Inquisistion Question?

[JeffersonD]

I’m debating a guy about the “Whore of Babylon” and all he keeps doing is spreading lies using David Hunt’s arguments. I’m doing well with most of what he says but I haven’t studied too much yet about the Inquisition Hunt writes with a reference to Revelations 17:6:

“One thinks immediately of the Inquisitions (Roman, Medieval, and Spanish) which for centuries held Europe in their terrible grip. In his History of the Inquisition, Canon Llorente, who was the Secretary to the Inquisition in Madrid from 1790-92 and had access to the archives of all the tribunals, estimated that in Spain alone the number of condemned exceeded 3 million, with about 300,000 burned at the stake.”

I don’t at the moment have an answer to this. I was pretty certain that Spain and it’s King had more to do with the Inquisition from a torture and killing standpoint and that the Church did not play a hand at that but I have no sources. He doesn’t have any sources either but I don’t want to get into a words vs. words discussion as that is meaningless and would not help. If you guys could help me and give some sources it would help immensely.

Thank you, God bless

Jeff

 

[Scoobyshme]

I’m debating a guy about the “Whore of Babylon” and all he keeps doing is spreading lies using David Hunt’s arguments. I’m doing well with most of what he says but I haven’t studied too much yet about the Inquisition Hunt writes with a reference to Revelations 17:6:

“One thinks immediately of the Inquisitions (Roman, Medieval, and Spanish) which for centuries held Europe in their terrible grip. In his History of the Inquisition, Canon Llorente, who was the Secretary to the Inquisition in Madrid from 1790-92 and had access to the archives of all the tribunals, estimated that in Spain alone the number of condemned exceeded 3 million, with about 300,000 burned at the stake.”

I don’t at the moment have an answer to this. I was pretty certain that Spain and it’s King had more to do with the Inquisition from a torture and killing standpoint and that the Church did not play a hand at that but I have no sources. He doesn’t have any sources either but I don’t want to get into a words vs. words discussion as that is meaningless and would not help. If you guys could help me and give some sources it would help immensely.

Thank you, God bless

Jeff

Jeff, he has bought into the lies that Protestants continually try to spread.

At that time there weren’t three million people in all of Spain. In fact, there probably weren’t 300,000! To kill that many, they would have had to import people from all over Europe for the express purpose of killing them.

Here’s a good audio on Church history that covers that period.

alabamacatholicresources.com/Downloads/Church_History_1325-1650AD.mp3

You can download it and listen to it on your PC or copy it to your MP3 player or iPod, or burn it to a CD. It’ll give you a good idea of what the Inquisition was about and put it in proper historical context.

Tell your friend that if he cannot stick to facts, then there is no room for discussion. Ask him for proof other than anti-Catholic material. Ask him to go to a public library or a good university’s library and do some honest research before opening his pie hole.

 

[JeffersonD]

Thank you Scooby for your quick response and for the audio.

I pretty much told him what you said, I told him to do some research and not give me Hunt’s anti-Catholic sentiments but instead give me real historical arguments and facts. This may be one that I just have to step down but I don’t want someone to read what he writes and think that Catholics are the “Whore of Babylon”. It’s just terrible to think that anyone could come upon that page and think it’s completely okay.

Thanks for the help, I’ll download that audio and listen to it today.

I just realized I misspelled the title, ugh.

God bless

Jeff

 

[JerryS]

“The Irrational Atheist” has a section on the Spanish Inquisition. I can’t vouch for his sources, but neither can the other guy.

“The Spanish Inquisition had no jurisdiction over professing Jews, Muslims or atheists and executed fewer people on an annual basis than the state of Texas” [from irrationalatheist.com]

Total executions in the 3 major inquisitions were about 6,000 people over hundreds of years, or about 20 per year. 130 children per year die in bicycle accidents, and atheist pogroms of the 20th century killed millions per year with far less due process than inquisitees received. More Catholic clergy were killed in the 3 years of the Spanish civil war than in all the inquisitions combined. The Spanish Inquisition was set in a time of great struggle between Muslim, Jewish, and Christian authorities. An immediate historical precedent was a 1480 attack by a Turkish fleet on Otranto (Aragon) in which over 10,000 people were slaughtered, including 800 martyrs who held fast to their faith and “were beheaded en masse.”

There are certainly aspects of the Inquisition that are unpleasant or questionable from a 21st century perspective, but it is ridiculous to think that it in any way condemns the Church.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

The Inquisition(s) are important historical aspects of the Catholic Church. Christian Church, really, because they started before Protestantism started.

The Spanish Inquisition was a response to the 800 years-long-war in Spain from AD711 until AD 1492. The inquisition went on until the mid-1800’s.

I have two suggestions to learn more.

1. Do a search here on CAF using “inquisition” and “Crusades” as search criteria. There are a huge number of excellent threads with details.
2. At the very top of the page is a button labeled “Encyclopedia”. It is really excellent.

Click on “encyclopedia” and click on “i” and then look up inquisition. Also check it for crusades.

 

[Victorious]

Unfortunately, much of the history of the Inquisition in English-speaking countries was written by Protestants. I recommend the highly readable and fascinating Characters of the Inquisition by William Thomas Walsh. There are some things to keep in mind about the Inquisition:

1. The Inquisition goes back to a period when the Church and the state worked hand in glove, making heresy a crime against the civil law as well as against the Church law. Heresy was considered a threat to civil order and the social fabric of society, and therefore the state had a stake in fighting it. (And when you consider the tatters that our heresy-ridden society is in today, it’s hard to conclude that they were wrong.)
2. The Church never executed anybody. It was the state that carried out executions. The Church turned offenders over to the state only after they had proven themselves intractable. And remember, these offenders were guilty of a crime against the secular order too.
3. Though imperfect and deficient from a 21st-century American point of view, the Inquisition did have due process. The inquisitors did actually care about ascertaining the truth of cases brought before them, and went to the trouble of looking for better and better ways of arriving at truth. I’d be willing to bet that given the choice, most people would have rather been haled in front of the Inquisition than in front of a secular court.
4. Spain, where the Inquisition held sway, was spared the scourge of Protestantism.

 

[Scoobyshme]

Unfortunately, much of the history of the Inquisition in English-speaking countries was written by Protestants. I recommend the highly readable and fascinating Characters of the Inquisition by William Thomas Walsh. There are some things to keep in mind about the Inquisition:

1. The Inquisition goes back to a period when the Church and the state worked hand in glove, making heresy a crime against the civil law as well as against the Church law. Heresy was considered a threat to civil order and the social fabric of society, and therefore the state had a stake in fighting it. (And when you consider the tatters that our heresy-ridden society is in today, it’s hard to conclude that they were wrong.)
2. The Church never executed anybody. It was the state that carried out executions. The Church turned offenders over to the state only after they had proven themselves intractable. And remember, these offenders were guilty of a crime against the secular order too.
3. Though imperfect and deficient from a 21st-century American point of view, the Inquisition did have due process. The inquisitors did actually care about ascertaining the truth of cases brought before them, and went to the trouble of looking for better and better ways of arriving at truth. I’d be willing to bet that given the choice, most people would have rather been haled in front of the Inquisition than in front of a secular court.
4. Spain, where the Inquisition held sway, was spared the scourge of Protestantism.

I might add, too, that the Inquisition only tried those claiming to be Catholic. If you were a Jew or Muslim, and said you were and lived that way, they left you alone.

Also, to be executed, one had to be tried and found guilty on two separate occasions.

And, those accused could provide the Inquisition court with a list of “enemies.” No on on this list could testify against the accused.

Finally, it was not unheard of for someone in a civil jail to blaspheme in order to be sent to the Inquisitor’s jail, where they received better treatment. Better food, etc. Some jailers were even known to pass by in the mornings and ask if they promised to come back at night if they were allowed to go free during the day time.

 

[Scoobyshme]

The Inquisition(s) are important historical aspects of the Catholic Church. Christian Church, really, because they started before Protestantism started.

The Spanish Inquisition was a response to the 800 years-long-war in Spain from AD711 until AD 1492. The inquisition went on until the mid-1800’s.

I have two suggestions to learn more.

1. Do a search here on CAF using “inquisition” and “Crusades” as search criteria. There are a huge number of excellent threads with details.
2. At the very top of the page is a button labeled “Encyclopedia”. It is really excellent.

Click on “encyclopedia” and click on “i” and then look up inquisition. Also check it for crusades.

Actually, the notion of the inquisitions came from God. Read Numbers 25 where God instructed Moses to try those suspected of heresy and execute those found guilty.

 

[Edmundus1581]

Google is your friend!

When anti-Catholics make vague claims they can be difficult to refute as it can be hard to focus on the relevant facts, but **specific historical **claims are usually quite easy, as they have already been answered on the web. The claims usually date from centuries of anti-Catholic writing and exaggerations, where a charge (eg. “3 million killed by the inquisition”) was invented after the reformation, and then passed on through anti-Catholic sources and even propagated by the secular school system. If there were refutations from the Catholic side then they were known only by scholars, because ordinary Catholics would have to find them in a theological library, and protestant writers didn’t look for them.

However, the web has changed all that! The more specific the charge, the easier it is to refute.

I just googled “Canon Llorente inquisition” and found this page

The relevant answers to your question are:

• Yes, Canon Llorente was in the office of the Inquisition
• He became an anti-cleric. That doesn’t mean that what he wrote is false, but does invite closer questioning
• He claimed “over 300,000” victims of the inquisition, comprised of 30,000 burned at the stake, and the rest given severe penance. Hunt has simply multiplied both figures by ten! (1) BTW, this exagerration is the sort of thing to watch out for in these arguments. The (pre-web) anti-Catholic writers often started from a legitimate fact (in this case, Canon Llorente’s book) and then juiced it up, knowing that the historical specifics would lend credibility to the exagerration, and that ordinary people would not be able to spot, or refute, the deceipt.
• The sources for his numbers have been lost, but there are reasons to think that his figures are an exagerration, even from his own sources (because of sloppy methods in his writing)
• Canon Llorente is not the only or final authority on the actual number of victims of the inquisition. Since his time there have been other investigations, both by Catholic and independant historians, and the numbers are significantly lower than 30,000. Unfortunately, the site I referenced does not give one “best guess” as to the total. This is probably because it is actually very difficult to estimate the total. The site does refence various (lower) partial estimates, including recent ones by secular historians.

(1) Just to keep the record straight - when challenged about the 3 million victims exagerration, Hunt claimed that he got it from a secondary source, not Llorente himself, howewever Hunt doesn’t acknowledge that in his original claim, which he presents as coming directly from Llorente, so he must take the blame for the the 10’fold exagerration (of Llorente’s 300,000). His book claims to be scholarly.