So when we read.
" 1. In the Papal Bull, Ad Exstirpanda, it was declared that it was allowed under certain circumstances to use torture."
These are interpretations by anti-Catholics who have no desire to seek the truth. No where does the Church advocate or permit torture and never did the Church advocate or permit torture. The Church allows the state to proscute prisoners or the enemy, but she has never ever taught that goverments should use torture.
If what you say here is true, then we would have to conclude that various Catholic sources, such as the Catholic Encyclopedia, the New Catholic Encyclopedia first edition, the New Catholic Encyclopedia, second edition and the Catholic Encyclopedia online are anti-Catholic, which obviously they are not. I don’t care which one you use as a reference, they all say that Ad Exstirpanda authorised the use of torture to extract confessions. For example, from the Catholic Encyclopedia online:
“It [torture] was first authorized by Innocent IV in his Bull “Ad exstirpanda” of 15 May, 1252, which was confirmed by Alexander IV on 30 November, 1259, and by Clement IV on 3 November, 1265. The limit placed upon torture was citra membri diminutionem et mortis periculum – i.e, it was not to cause the loss of life or limb or imperil life.”
“In the beginning, torture was held to be so odious that clerics were forbidden to be present under pain of irregularity. Sometimes it had to be interrupted so as to enable the inquisitor to continue his examination, which, of course, was attended by numerous inconveniences. Therefore on 27 April, 1260, Alexander IV authorized inquisitors to absolve one another of this irregularity. Urban IV on 2 August, 1262, renewed the permission, and this was soon interpreted as formal licence to continue the examination in the torture chamber itself. The inquisitors manuals faithfully noted and approved this usage. The general rule ran that torture was to be resorted to only once. But this was sometimes circumvented – first, by assuming that with every new piece of evidence the rack could be utilized afresh, and secondly, by imposing fresh torments on the poor victim (often on different days), not by way of repetition, but as a continuation (non ad modum iterationis sed continuationis), as defended by Eymeric; “quia, iterari non debent [tormenta], nisi novis supervenitibus indiciis, continuari non prohibentur.” But what was to be done when the accused, released from the rack, denied what he had just confessed? Some held with Eymeric that the accused should be set at liberty; others, however, like the author of the “Sacro Arsenale” held that the torture should be continued, because the accused had too seriously incriminated himself by his previous confession. When Clement V formulated his regulations for the employment of torture, he never imagined that eventually even witnesses would be put on the rack, although not their guilt, but that of the accused, was in question. From the pope’s silence it was concluded that a witness might be put upon the rack at the discretion of the inquisitor. Moreover, if the accused was convicted through witnesses, or had pleaded guilty, the torture might still he used to compel him to testify against his friends and fellow-culprits.”
So, as I see it, the situation is the following:
- The teaching of the Church according to Innocent IV, Alexander IV and Clement Iv was that torture was permitted under certain circumstances to elicit confessions.
- The present teaching of the Church is that torture is not permitted under any circumstances.
I don’t see how anyone can deny that the teaching of the Church on the issue of torture has changed.
