Inquisition Questions

[Ridgerunner]

Were there any Catholic priests who were either tortured or burned at the stake by Protestants in Massachusetts ?

I don’t know, but I vividly remember some being beaten up in a town by a Protestant crowd about 20 miles from here when I was a kid. The crowd destroyed a trailer the priests had, while they were at it. Loretta Young, the actress, graciously bought them a new one. I remember that like it was yesterday.

I remember when all the “best” people in town were KKK, and boycotted my father’s business. (True, some sneaked out to his home to do business with him at night so their fellows didn’t know. My father was very good at what he did.) The Klan conducted anti-Catholic torchlight parades in my town during Al Smith’s candidacy. That was before my time, but I have seen photos of it.

Some priests in my state were killed for performing Catholic weddings during Reconstruction, which took an anti-Catholic turn at a point in time because the Union military somehow took it into their heads that the Catholic Church was unduly sympathetic to rebels.(Or used it as an excuse to do something that had other motivations.)

My point here is not to condemn Protestants. I don’t. The past is past, and we ought not to dwell on it, or to condemn, retrospectively, those who thought their faiths impelled them to do heinous things. But nobody who knows anything about history, or certainly nobody who knew American anti-Catholicism up close and personal, would say that it didn’t happen. Like Holocaust Deniers whose positions are undercut by those few old Jews with tattoos on their arms, Anti-Catholicism Deniers ought to at least wait until those of us who experienced it are no longer around to bear witness to the truth.

 

[bobzills]

I don’t know, but I vividly remember some being beaten up in a town by a Protestant crowd about 20 miles from here when I was a kid.

That was not Massachusetts, was it? The allegation made was against a Massachusetts law, but there was no specific example given. This is not the same as the Inquisition, where there were specific examples of people being tortured, and this is given in the book by Kamen.

 

[bobzills]

It is for this reason (responding to a lady’s earlier thread) that refusal to eat pork was a suspect bit of evidence, but ONLY if the person purported to have converted from Judaism or Islam to Catholicism. Jews and Muslims do not eat pork, but Christians do. Therefore, if a person purporting to have converted from Judaism or Islam to Catholicism refused to eat pork, it was taken as ONE PIECE of evidence that the “conversion” was false…

But to torture someone, on the sayso of a witness who claims that this person did not eat port, is something that I would not agree with. Further, the individual did not even know the charges against her.
And what about those people who were brought before the inqusition for the crime of being Greek Orthodox?

 

[Contarini]

I. PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE: AN INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

None of the evidence you cite has anything to do with an Inquisition. Do I need to explain to you what an Inquisition is? It is not simply “religious persecution.” It is a church court using the Roman legal procedure of inquisitio to arrest and try heretics and hand them over to the secular government. Protestant persecutions were almost always carried out directly by secular courts. Geneva was perhaps closest to the Inquisition model, but even there I do not think that the consistory (the church court) had the power to impose civil punishments. I am not sure if they handed people over to the civil authorities, but I think not formally, although certainly if you were in trouble with the consistory for something really serious the civil court might get involved as well. Scotland followed basically the same model. Most other Protestant countries kept the church courts more firmly under the control of the government.

Edwin

 

[bobzills]

None of the evidence you cite has anything to do with an Inquisition. Do I need to explain to you what an Inquisition is? It is not simply “religious persecution.” It is a church court using the Roman legal procedure of inquisitio to arrest and try heretics and hand them over to the secular government.

Correct.
And on top of what you have said, the Inquisition used various forms of torture to extract confessions.

 

[bpbasilphx]

There are two books by Walsh I would recommend reading that discuss the Inquisition:

Isabella of Spain: The Last Crusader

Characters of the Inquisition

 

[Protestant101]

Were there any Catholic priests who were either tortured or burned at the stake by Protestants in Massachusetts ?

I would be interested in finding documentation to prove this - i am not calling you a liar; I just want to document my findings and conclusions from this thread. if anyone can help me with this; I would appreicate it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

But to torture someone, on the sayso of a witness who claims that this person did not eat port, is something that I would not agree with. Further, the individual did not even know the charges against her.
And what about those people who were brought before the inqusition for the crime of being Greek Orthodox?

From what I have read, not everyone was tortured. I believe there are estimates (guesses?) concerning that, which I would have to research. But torture was not necessarily part of the process. And, again, I am not trying to justify torture. The lady evidently believed that somehow not eating pork was, in and of itself, considered a crime. My only point was to explain to her that it was one bit of evidence that was considered concerning something else.

I was speaking of the Spanish Inquisition in Spain, and as it was originally conceived and intended. I am aware that there was, at a later time, inquiry into Greek Orthodox in parts of Italy and Sicily that were ruled by Spain at the time. I do not presently know, but expect to learn, what that was all about. It would be my expectation, however, that one will find that it, like most instances where the Inquisition occurred, was political in its origins and motivation, notwithstanding that religious propagandists of all stripes like to color such things otherwise. That was indisputably the case in Spain, and in other parts of Europe at different times. One’s religion often told what one’s political affiliations were. I have consistently said I am leery of excessive church/state involvement. I do not even support prayer in public schools, whether Catholic, Protestant (the latter prevailed when I was in public school) or anything else. Nevertheless, significant church/state involvement was the universal practice of political leaders in the time of the Inquisition(s); whether Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or Muslim. Generally speaking, Catholics and Protestants have learned the lessons of history concerning that, and have largely kept them separate in recent times. Orthodox and, even more so, Muslims, in general, still adhere to a close identification of church and state. Quite possibly it was so during the period of which you speak. There is no question that adherence to Catholicism was considered the sine qua non of political loyalty by Spanish monarchs (as was Protestantism in England and Orthodoxy in Russia) What their concerns were about the Orthodox in Sicily and southern Italy, I do not know. I have, in this website, seen Orthodox express a saying that has its origins around the time of the fall of Constantinople: “Better Turk than Roman”, by which they meant they would rather be ruled by Muslims than by Catholics. Whatever may be the merits of that sentiment (and it seems some feel that way even now), possibly the Orthodox in southern Italy and Sicily felt that way back then as well, or were perceived so. But again, it would require research on my part to really know.

 

[dosdog]

The Protastant Inquisition
This book presents the history of two religious sects successfully established in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, where it was illegal to participate in any faith other than the legally established congregationalism of the Puritan founders of the colony.
amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521525047

Calvin sought to persecute heretics (particularly Roman Catholics) so as to keep Protestant believers in the lands divided by the Reformation faithful to his new teachings. He viciously persecuted the Spaniard, Michael Servetus, having him burnt alive on October 27, 1553. As early as 1545, Calvin had written, “If he [Servetus] comes to Geneva, I will never allow him to depart alive.” He kept his promise.

King Henry VIII of England, who took upon himself the role of grand royal inquisitor, took the lives of some 72,000 Catholics, many cruelly tortured an the grand total of persons killed by the Inquisition in 331 years were an estimated 3,000 to 5,000.

In 1656, the Friends of Society, also called Quakers, arrived in Boston and were greeted by quite a welcome wagon. The Puritans, the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, had them whipped, jailed and hanged for breaking their strict religious codes that they enforced as laws. Yes, these were the folks who a quarter of a century before fled Europe in order to have religious freedom. Once here, however, they only wanted freedom for their own religion. The Quakers were banished from Boston and hung if they returned. Eventually an area called Pennsylvania
helium.com/tm/364298/first-influence-quakers-early

Quakers: Persecution in colonial Massachusetts
A law was passed at the same time, subjecting every shipmaster importing Quakers or Quaker writings to a heavy fine; adjudging all Quakers who should intrude into the colony to stripes and labor in the house of correction, and all defenders of their tenets to fine, imprisonment, or exile…

I. PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE: AN INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
II. PROTESTANT DIVISIONS AND MUTUAL ANIMOSITIES
III. PLUNDER AS AN AGENT OF RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION
IV. SYSTEMATIC SUPPRESSION OF CATHOLICISM
V. VIOLENT RADICALISM AND THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION
VI. DEATH AND TORTURE FOR CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANT DISSIDENTS
VII. PROTESTANT WITCH HUNTS
VIII. PROTESTANT CENSORSHIP
catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/protin.htm

William Penn was the first great hero of American liberty. During the late seventeenth century, when Protestants persecuted Catholics, Catholics persecuted Protestants, and both persecuted Quakers and Jews, Penn established an American sanctuary which protected freedom of conscience. Almost everywhere else, colonists stole land from the Indians, but Penn traveled unarmed among the Indians and negotiated peaceful purchases. He insisted that women deserved equal rights with men. He gave Pennsylvania a written constitution which limited the power of government, provided a humane penal code, and guaranteed many fundamental liberties.
quaker.org/wmpenn.html

The Catholic Church in Colonial America
Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D.
The Penal Age: 1645-1763
Evidence of this anti-Catholic attitude can be found in laws passed by colonial legislatures, sermons preached by colonial ministers, and various books and pamphlets published in the colonies or imported from England. For example, even though no Catholic was known to have lived in Massachusetts Bay in the first 20 years or more of the colony’s life, this did not deter the Puritan government from enacting an anti-priest law in May of 1647, which threatened with death “all and every Jesuit, seminary priest, missionary or other spiritual or ecclesiastical person made or ordained by any authority, power or jurisdiction, derived, challenged or pretended, from the Pope or See of Rome.”

traditioninaction.org/History/B_001_Colonies.html

 

[bobzills]

What their concerns were about the Orthodox in Sicily and southern Italy, I do not know.

Actually, people were brought before the Inqusition for the crime of being Greek Orthodox in Northern Italy also. For example, according to “The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe,” by Gustav Henningsen and John Tedeschi and Charles Amiel, p. 144, 145, in the Venetian inquisition, there were 3 people accused of Greek Orthodoxy in the period from 1547 to 1585. There were 8 so accused during the period 1586 – 1630, there were 11 so accused in the period from 1631 to 1720, which makes a total of 22 people accused of the offense of Greek Orthodoxy in the Venetian Inquisition. And in the Frulian inquisition, there were a total of 43 accused of the offense of Greek Orthodoxy during the period from 1611 to 1786.
When people were brought before the Inquisition, is it not true that they were generally not told what their crime was, they were just told that they had to confess. If they did not confess, then they were tortured and told to confess under torture, still not told what to confess? This doesn’t seem to be fair.

 

[Protestant101]

I find it unacceptable as quantifiable scholary research/references, for the party being questioned (by me - see my first post) about their past practices of “extracting confessions” to simply dismiss it all away with cliche’, trumped up counter-charges such as “others did it worse than us,” “the statistics are all false and tampered with,” “there was no Inquisition;” or “what we did is grossly exaggerated;” or “it’s all just anti-Catholics.” etc. etc. etc.

As one example of what I mean, the following article says it like this:

"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."

Trying to reduce this to who is the most correct about how many were killed or tortured by Catholics, as opposed to by others, was miles away from my initial intentions of this topic.

When I made my first post for this topic; I expressly stated that I had specific questions about Catholic doctrines and the Catholic perspective related to what they did and why; whenever they chose in the past to torture or execute people to “root out the heretics” or to “extract confessions.”

It has been admitted in this thread that yes, Catholics did practice this kind of thing in the past; call it what and when you will, (you don’t have to call it Inquisition) but Catholics did do this. They either have done it through secular powers, or taken it upon themselves to do such things to people. And, when I made my first post, I also had full knowledge that some Protestants did also torture and kill for their religious convictions, but my major goal has simply been to try and explore the Catholic perspective of why Catholics did it, and the possible implications this past practice may still have today.

I would like to get back to my post where I asked about what happened to Luther at The Diet…may I please ask again, for clarification; just what exactly did Catholics do to Luther, and why. But may I also ask something additional about Luther, and the unfortunate turn of events between him and the Catholic Church? At the time Luther was being accosted by Catholics, was there anyone in the Catholic Church who wanted to see Luther dead? Did anyone want Luther killed for his “apostasy?” What sources can support your answer?

 

[bobzills]

Thankyou; it is the Catholic perspective that I was looking for. I will try to find the link and as soon as I read it I will come back here.

I don’t know if this was already mentioned or not, but the Catholic Encyclopedia online has an article on Luther.
newadvent.org/cathen/09438b.htm

 

[Protestant101]

I don’t know if this was already mentioned or not, but the Catholic Encyclopedia online has an article on Luther.
newadvent.org/cathen/09438b.htm

Thanks, here is a quote I have a question about from the article:

On 31 October, 1517, the vigil of All Saints’, Luther affixed to the castle church door, which served as the “black-board” of the university, on which all notices of disputations and high academic functions were displayed, his Ninety-five Theses. The act was not an open declaration of war, but simply an academic challenge to a disputation. "Such disputations were regarded in the universities of the Middle Ages partly as a recognized means of defining and elucidating truth, partly as a kind of mental gymnastic apt to train and quicken the faculties of the disputants.

Does this mean that Luther did this on what we know as “Halloween?”

 

[bobzills]

Thanks, here is a quote I have a question about from the article:

Does this mean that Luther did this on what we know as “Halloween?”

You should be able to check this from other sources also.

 

[Protestant101]

Well; in answer to my question; and according to Catholic sources, I have found atleast a portion of what happened to Luther, according to Catholics:

Martin Luther’s posting of the ninety-five theses was occasioned by his protest of the crude and corrupt selling of indulgences by the hyperbolic Dominican preacher Johann Tetzel, but his theses also represented his deep-seated convictions that faith was sufficient for justification, that good works for justification were unnecessary, and that the claims of supremacy by the popes was questionable. He would also attack transubstantiation, clerical celibacy, and the religious orders. The theses were soon spread across Germany, their proliferation assisted by the printing press, and a controversy soon erupted. Catholic theologians sharply criticized Luther, who responded by securing the protection and patronage of the elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony and hardening his position. At the public debate held in Leipzig with Johann Eck in 1519, Luther denied the authority of the pope, declaring that Scripture alone was his guide. The next year, he authored important treatises elucidating his theological position, and his defiance brought his excommunication by Pope Leo X (r. 1513-1521) in the bull Exsurge Domine (June 1520).

Taken from: Matthew Buson. Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Catholic History. Copyright © 1995, Our Sunday Visitor.

Does anyone know how I could read a copy of **“the bull Exsurge Domine?” **

 

[Protestant101]

I don’t know if this was already mentioned or not, but the Catholic Encyclopedia online has an article on Luther.
newadvent.org/cathen/09438b.htm

Also, a quote from this article reads:

It may not be amiss to state that the historicity of Luther’s famed declaration before the assembled Diet, “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. So help me, God. Amen”, has been successfully challenged and rendered inadmissible by Protestant researches. Its retention in some of the larger biographies and histories, seldom if ever without laborious qualification, can only be ascribed to the deathless vitality of a sacred fiction or an absence of historical rectitude on the part of the writer.

I would like to know what evidence can be presented by Catholics to support the allegation of Luther’s declaration before The Diet as being “successfully challenged and rendered inadmissable by Protestant researches?”

Where is the Catholic qualification for this statement?

 

[RobHom]

I’ll accept that, and revise my “few hundred” (I was thinking somewhere along the lines of 200-400) to “several hundred.” It doesn’t change my general point.

Edwin

I’m not sure what your point is…it seems to have been lost somewhere…however, if its purpose is to point fingers at Catholics and their wrongdoings in the past, then you would be well advised to close that book.

I am not saying that to be unfriendly, because I’m not. Its a case and cause that has no profit for anyone. The wrongs of yesterday wrought by politics intermingled with “religion” are legion. I am a bit of a student of history and I will show you some of that history that shows what I mean:

Ireland, vis a vis the English Protestants…what they did:

Its a good read, quite informative and balanced

redwoodcastleireland.com/irish-history-page.html

Its a good read and quite informative and balanced.

lookaroundireland.com/History_of_Ireland/chapter-16.htm

I can also detail to you the “flip-side” of the issue… and I’m not even “Irish”, though I like the occasional “Black & Tan”

Both sides of the equation committed errors and atrocities. The constant bickering over who did what and who did the worse is as senseless as thinking Sisyphus was on to something. But the truth is… its a complete waste of time and a disastrous route to any ill perceived form of justifications.

Peace!

 

[NotWorthy]

I would like to know what evidence can be presented by Catholics to support the allegation of Luther’s declaration before The Diet as being “successfully challenged and rendered inadmissable by Protestant researches?”

Where is the Catholic qualification for this statement?

I think the Catholic qualification is numerous Protestant historians who themselves deny the veracity of this statement. One would think that a Protestant Historian would only deny this statement if it was pretty “open and shut” cased.

 

[NotWorthy]

I’m not sure what your point is…it seems to have been lost somewhere…however, if its purpose is to point fingers at Catholics and their wrongdoings in the past, then you would be well advised to close that book.

I’m not really sure that this is Edwin intent. As a matter of fact, if I were a betting man…

 

[Protestant101]

I think the Catholic qualification is numerous Protestant historians who themselves deny the veracity of this statement. One would think that a Protestant Historian would only deny this statement if it was pretty “open and shut” cased.

Ok, that’s fine; but what I am asking is which protestants have denied this? What are their names, and where can we read their denials of this?