not conspire and thus were not guilty of treason, again, many did conspire with the Moslems who had “invaded Spain”.
I am not defending anything. I am only provideing what happened and putting it in historical context. The U.S. executed the Rosenbergs for conspiring against the US and giving secrets to the communist, was the U.S. wrong? However, the U.S. and our form of Justice and our courts did not then challenge the loyalty of ever Jewish-American, even though those 2 American-Jews were communist and committed high treason.
Now, using 20th-21st century principles of Justice, imputing the guilt of some Jews to all Jewish-Spainards was wrong. However, I am not a deconstructionist and try to retroactively use 21st century principles of the U.S. Constitution and Human Rights back to the 15th century.
I choose to look at the 15th century and the events that occurred in the context of that time.
No Jews were ever threatened with Death. If Jews chose to stay in Spain, there was a restriction of their rights and property and what professions you could work in, etc but not the “Death Penalty”. That is BS.
The Church investigated who was a “heretic” and thus who was not truly “Catholic”. The secular courts then decided on the punishment and the most extreme heretics, who were viewed as potential revolutionaries were given the “death penalty” So, if you were a dissident Catholic, it was you who faced the death penalty.
Jews were never brought before the Inquisition. It was deporation, convert or live in Jewish-Ghettoes with restrictions on your rights.
Let’s test this notion of jurisdiction empirically.
Jewbacca, suppose I were to write Cardinal Levada of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Inquisition) and formally accuse you of heresy. I could demand a heresy trial, and then say that you, as a Jew, subscribe to the heresies of X, X, X, and X.
Dollars to doughnuts I get a polite but puzzled letter back that says “Uhh, thanks for writing, but actually since Signor Jewbacca is not a Catholic, he cannot be a Catholic heretic, and he therefore does not fall under the purview of this office.”
;-)