Historian Will Durant stated, "Compared with the persecution of heresy in Europe from 1227 to 1492, the persecution of Christians by Romans in the first 3 centuries after Christ was a mild and humane procedure. Making every allowance required by an historian and permitted to a Christian, we must rank the Inquisition, along with the wars and persecutions of our time, as among the darkest blots on the record of mankind, revealing a ferocity unknown in any beast."
The Inquisition rapidly developed a methodology and control that was impressively effective – so much so that one can see in it the precursor of Communists secret police (NKVD/KGB, of the Nazi SS and Gestapo … Here was a prototype for the kind of computerised records kept by modern police forces.
The last witch was executed in 1782, Inquisition was not abolished in Spain until 1820.
http://www.lietuvos.net/istorija/katalikai/ -