N
Nexttogodliness
Guest
Why do we fail to admit we were responsible for the genocide of roughly 2000 non Christians? The inquisition happened, we just choose to ignore it. Counterpoints are welcomed, unless they are stupid.
- Status
A
Apollos
Guest
Well said … and without a trace of irony.
T
Tantum_ergo
Guest
We are responsible for ‘genocide?’
We who? We who happen to be Catholic? Why?
Are Jews responsible for the death of Christ because, 2000 years ago, the chief priests thought it ‘expedient’ for one man to die for the people and engineered His trial and ultimately His death? They aren’t, right? Even though their ‘hierarchy’ specifically was after the death of an innocent man, we don’t go around 2000 years on and demand that the Jews ‘pay’ for their ‘crime’ that, as Jewish people, their ‘leaders’ at a specific time in history did something unthinkable–and Christ died. In fact, when some Christians (Catholic AND Protestant, mind you) made that mistake and claimed that Jews were killers, they were roundly condemned by the Pope. So what is so ‘different’ about the Inquisitions?
Are Romans (Italians) responsible for the death of Christ? Hey, the whole Roman government/hierarchy was responsible for the ultimate decision 2000 years ago. But we don’t hold all Romans/Italians responsible. And when one thinks of the great number of peoples/cultures that were part of the Roman empire at the time, anyone of those ‘cultures’ should be held responsible, right? (But just as above, no, we don’t go around claiming that any people living in any country or area that was under the Roman occupation in AD 33 are responsible for Christ’s death, and their descendents are ‘guilty of deicide.’
What about Protestants? Aren’t they responsible for the Inquisition too? Think about it --many of the Inquisitions (if not most) took place either before Protestants existed, or in places that were solidly “Catholic.” Thing is, suppose your mom and pop were Catholics during that ‘Inquisition’ time, and you were born during that time, but in a different country, and you never in all your life had any kind of contact with anybody who had anything to do with the Inquisition… Are you responsible though? (I mean, you’re accusing me, for example, a Catholic, of being responsible for genocide, but you’re not saying that my best friend (Protestant) is responsible. But what if you were ‘born’ Catholic, say, and then you ‘switched’. Are you responsible though? If not, why not? What makes the difference between you (born Catholic, during the Inquisition, later switching to Protestant) and Joe Catholic, likewise born of a Catholic family, who ‘stayed’ Catholic? Most Protestants today with any kind of European (or even Middle East or African) heritage can find somebody in the family who was “Catholic” back then. It was their great grandma or grandpa who lived in Spain, or in Italy, during those "inquistion years’ just as much as it was OUR great grandma or grandpa, but somehow only we Catholics are ‘responsible’ for our ancestor’s sins while the descendents who happen to be Protestant today, even if they only converted yesterday, are guiltless? here we are, hundreds of years later, and some people are still insisting, “Oh you’re Catholic, YOU’RE responsible for people dying.”
Just tell me how <>, born in the 1950s, am ‘responsible’ for the deaths of 2000 non Christians some 400 to 500 years ago. I’m really interested in how I managed to somehow get that responsibility.
It isn’t even the Catholic FAITH or the Catholic bishops or the Pope that ‘killed’ those people --they were condemned and executed by the ‘lawful authority’ of their specific governments, sometimes with the bishops actively protesting and asking that they be spared, for pete’s sake. . .yet CATHOLICS are guilty of genocide?
Please explain. . .
We who? We who happen to be Catholic? Why?
Are Jews responsible for the death of Christ because, 2000 years ago, the chief priests thought it ‘expedient’ for one man to die for the people and engineered His trial and ultimately His death? They aren’t, right? Even though their ‘hierarchy’ specifically was after the death of an innocent man, we don’t go around 2000 years on and demand that the Jews ‘pay’ for their ‘crime’ that, as Jewish people, their ‘leaders’ at a specific time in history did something unthinkable–and Christ died. In fact, when some Christians (Catholic AND Protestant, mind you) made that mistake and claimed that Jews were killers, they were roundly condemned by the Pope. So what is so ‘different’ about the Inquisitions?
Are Romans (Italians) responsible for the death of Christ? Hey, the whole Roman government/hierarchy was responsible for the ultimate decision 2000 years ago. But we don’t hold all Romans/Italians responsible. And when one thinks of the great number of peoples/cultures that were part of the Roman empire at the time, anyone of those ‘cultures’ should be held responsible, right? (But just as above, no, we don’t go around claiming that any people living in any country or area that was under the Roman occupation in AD 33 are responsible for Christ’s death, and their descendents are ‘guilty of deicide.’
What about Protestants? Aren’t they responsible for the Inquisition too? Think about it --many of the Inquisitions (if not most) took place either before Protestants existed, or in places that were solidly “Catholic.” Thing is, suppose your mom and pop were Catholics during that ‘Inquisition’ time, and you were born during that time, but in a different country, and you never in all your life had any kind of contact with anybody who had anything to do with the Inquisition… Are you responsible though? (I mean, you’re accusing me, for example, a Catholic, of being responsible for genocide, but you’re not saying that my best friend (Protestant) is responsible. But what if you were ‘born’ Catholic, say, and then you ‘switched’. Are you responsible though? If not, why not? What makes the difference between you (born Catholic, during the Inquisition, later switching to Protestant) and Joe Catholic, likewise born of a Catholic family, who ‘stayed’ Catholic? Most Protestants today with any kind of European (or even Middle East or African) heritage can find somebody in the family who was “Catholic” back then. It was their great grandma or grandpa who lived in Spain, or in Italy, during those "inquistion years’ just as much as it was OUR great grandma or grandpa, but somehow only we Catholics are ‘responsible’ for our ancestor’s sins while the descendents who happen to be Protestant today, even if they only converted yesterday, are guiltless? here we are, hundreds of years later, and some people are still insisting, “Oh you’re Catholic, YOU’RE responsible for people dying.”
Just tell me how <>, born in the 1950s, am ‘responsible’ for the deaths of 2000 non Christians some 400 to 500 years ago. I’m really interested in how I managed to somehow get that responsibility.
It isn’t even the Catholic FAITH or the Catholic bishops or the Pope that ‘killed’ those people --they were condemned and executed by the ‘lawful authority’ of their specific governments, sometimes with the bishops actively protesting and asking that they be spared, for pete’s sake. . .yet CATHOLICS are guilty of genocide?
Please explain. . .
W
Willy_Jose
Guest
Hi,
Here is a good primer on the Inquisition from Catholic Answers. I have excerpted some which directly pertains to the Spanish Inquisition:
*The Spanish Inquisition is the source of most of the myths surrounding "The Inquisition." But the Spanish Inquisition was actually a mid-fifteenth century adoption of inquisition courts for a very specific political purpose. It was a government-controlled inquisition aimed primarily at faithful Catholics of Jewish ancestry. The image of a Spanish Inquisition burnings hundreds of thousands of Protestant heretics has no basis in fact— there were few if any Protestants in Spain.
Though first established with papal approval, the Spanish Inquisition quickly came to be dominated by the Spanish monarchy—not the Church. It had strong and ugly racial overtones as it was aimed at those of Jewish and, later, Muslim ancestry. While it certainly was a force that kept Protestant thought out of Spain in the Reformation and post-Reformation era, the number of those actually prosecuted for such theological dissent was very small.
The last major outburst of the inquisition in Spain was again aimed at Jewish converts in the 1720s. The Spanish Inquisition was formally ended by the monarchy in 1834, though it had effectively ended years earlier.
The Spanish Inquisition became the primary source of the myths and Reformation propaganda that created the Catholic urban legend of the Inquisition. This is the urban legend of an all-embracing, papally dominated Inquisition that lasted from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries, supposedly aimed at a hidden, Bible-believing Church.
This myth of the Inquisition grew out of sixteenth-century Reformation propaganda. It served as a means to generate anti-Catholic sentiment, particularly during the revolt of Netherlands against Spain that began in 1548. The myth of the Inquisition created a black legend that circulated throughout sixteenth-century Europe. It portrayed Spain as a symbol of repression, brutality, intolerance, and backwardness for centuries. This image became inextricably tied to the Church in general.
Oddly enough, the building of the myth of the Spanish Inquisition had little to do with the actual racial persecution in Spain against Jewish converts to the faith. That real tragedy of the Spanish Inquisition would not be rediscovered until unbiased historical studies of the late nineteenth century.
*
Here is a good primer on the Inquisition from Catholic Answers. I have excerpted some which directly pertains to the Spanish Inquisition:
*The Spanish Inquisition is the source of most of the myths surrounding "The Inquisition." But the Spanish Inquisition was actually a mid-fifteenth century adoption of inquisition courts for a very specific political purpose. It was a government-controlled inquisition aimed primarily at faithful Catholics of Jewish ancestry. The image of a Spanish Inquisition burnings hundreds of thousands of Protestant heretics has no basis in fact— there were few if any Protestants in Spain.
Though first established with papal approval, the Spanish Inquisition quickly came to be dominated by the Spanish monarchy—not the Church. It had strong and ugly racial overtones as it was aimed at those of Jewish and, later, Muslim ancestry. While it certainly was a force that kept Protestant thought out of Spain in the Reformation and post-Reformation era, the number of those actually prosecuted for such theological dissent was very small.
The last major outburst of the inquisition in Spain was again aimed at Jewish converts in the 1720s. The Spanish Inquisition was formally ended by the monarchy in 1834, though it had effectively ended years earlier.
The Spanish Inquisition became the primary source of the myths and Reformation propaganda that created the Catholic urban legend of the Inquisition. This is the urban legend of an all-embracing, papally dominated Inquisition that lasted from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries, supposedly aimed at a hidden, Bible-believing Church.
This myth of the Inquisition grew out of sixteenth-century Reformation propaganda. It served as a means to generate anti-Catholic sentiment, particularly during the revolt of Netherlands against Spain that began in 1548. The myth of the Inquisition created a black legend that circulated throughout sixteenth-century Europe. It portrayed Spain as a symbol of repression, brutality, intolerance, and backwardness for centuries. This image became inextricably tied to the Church in general.
Oddly enough, the building of the myth of the Spanish Inquisition had little to do with the actual racial persecution in Spain against Jewish converts to the faith. That real tragedy of the Spanish Inquisition would not be rediscovered until unbiased historical studies of the late nineteenth century.
*
A
Apollos
Guest
Well we are also responsible for the care given to millions of plague victims in the middle ages, as well as feeding and sheltering countless numbers of the homeless and starving for the last couple thousand years, not to mention all the schools we have founded and staffed with low-to-no income workers. We updated barbarian legal codes to better respect the rights and dignity of women. We brought brutal gladiatorial spectacles to an end by our disapproval. We got the Americans to stop their human sacrifices. Oh, and we custom-made an alphabet for the Slavic languages, and taught them how to read. Then the Slavs mostly went communist-totalitarian and thanked us properly for all we had done for them.
But 2000 innocent people - innocent, because if they were guilty it would be a moot point - executed by secular authority when heresy was a secular crime … now *that *deserves an apology.
P
Petergee
Guest
Non-Christians were by definition exempt from any action by any Catholic Inquisition. The Inquisitions’ role was to investigate the truth of allegations of heresy by baptised Christians. NO non-Christian was ever investigated, much less found guilty, much less killed, by any Catholic Inquisistion, unless he was falsely and deliberately pretending to be a Catholic whilst secretly practising **and promoting ** doctrines contrary to Catholic dogma.
The United Nations definition of “genocide” is that at least 1000 innocent people per year must have been murdered because of their race or ethnic group. The Catholic Inquisitions over 700 years resulted in the deaths (executed by civil authorities, not by any Church authority) of a grand total of about 3000 people convicted of heresy. And **none **of these was executed because of his race or ethnic identity.
The Catholic Inquisitions saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who, they found, had been falsely accused of heresy or witchcraft, and who would have been executed if the Inquisitions had not existed. Indeed this was the reason they were set up, to prevent injustice and summary executions. Most of the best and most humane features of modern court systems today were first invented and used by the Catholic Inquisitions.
And who is the “we” who choose to ignore the fact that the Inquisitions happened? I’ve never nmet anybody who ignores it or tries to deny it.
It’s bizarre saying you don’t want “stupid” responses when your opening statement contains several breathtakingly stupid and false assertions and implications.
N
Nexttogodliness
Guest
[The United Nations definition of “genocide” is that at least 1000 innocent people per year must have been murdered because of their race or ethnic group. The Catholic Inquisitions over 700 years resulted in the deaths (executed by civil authorities, not by any Church authority) of a grand total of about 3000 people convicted of heresy. And none of these was executed because of his race or ethnic identity.] your right… They were only killed b/c they were Christians who didn’t beleive in Christian views. So they qern’t killed based on race or religion. Just there ideology. Silly me! I guess it makes it okay to do that. Please excuse me while I go burn all liberal christians and conservative non Christians
P
puzzleannie
Guest
who is we? I was not even alive then, neither were you, so don’t beat yourself up about it
btw the Spanish Inquisition did not go after non-Christians, its specific mission was to root out heresy among Christians, which be definition non-Christians cannot commit, and indeed most of its work was determining who was not Christian so they could be exempted from the government-sponsored trials and punishment, which in a few cases yes involved execution.
P
Petergee
Guest
So would you care to withdraw this and the other ludicrous assertions in your opening post?
No they were killed by State authories because they had been convicted, by the fairest court system in the world at the time, of stubbornly and repeatedly promoting heretical doctrines, which the state saw as doing horrific damage to public order, peace and welfare. For example the Spanish Inquisition saved Spain and its dominions from the horrible “religious” wars and persecutions which engulfed Germany, France, England and Ireland. e.g in the Thirty tears War alone, one third of the population of Germany was killed. Compared to that, executing an average of one duly convicted recalcitrant promoter of heresy per month was a small price to pay. Also note that many of those exectuted were also guilty of other crimes such as murder, theft, child abuse, sedition, medical malpractice etc etc. but were tried for heresy because the state considered it the most serious offence.
It’s OK for a state to impose the death penalty for just reasons on persons duly convicted of grievous crimes, if this is the only or most practicable way of preventing their reoffending and protecting society. It is not OK for you to act as a vigilante. And being liberal or conservative has absolutely nothing to do with it, I can’t think why you dragged those in. And I have already pointed out that no non-Christian was ever subject to investigation by any Catholic inquisition.
Btw the inquistorial style court system which the Catholic Church invented is used in just about every non-English speaking country, and to some extent even in English speaking countries, has often been shown to be fairer to accused persons that the English-style adversarial court system.
For example In Australia in the 1980s, a young mother, a devout member of the heretical Seventh Day Adventist sect, was convicted by an adversarial court of murdering her baby and was sent to gaol. 3 years later the case was taken to an inquistorial style court which found her innocent and she was freed and paid compensation.
L
LilyM
Guest
For what it’s worth, people of the time would actually beg, plead and use every trick possible in order to be tried by the Church’s courts, including those of the Inquisition, rather than the secular courts of the day. This is because they were both more advanced in legal principle and more merciful in their sentences than secular courts.
Strange but true - English law in the Middle Ages, for example, had what was called a ‘benefit of clergy’ provision. This meant churchmen who committed crimes were beyond the jurisdiction of secular courts. This was a huge advantage, because Church courts actually didn’t impose capital punishment on thieves, for example, whereas the secular law did.
Now in those days basically the only educated people were clerics, so any man who could read from the Latin translation of the bible, was deemed to be a cleric and the ‘benefit of clergy’ applied to them.
Of course there was a loophole - invariably the passage required to be read was Psalm 51 - ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, according to your lovingkindess …’ So people would memorise this Psalm in Latin. It was called the ‘neck verse’ because it literally saved people’s necks :yup:
Strange but true - English law in the Middle Ages, for example, had what was called a ‘benefit of clergy’ provision. This meant churchmen who committed crimes were beyond the jurisdiction of secular courts. This was a huge advantage, because Church courts actually didn’t impose capital punishment on thieves, for example, whereas the secular law did.
Now in those days basically the only educated people were clerics, so any man who could read from the Latin translation of the bible, was deemed to be a cleric and the ‘benefit of clergy’ applied to them.
Of course there was a loophole - invariably the passage required to be read was Psalm 51 - ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, according to your lovingkindess …’ So people would memorise this Psalm in Latin. It was called the ‘neck verse’ because it literally saved people’s necks :yup:
A
Apollos
Guest
Yeah, that never happens nowadays.
P
Petergee
Guest
Yes, for example people awaiting trial in civil gaols would claim to the officials that they were promoting all sorts of bizarre hereies in the hope of being ransferred to the jurisdiction of the Church’s Inquisition. Also because the inquisition’s gaols were far more humane and sanitary, and because its trial were much fairer. For example in Church inquisitions torture was rarely if ever used, in fact they became the first court system in the world to totally abolish torture.
I think you’re over-egging the pudding there. Most people of the upper classes and even the middle classes (merchants etc) were reasonably fluent in Latin. Latin was the international language of commerce, politics etc in those days in Europe much as English is today in much of the world.
L
LilyM
Guest
I’m talking about the early Middle Ages - before the rise of the mercantile classes. By the time of Edward III, of course, it was officially deemed that all who could read were entitled to the benefit even though it was acknowledged that a lot of them weren’t actually clergymen.
In the early Middle Ages, then, there wasn’t actually a massive upper or mercantile class, and even those weren’t always especially learned. Even the great Charlemagne, patron of learning though he was, couldn’t write properly, and used to keep pen and paper by his bed so he could practice.
Merchants, for instance, may have had to know maths, to calculate weights and measures and figure their accounts. But for one thing these weren’t often kept in written form, since their customers were usually illiterate and written bills would’ve been of no use to them.
Notched pieces of wood called ‘tallies’, split down the middle with one half kept by the merchant and the other by the customer, were often used. When the customer came to pay the bill, the two halves were put back together to ensure they matched, and so both parties would know the amount recorded was accurate. Anyone who’s read The Canterbury Tales might remember the bawdy puns Chaucer makes about the ‘taille’ or tally when talking about merchant’s wives.
And I could point out that many a tradesman today can scrape by in terms of writing up a bill without being able to do a whole lot more by way of sophisticated reading or writing.
N
Nathan_Wagar
Guest
Is there any good reading material on the subject? Perhaps in the vein of “Victory
of Reason” or Richard Stark’s treatment of the crusades?
of Reason” or Richard Stark’s treatment of the crusades?
C
clmowry
Guest
Well yeah, you are being a bit silly now that you mention it.
But if you are going to make an accusation, then you should make it accruately.
It seems you are now changing the accusation from “genocide” to something like “killed Christians for refusing to recant a conflicting ideology.”
Personally I don’t think either of those would constitute an appropriate descption of the fair charges against the Spanish Inquistion [which I do not believe can be fairly placed soely at the feet of the Catholic Church BTW.]
Well yeah, you are being a bit silly now that you mention it.
But if you are going to make an accusation, then you should make it accurately.
It seems you are now changing the accusation from “genocide” to something like “killed Christians for refusing to recant a conflicting ideology.”
Personally I don’t think either of those would constitute an appropriate description of the fair charges against the Spanish Inquisition [which I do not believe can be fairly laid solely at the feet of the Catholic Church BTW.]
I believe the Spanish Inquisition did have an ethnic element because the vast majority of cases were against pseudo-converts that came from Judaism and Mohammedism. The charge of “genocide” however is a vast overstatement of that reality.
There is also no doubt that people were unfairly imprisoned, tortured, stripped of their property and executed.
There is also no doubt that the Church authorized and sanctioned the Inquisition.
That said, I do not think it is fair to lay the abuses of the Inquisition at the feet or Rome or all Catholics in general.
Personally I think this tragedy was primarily the result of a power grab by a bunch of greedy Spanish religious and civil leaders.
Chuck
P
Petergee
Guest
Yes, the judges of the inquisition wewre only human. They sometimes made mistakes. Some of them possibly even deliberately perverted the course of justice in order to settle a score with an enemy or in response to threats, bribes or inducements by kings, nobles and rich men.
But there is also no doubt that overall, the record of fairness and humaneness of the Inquisition stands up pretty well in comparison to just about any other court system, religious or civil, throughout history.
Ven John Paul II rightly expressed regret for the mistakes and sins which some inquisitors no doubt committed in the service of truth. But he did not, nor will any pope nor should any Catholic, apologise for the existence of the Inquisition itself. Catholics can legitimately take pride in the overall history of their Church’s inquisitions.
N
Nexttogodliness
Guest
How can we take pride in this. If the Inquisition was still in place, I’d be dead! I’m an avid supporter of both gay marriage and evolution, two things contradictory to catholic teachings. Back during that time, that was considered blasphemy and I would already have been burned by the inquistors. Your just kidding yourself if you think it was fair and we should take pride in it.
C
clmowry
Guest
That’s probably true of Catholicism as a general statement.
We can find a long list of serious sins among the body of any 2000 year old institution but you’d be hard pressed to find one with a better overal record.
Chuck
P
Petergee
Guest
Wow, that bundle of misconceptions almost outdoes the OP.
Evolution is not at all contradictory to Catholic teachings.
Suffering from the delusion that there can be a “marriage” between people of the same sex is not actually contrary to Catholic doctrine (which concerns only matters of faith and morals) either. It’s just simply factually wrong. Though of course it’s immoral to do anything to encourage anyone to engage in any sexual activity outside of marriage (which by definition is the union of a man with a woman as natural law tells us in advance of anything which God directly revealed on the matter through the Jews, Christ and His Apostles).
And neither is anything to do with blasphemy. Blasphemy is sinning against the 2nd Commandment by misusing the name of God or sacred persons or things.
And no Inquisition ever killed anybody. Much less “burned by the inquisitors”!
The fact that at the time most Inquisitions were running, most states treated heresy as a capital offence, is coincidental. Even if you were convicted of heresy, there is no state which currently has the death penalty for it.
(And please don’t reply with the silly " they should have refused to try people for heresy if they knew the State might kill them if they were guilty". If there were no Inquisition a lot more people would have been executed for heresy and witchcraft, the vast majority of them unjustly (as happened in Germany, Scandinavia, and Britain where there was no functioning Inquisition). The Inquisition was set up to SAVE the lives of innocent people accused of such crimes, and even to save guilty people and give them second and subsequent chances, and it succeeded magnificently.
I certainly take more pride in the Inquisitions, and consider them fairer, than those civil court systems of our own age whose “good and learned” judges rule that people have a “right” to freely kill innocent babies by the millions with impunity. You’re just kidding yourself if you seriously think otherwise.
S
Scoobyshme
Guest
You’re buying into Protestant polemics. Don’t.
Keep in mind a couple of things: 1) The notion behind the Inquisition was started by God. Read Numbers chapter 25. God hates heretics. He ordered Moses to sit in judgement and kill all heretics that he found guilty. 2) The secular government did the actual killing. 3) Spain had just gone through 700 years of continuous war with the Muslims who kept invading and trying to take Spain over. Some Muslims “converted” to Catholicism in order to gain some advantage, be it financial, spying, etc. 4) Only those professing to be Catholics could be brought up before the Inquisition. Non-Catholics were exempt. 5) To be executed, one had to be tried and found guilty on not one, but TWO separate occasions. 6) You must keep an historical perspective of these things, not a 21st century American perspective. In those days, all punishment was harsh. In fact, many people in civil prisons blasphemed in order to be sent to the Inquisitor’s jail, where they received much better treatment. 7) Anyone accused by the Inquisition could provide the court with a list of “enemies.” No one on that list could testify against them!
To hear a good talk on this period in history, download the following file and play it:
alabamacatholicresources.com/Downloads/Church_History_1325-1650AD.mp3
- Status