Inquisition

[BobRyan]

The three-day symposium is part of the Roman Catholic Church's countdown to 2000. Pope John Paul II wants the church to begin the new millennium with a clear conscience, which means facing up to past sins.

For many people, the Inquisition is one of the church's worst transgressions. For centuries, ecclesiastical ``thought police'' tried, tortured and burned people at the stake for heresy and other crimes.

``The church cannot cross the threshold of the new millennium without pressing its children to purify themselves in repentance for their errors, infidelity, incoherence,'' Cardinal Roger Etchegaray said, opening the conference.

I admit that both Cardinal Roger Etchegaray and John Paul II are biased sources.

 

[BobRyan]

The Fourth Lateran Council, for example, the ecumenical council that dogmatized transubstantiation, declared (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/lat4-c3.html):

I admit that to quote from the Fourth Lateran Council is to quote from a BIASED source!

 

[stan the man]

Here is another biased example, I could probably find some sources that say that staying in the sun will NOT cause skin cancer.

In BobRyans posts, I don't see any official Catholic website or sources there. Like I said before the sources are biased, (the quote that BobRyan posted more than once,http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45674
I just skimmed this article and here is just one quote from it "Admiration for admirable people like Mary is wonderful, but this is way over the top." (This is a anti Catholic article, [this is not a pro-Catholic site] that means that the author can twist words to make his case.) (BobRyan gives the example of Pope Benedict, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray and John Paul II, and Fourth Lateran Council, of writing these sources, well I checked and these individuals did not write these sources. They were written by non-Catholic authors. And I didn’t know that ALL of BobRyan’s sources were certified historians and they wrote books on the Inquisition. (That was a sarcastic remark).

BobRyan asks these questions, "Is it true that you quote NOT ONE RC source? And Are your sources biased?" If BobRyan read my last post I said, see the mostly non-Catholic sources in the brief bibliography. And at the end of the very same paragraph I said, I would ask anyone who has doubts about the information that I provided, please check out some of the resources in the following bibliography, which present different perspectives on the Inquisition, but the basic facts remain constant.

Just a observation, In my short stay here, I have posted many things and 99.9% of the things I post BobRyan has to put his two cents in. (His post are trying to "prove" me wrong. So according to BobRyans criteria/interpretation I am 99.9% wrong.) I think BobRyan is biased toward me, I could probably say that George Bush is the worst and dumbest president we have ever had, and BobRyan’s two cent would be that Bush is the of the best and smartest presidents we ever had. Or I could say that Bill Gates is the richest man and BobRyan would say he isn’t. Or I could say that I have brown hair, and BobRyan would say I don't. And I know that BobRyan will give his two cents on this post, and he will tell me that all that I said is wrong. So if you want to know the opposite of what I am saying just read BobRyans replies.

Again here are the list of books mostly non-Catholic sources about the Inquisition.
A Critical History of the Inquisition of Spain by Juan Antonio Llorente/intro Gabriel Lovett (orig 1823, 1966)
A History of the Inquisition of Spain (4 volumes) and other works by Henry Charles Lea (orig 1906, 1966)
The Inquisition from its Establishment to the Great Schism by A.L. Maycock/intro Fr. Ronald Knox (orig 1926, 1969)
History of the Origin and Establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal by Alexandre Herculano (orig 1926, 1968)
The Inquisition: A Political and Military Study of its Establishment by Hoffman Nickerson/preface Hilaire Belloc (orig 1932, 1968)
The Spanish Inquisition by A.S. Turberville (orig 1932, 1968)
The Spanish Inquisition by Cecil Roth (orig 1937, 1964)
The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen (1965)
The Spanish Inquisition: Its Rise, Growth, and End (3 books in one) by Jean Plaidy (The Citadel Press, 1967)
The Spanish Inquisitionedited by Paul J. Hauben, et al (John Wiley and Sons, 1969), a series of essays by different authors
The Mexican Inquisition of the Sixteenth Century by Richard E. Greenleaf (Univ of New Mexico Press, 1969)
The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540-1605 by Paul F. Grendler (Princeton Univ Press, 1977)
Inquisition and Society in Spain in the 16th and 17th Centuries by Henry Kamen (Indiana Univ Press, 1985) re-work of 1965 book (Note: Kamen also has a more recent 1998 book on the Spanish Inquisition)
The Spanish Inquisition and the Inquisitorial Mind edited by Angel Alcala, et al (Columbia Univ Press, 1987), a series of essays by different authors
Inquisition by Edward Peters (The Free Press/Macmillan, 1988 [Univ of CA Press, 1989])
The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain by B. Netanyahu (Random House, 1995)
The End of Days: A Story of Tolerance, Tyranny, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain by Erna Paris (Prometheus Books, 1995)

 

[tragic_pizza]

The ignorance of history demonstrated by some in this thread is truly breathtaking.

There was no "shadow" or "secret church" prior to the sixteenth century. Luther, Calvin, and the other Reformers strongly distrusted the Anabaptists, though in defense of the sect the charges of polygamy, the veneration of certain leaders as prophets, and predictions of the end of the world were but isolated instances in an otherwise peaceful movement... but the actions of one part color the whole, and niether Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, Catholic, or Orthodox groups are free from scandal.

One could, for example, look at the end-times-prediction misses that led to the founding of the SDA. We know, however, that the Millerites aren't the SDA church of today. Niether are the political Popes of a couple of centuries before the Reformation representative of the Catholic Church of today.

 

[Darron Steele]

Catholic clergy references to the Anabaptists as having been around for centuries during the Reformation period suggest otherwise. One quotation I read about in T. Armitage's A History of the Baptists has a Catholic clergyman saying essentially that if the "Baptists" had not been "grievously tormented" and killed for well over a thousand years, the "would swarm" more than "the Reformers." I barely remember this as I have not looked in that book for years, and T. Armitage was not always reliable on events, but the quote is not his words: I think what the clergyman said speaks to the matter.

Many people have good apologetic reasons not to want to acknowledge another Christian communion outside the predominant branches immediately prior to the Reformation. The Catholic reason is obvious -- they want to claim to be the oldest. Protestant apologists would lose some credibility if it was shown that another denomination has roots entirely outside those two branches and older -- after all, Protestants are breakoffs from Rome.

I suggest the evidence for a "shadow" church be taken more seriously.

 

[Eric B]

Wherever two or three are gathered in His name, He is there, and it is His Body. This was possible the whole time despite the big organized churches. The problem is, we look to the Church as visible organizations. Then it beccomes a question of "which one was the original one; which one ws/is the true one?" But those organizations all became power bases, and therefore were corrupt. So your true "shadow" Church was whoever trusted Christ for salvation, and Christ said the few would find the Way.

 

[BobRyan]

I have shown BOTH Catholic AND nonCatholic sources ALL saying the same thing about the RCC and the inquisition.

I even QUOTE LATERAN IV.

And you Stan denounces ALL these CAtholic SOURCES as "NOT CAtholic"!!

How sad.

Even the current Pope is being "denied" by Stan as HE makes his own statements about the inquistion!

What more can you ask?

If you must ignore RC sources when THEY ADMIT to the vast extent of the slaughter and torture EVEN to the point of COMMANDING "extermination" in LATERAN IV -- then you have chosen to turn your back on a lot of "inconvenient facts".

In Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

In Bokenkotter's book "A Concise History of the Catholic Church" we find this candid remark concerning the inquisition in the "Historical Catholic Church" - p117

"One instrument of PAPAL CONTROL over society that ORIGINATED at this time and that was viewed with much REPUGNANCE in LATER times was the INQUISITION. And it is one of Innocent's (Pope Innocent) less glorious titles to fame that he was the first Pope to apply force on a considerable scale to suppress religious opinions. The New Testament certainly contains NO basis for a theory of persecution, but after the conversion of Constantine, the Roman Emperors began the policy of using force against heretics..."

How popular did this free-handed style of torture become among the spiritually elite?
ibid pg 167. Pope Urban VI "turned more violent and savage. Suspecting his OWN Cardinals of plotting against him, he put them to torture and five of them died shortly afterward, probably thrown overboard from the Pope's warship!"

 

[BobRyan]

A Concise History of the Catholic Church (By Thomas Bokenkotter - RC historian and bestselling author). Pg 1.

For nearly 1000 years the catholic church presided over the total life of
Christendom and animated it's laws, institutions, customs, literature, art, and
architecture...it's popes gradually established their supreme authority
over the whole of western Christendom. These powerful papal monarchs
controlled vast ecclesiastical machinery that regulated in minute detail the
moral and social behavior of medieval men, kings and princes as well
as peasants and townspeople. Page 1-2

pg 104 "he (cardinal Humbart ad 1061) went even farther, reviving the ancient doctrine of pope galasius in asserting not only that the laymen must obey the priest inside the church, but that even outside, in the temporal order they are subject to the spiritual hierarchy. ...since church and state actually form one body, Christendom ...therefore, whenever the spiritual and temporal come into conflict - as often as they must - the spiritual authority must have the final word.
It was a bold stroke indeed. Nothing less than a claim for the pope of total sovereignty over the world.

Pg 105 but it was only with the election of Hildebrand, Gregory vii, in 1073 that a
man arrived on the seen with a willpower colossal enough to put Humbart's theory into practice.... All souls must obey his definitions of right and wrong; he had an
unlimited power of excommunication and absolution; God alone could
be his judge. In accordance with gelasian theory, he claimed the right to punish
and even depose disobedient rulers, for the papacy was to the empire
as the sun to the moon.

Pg 117 one instrument of papal control over society that originated at
this time and was viewed with much repugnance in later times was the
inquisition. And it is one of innocent's less glorious titles to fame that he was the first pope to apply force on a considerable scale to suppress religious opinions. The new testament certainly contains no basis for a theory of persecution., but after the conversion of Constantine, the Roman emperor began the policy of using force against "heretics" - sometimes even the death penalty. Augustine, in fact, elaborated a whole theology of persecution, but in general the use of fierce tortures or the death penalty was opposed. But from the middle of the 12th century we see legal thought, both secular and ecclesiastical, going beyond this - even to sanctioning death as punishment for "obstinate heretics".

Pg 119 "it's victims were accused on the basis of anonymous denunciations; they were not allowed witnesses in their favor nor given counsel; the innocent as well as the guilty were often forced to confess by the use of brutal torture which was definitely prescribed in the bull of innocent iv 1252 ad extirpanda.

Malachi martin (Vatican insider, pro-RC best selling author) keys of this blood.
Martin observes the truth of the RC historical perspective to provide background to his views of the RCC in the 20th century and it's global geopolitical strategy.

Pg 134 "it (acceptance of Christianity by Rome) raised Christianity from the level of a provincial and socio-politically nondescript sect, originating in the largely unknown backwater of Palestine, to civil, public, and international status
there was a price to be paid for this huge facilitation of Christianity's preaching: Roman Christianity adopted not merely the framework but many traits of the recent Roman imperialism....Roman Christianity ultimately tamed the (nordic and asiatic invaders) and in Christianizing them, it extended it's religion from its originally small nucleus in Mediterranean lands, until it covered all of Europe. The see of Peter, the holy see, as people called it - was the hub of that Europe.

...a new Europe now enjoyed a unity and a verve that the ancient Roman (pagan) empire, even at it's apogee, had never been able to create.

The centerpiece of it all was the man who sat on the throne of simon Peter in that holy see of Rome. Among the major players at the Roman table of international politics, no ruler could take command, no government could govern, no commerce could function, without the spiritual blessing and imperial nod of the Roman pope. (whose empire it now was).
Moreover, whatever overlordship this man, the Roman pontiff, exercised - whatever armies of fleets he commanded or could assemble, whatever binding laws he laid down governing civil, political, artistic and personal life throughout Europe - ultimately his right and claim to do so was based on his possession of Peter's keys of supreme spiritual authority.

 

[BobRyan]

The Fourth Lateran Council, the council that dogmatized transubstantiation, offered indulgences to those who would "exterminate heretics" and participate in a Crusade. Since this council refers to the RCC's influence over the state (John 19:11), it puts the lie to revisionist Catholic claims that the state acted apart from the RCC. The council declared (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/lat4-c3.html):

Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that
whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath. But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the
supreme pontiff [the Pope], that he may declare the ruler's vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action. The same law is to be observed in regard to those
who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land.




The Catholic church on anti-Semitism,
Will Durant writes in The Story of Civilization:


The Council of Vienna (1311) forbade all association between Christians and Jews. The Council of Zamora (1313) ruled that they must be kept in strict subjection and servitude. The Council of Basel (1431-33) renewed canonical decrees forbidding Christians to associate with Jews...and instructed secular authorities to confine the Jews in separate quarters, compel them to wear a distinguishing badge, and ensure their attendance at sermons aimed to convert them.
In 1243 the entire Jewish population of Belitz, near Berlin, was burned alive on the charge that some of them had defiled a consecrated Host. [...] In 1298 every Jew in Rottingen was burned to death on the charge of desecrating a sacramental wafer. Rindfleisch, a pious baron, organized and armed a band of Christians sworn to kill all Jews; they completely exterminated the Jewish community at Wurtzburg, and slew 698 Jews in Nuremberg.
"the ecclesiastical Council of Zamora (1313) decreed the imposition of the badge, the segregation of the Jewish from the Christian population, and a ban against the employment of Jewish physicians by Christians, or of Chrsitian servants by Jews
The Story of Civilization: Part IV "The Age of Faith" by Will Durant. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1950.


Pope Eugenius IV (1431-47)...added that [b]Jews should be ineligible for any public office, could not inherit property from Christians, must build no more synagogues, and must stay in their homes, behind closed doors and windows, in Passion Week[/b] (a wise provision against Catholic violence)....

In a later bull Eugenius ordered that any Italian Jew found reading Talmudic literature should suffer confiscation of his property. Pope Nicholas V commissioned St. John of Capistrano (1447) to see to it that every clause of this repressive legislation should be enforced, and authorized him to seize the property of any Jewish physician who treated a Christian.

As one of many examples of the decrees issued by Popes in support of persecuting and murdering non-Catholics, a 1487 bull of Pope Innocent VIII commanded that people "rise up in arms against" the Waldensians and "tread them under foot".[/b]

Catholic historian Peter de Rosa writes in Vicars of Christ (Crown Publishers, 1988), [b]"Of eighty popes in a line from the thirteenth century on not one of them disapproved of the theology and apparatus of the Inquisition. On the contrary, one after another added his own cruel touches to the workings of this deadly machine."

The Catholic historian von Dollinger writes in The Pope and the Council,
[b]"From 1200 to 1500 the long series of
Papal ordinances on the Inquisition, ever increasing in severity and cruelty, and their whole policy towards heresy, runs on without a break. It is a rigidly consistent system of legislation; every Pope confirms and improves upon the devices of his predecessor....It was only the absolute dictation of the Popes, and the notion of their infallibility in all questions of Evangelical morality, that made the Christian world...[accept] the Inquisition,
which contradicted the simplest principles of Christian justice and love to our neighbor, and would have been rejected with universal horror in the ancient Church." [/b]

 

[stan the man]

BobRyan, says that Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger, Peter de Rosa, Will Durant, and Malachi Martin were Catholics. Let's see.

BR says the "The Catholic historian von Dollinger" In 1871 he was defrocked and excommunicated.

BR says the "Catholic historian Peter de Rosa writes in Vicars of Christ" Peter de Rosa was an ex-priest.

BR says "Malachi martin (Vatican insider, pro-RC best selling author)" Well Pope Paul VI released Father Martin from the vows of poverty and obedience in the Jesuit Order. Plus his books frequently present a dark view of the present state of the world, invoking at every turn, dark spirits, conspiracy, betrayal, blasphemy, heresy, widespread sexual perversion, selfishness, and demonic possession, each being asserted as rife throughout the Catholic Church, from its lowest levels up to its highest. Despite this prevailing paranoia, his exposition can be forceful, with the appearance of considerable intelligence and authority.

BR says the "The Catholic church on anti-Semitism, Will Durant writes in The Story of Civilization" Will Durant was not Catholic at all he was a socialist, or by his own definition, an agnostic.

The first three individuals would be biased toward the Catholic Church. And Durant was not even Catholic.

 

[stan the man]

I found this online. From a Catholic site.

The Inquisition
Sooner or later, any discussion of apologetics with Fundamentalists will address the Inquisition. To non-Catholics it is a scandal; to Catholics, an embarrassment; to both, a confusion. It is a handy stick for Catholic-bashing, simply because most Catholics seem at a loss for a sensible reply. This tract will set the record straight.

There have actually been several different inquisitions. The first was established in 1184 in southern France as a response to the Catharist heresy. This was known as the Medieval Inquisition, and it was phased out as Catharism disappeared.

Quite separate was the Roman Inquisition, begun in 1542. It was the least active and most benign of the three variations.

Separate again was the infamous Spanish Inquisition, started in 1478, a state institution used to identify conversos—Jews and Moors (Muslims) who pretended to convert to Christianity for purposes of political or social advantage and secretly practiced their former religion. More importantly, its job was also to clear the good names of many people who were falsely accused of being heretics. It was the Spanish Inquisition that, at least in the popular imagination, had the worst record of fulfilling these duties.

The various inquisitions stretched through the better part of a millennia, and can collectively be called "the Inquisition."

The Main Sources
Fundamentalists writing about the Inquisition rely on books by Henry C. Lea (1825–1909) and G. G. Coulton (1858–1947). Each man got most of the facts right, and each made progress in basic research, so proper credit should not be denied them. The problem is that they did not weigh facts well, because they harbored fierce animosity toward the Church—animosity that had little to do with the Inquisition itself.

The contrary problem has not been unknown. A few Catholic writers, particularly those less interested in digging for truth than in diffusing a criticism of the Church, have glossed over incontrovertible facts and tried to whitewash the Inquisition. This is as much a disservice to the truth as an exaggeration of the Inquisition’s bad points. These well-intentioned, but misguided, apologists are, in one respect, much like Lea, Coulton, and contemporary Fundamentalist writers. They fear, while the others hope, that the facts about the Inquisition might prove the illegitimacy of the Catholic Church.

Don’t Fear the Facts
But the facts fail to do that. The Church has nothing to fear from the truth. No account of foolishness, misguided zeal, or cruelty by Catholics can undo the divine foundation of the Church, though, admittedly, these things are stumbling blocks to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

What must be grasped is that the Church contains within itself all sorts of sinners and knaves, and some of them obtain positions of responsibility. Paul and Christ himself warned us that there would be a few ravenous wolves among Church leaders (Acts 20:29; Matt. 7:15).

Fundamentalists suffer from the mistaken notion that the Church includes only the elect. For them, sinners are outside the doors. Locate sinners, and you locate another place where the Church is not.

Thinking that Fundamentalists might have a point in their attacks on the Inquisition, Catholics tend to be defensive. This is the wrong attitude; rather, we should learn what really happened, understand events in light of the times, and then explain to anti-Catholics why the sorry tale does not prove what they think it proves.

Phony Statistics
Many Fundamentalists believe, for instance, that more people died under the Inquisition than in any war or plague; but in this they rely on phony "statistics" generated by one-upmanship among anti-Catholics, each of whom, it seems, tries to come up with the largest number of casualties.

But trying to straighten out such historical confusions can take one only so far. As Ronald Knox put it, we should be cautious, "lest we should wander interminably in a wilderness of comparative atrocity statistics." In fact, no one knows exactly how many people perished through the various Inquisitions. We can determine for certain, though, one thing about numbers given by Fundamentalists: They are far too large. One book popular with Fundamentalists claims that 95 million people died under the Inquisition.

The figure is so grotesquely off that one immediately doubts the writer’s sanity, or at least his grasp of demographics. Not until modern times did the population of those countries where the Inquisitions existed approach 95 million.

Inquisitions did not exist in Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, or England, being confined mainly to southern France, Italy, Spain, and a few parts of the Holy Roman Empire. The Inquisition could not have killed that many people because those parts of Europe did not have that many people to kill!

Furthermore, the plague, which killed a third of Europe’s population, is credited by historians with major changes in the social structure. The Inquisition is credited with few—precisely because the number of its victims was comparitively small. In fact, recent studies indicate that at most there were only a few thousand capital sentences carried out for heresy in Spain, and these were over the course of several centuries.
What’s the Point?

Ultimately, it may be a waste of time arguing about statistics. Instead, ask Fundamentalists just what they think the existence of the Inquisition demonstrates. They would not bring it up in the first place unless they thought it proves something about the Catholic Church. And what is that something? That Catholics are sinners? Guilty as charged. That at times people in positions of authority have used poor judgment? Ditto. That otherwise good Catholics, afire with zeal, sometimes lose their balance? All true, but such charges could be made even if the Inquisition had never existed and perhaps could be made of some Fundamentalists.

Fundamentalist writers claim the existence of the Inquisition proves the Catholic Church could not be the Church founded by our Lord. They use the Inquisition as a good—perhaps their best—bad example. They think this shows that the Catholic Church is illegitimate. At first blush it might seem so, but there is only so much mileage in a ploy like that; most people see at once that the argument is weak. One reason Fundamentalists talk about the Inquisition is that they take it as a personal attack, imagining it was established to eliminate (yes, you guessed it) the Fundamentalists themselves.

 

[stan the man]

Not "Bible Christians"
They identify themselves with the Catharists (also known as the Albigensians), or perhaps it is better to say they identify the Catharists with themselves. They think the Catharists were twelfth-century Fundamentalists and that Catholics did to them what they would do to Fundamentalists today if they had the political strength they once had.

This is a fantasy. Fundamentalist writers take one point—that Catharists used a vernacular version of the Bible—and conclude from it that these people were "Bible Christians." In fact, theirs was a curious religion that apparently (no one knows for certain) came to France from what is now Bulgaria. Catharism was a blend of Gnosticism, which claimed to have access to a secret source of religious knowledge, and of Manichaeism, which said matter is evil. The Catharists believed in two gods: the "good" God of the New Testament, who sent Jesus to save our souls from being trapped in matter; and the "evil" God of the Old Testament, who created the material world in the first place. The Catharists’ beliefs entailed serious—truly civilization-destroying—social consequences.

Marriage was scorned because it legitimized sexual relations, which Catharists identified as the Original Sin. But fornication was permitted because it was temporary, secret, and was not generally approved of; while marriage was permanent, open, and publicly sanctioned.

The ramifications of such theories are not hard to imagine. In addition, ritualistic suicide was encouraged (those who would not take their own lives were frequently "helped" along), and Catharists refused to take oaths, which, in a feudal society, meant they opposed all governmental authority. Thus, Catharism was both a moral and a political danger.

Even Lea, so strongly opposed to the Catholic Church, admitted: "The cause of orthodoxy was the cause of progress and civilization. Had Catharism become dominant, or even had it been allowed to exist on equal terms, its influence could not have failed to become disastrous." Whatever else might be said about Catharism, it was certainly not the same as modern Fundamentalism, and Fundamentalist sympathy for this destructive belief system is sadly misplaced.

The Real Point
Many discussions about the Inquisition get bogged down in numbers and many Catholics fail to understand what Fundamentalists are really driving at. As a result, Catholics restrict themselves to secondary matters. Instead, they should force the Fundamentalists to say explicitly what they are trying to prove.

However, there is a certain utility—though a decidedly limited one—in demonstrating that the kinds and degrees of punishments inflicted by the Spanish Inquisition were similar to (actually, even lighter than) those meted out by secular courts. It is equally true that, despite what we consider the Spanish Inquisition’s lamentable procedures, many people preferred to have their cases tried by ecclesiastical courts because the secular courts had even fewer safeguards. In fact, historians have found records of people blaspheming in secular courts of the period so they could have their case transferred to an ecclesiastical court, where they would get a better hearing.

The crucial thing for Catholics, once they have obtained some appreciation of the history of the Inquisition, is to explain how such an institution could have been associated with a divinely established Church and why it is not proper to conclude, from the existence of the Inquisition, that the Catholic Church is not the Church of Christ. This is the real point at issue, and this is where any discussion should focus.

To that end, it is helpful to point out that it is easy to see how those who led the Inquisitions could think their actions were justified. The Bible itself records instances where God commanded that formal, legal inquiries—that is, inquisitions—be carried out to expose secret believers in false religions. In Deuteronomy 17:2–5 God said: "If there is found among you, within any of your towns which the Lord your God gives you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, and it is told you and you hear of it; then you shall inquire diligently [note that phrase: "inquire diligently"], and if it is true and certain that such an abominable thing has been done in Israel, then you shall bring forth to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones."

It is clear that there were some Israelites who posed as believers in and keepers of the covenant with Yahweh, while inwardly they did not believe and secretly practiced false religions, and even tried to spread them (cf. Deut. 13:6–11). To protect the kingdom from such hidden heresy, these secret practitioners of false religions had to be rooted out and expelled from the community. This directive from the Lord applied even to whole cities that turned away from the true religion (Deut. 13:12–18). Like Israel, medieval Europe was a society of Christian kingdoms that were formally consecrated to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is therefore quite understandable that these Catholics would read their Bibles and conclude that for the good of their Christian society they, like the Israelites before them, "must purge the evil from the midst of you" (Deut. 13:5, 17:7, 12). Paul repeats this principle in 1 Corinthians 5:13.

These same texts were interpreted similarly by the first Protestants, who also tried to root out and punish those they regarded as heretics. Luther and Calvin both endorsed the right of the state to protect society by purging false religion. In fact, Calvin not only banished from Geneva those who did not share his views, he permitted and in some cases ordered others to be executed for "heresy" (e.g. Jacques Gouet, tortured and beheaded in 1547; and Michael Servetus, burned at the stake in 1553). In England and Ireland, Reformers engaged in their own ruthless inquisitions and executions. Conservative estimates indicate that thousands of English and Irish Catholics were put to death—many by being hanged, drawn, and quartered—for practicing the Catholic faith and refusing to become Protestant. An even greater number were forced to flee to the Continent for their safety. We point this out to show that the situation was a two-way street; and both sides easily understood the Bible to require the use of penal sanctions to root out false religion from Christian society.

The fact that the Protestant Reformers also created inquisitions to root out Catholics and others who did not fall into line with the doctrines of the local Protestant sect shows that the existence of an inquisition does not prove that a movement is not of God. Protestants cannot make this claim against Catholics without having it backfire on themselves. Neither can Catholics make such a charge against Protestants. The truth of a particular system of belief must be decided on other grounds.

 

[BobRyan]

Don’t Fear the Facts
But the facts fail to do that. The Church has nothing to fear from the truth. No account of foolishness, misguided zeal, or cruelty by Catholics can undo the divine foundation of the Church, though, admittedly, these things are stumbling blocks to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

This was the claim of the Jewish church started at Sinai. They TOO claimed that there was no limit to the atrocities they could commit - God was still "stuck with them".

Romans 2 proves that this is false thinking.

In the slaughter of the millions that the current Pope claims to have been killed in the RCC's "inquistion" and in the slaughter of many untold thousands of Catholics as Catholic armies went about killing rival Catholic armies -- there is an UNPARALLELED history of slaughter associated with the RC history that is unequaled by any other Christian group -- even remotely.

The failed Jewish church itself pailed by comparison in the number of slaughters it organized.

In Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

BobRyan, says that Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger, Peter de Rosa, Will Durant, and Malachi Martin were Catholics. Let's see.

BR says the "The Catholic historian von Dollinger" In 1871 he was defrocked and excommunicated.

BR says the "Catholic historian Peter de Rosa writes in Vicars of Christ" Peter de Rosa was an ex-priest.

First of all you found NO charge against Bokenkotter - RC church historian and best selling author.

You found NOTHING agains the curent Pope -- and I quoted him as well.

And you FAILED to point out that in the RCC a priest RETAINS HIS MAGIC POWERS to turn bread into God and to forgives sins EVEN if excommunicated!

So FAR from being "NON-Catholic" they REMAIN Catholic AND these sources ARE biased TOWARDS the RCC!

But I have to admit that after reading about Catholic armies slaughtering rival catholic armies - it is not "unnexpeted" to see you "going after fellow Catholics" as you just did!

Now back to Thomas Bokenkotter.

BR says "Malachi martin (Vatican insider, pro-RC best selling author)" Well Pope Paul VI released Father Martin from the vows of poverty and obedience in the Jesuit Order.

I did not clalim that Malachi was "somebody's priest" I claimed he was Catholic - and even PRO Catholic.

Even you had to admit to the truth of that.

THESE the "CATHOLIC" sources we quote.

And then there is the AP who ALSO quoted RC sources as they repoted the study group that the previous Pope called into being for the purpose of confessing to those dark sins of the dark ages orchestrated by the RCC!

You know - the crimes against humanity that you are trying to "gloss over" and put a "nice face on" with this thread!!

 

[BobRyan]

Here is "another RC source" -- Lateran IV!!

The Fourth Lateran Council, the council that dogmatized transubstantiation, offered indulgences to those who would "exterminate heretics" and participate in a Crusade. Since this council refers to the RCC's influence over the state (John 19:11), it puts the lie to revisionist Catholic claims that the state acted apart from the RCC. The council declared (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/lat4-c3.html):

Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that
whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath. But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the
supreme pontiff [the Pope], that he may declare the ruler's vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action. The same law is to be observed in regard to those
who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land.


Here we see every criminal incentive imaginable to "Exterminate" and even punishment for those who are not inclined to commit this foul act against humanity.