What was the Inquisition?

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Mannyfit75 said:
If we add the figures, we find that the entire Inquisition of 500 years, caused about 6,000 deaths. These atrocities are completely inexcusable. These numbers are however, a far cry from the those used in the popular press by people who are always looking to destroy the Church. This is about equal to the number of war related deaths that have occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2 years since the US responded to 9/11.

Currently in North America, more babies die from abortion in 2 days than the total number of people who died during centuries of Inquisitions. Now that is a scary thought. The thought of millions dying in the Inquisitions is erroneous and it isn’t supported by facts. Most scholars, and historians agree to this.
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It may also be of interest, and add a bit of perspective, to note that during the much hailed French Revolution associated with the “Age of Reason”, the Reign of Terror (1793-1794) it spawned brought about the death of at least 18,000 people at the guillotine or the like. Accusations of counter-revolutionary thought or activities led to trials in which assessing guilt or innocence were not scupulous and so unscupulous. Suspicion of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities could place a person under suspicion and thereby lead to hurried trial and death. Not to mention deaths by mob violence. During the last six weeks of the Terror alone nearly fourteen hundred people were guillotined in Paris alone.
 
newbie1234 said:
So correcting a brother in grave error would constitute pulling his arms and legs out of his sockets(the rack) or ripping his skin off his body or flogging?
That is what you do to your BROTHER?
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Gee…just like the persecutions of my Irish Catholic ancestors was equally charitable “correction” and the Catholics who were burned alive in England and other places where we were subjected to Protestant “charity”. You wanna go there…fine, but you’ll find that your own hands are just as bloody.
 
jmcrae said:
Just yesterday, Ernst Zundel was sentenced to prison for denying the Holocaust.

In essence, it’s the same case - he has committed “heresy” against the State, by promulgating false information, and leading others to become anti-Semitic.

Do you think he should have been free to just express himself, no matter what?
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Yes, absolutely. And in the US he would still be a free man…and should be, notwithstanding the _____ he espouses.
 
rr1213 said:
Yes, absolutely. And in the US he would still be a free man…and should be, notwithstanding the _____ he espouses.
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But he was in the United States and the United States authorities kidnapped him and sent him back to Canada where he waited for months and months for violating Canadian “hate crime” laws. He was then illegally transported back to Germany.

I disagree wholeheartedly with his views and consider him an anti-Semite, but I don’t think we should start convicting people for thought crimes else there’s no telling where it will end.
 
rr1213 said:
This is a distinction without a difference. With respect to the Spanish Inquisition at least, the Church determined that the accused was a heretic. The Church then turned unrepentent and obstinate heretics over to the State. As stated by one Catholic source,
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Yes, it is. We need the context of how this happened. There are records of common criminals who BEGGED to be tried by the Inquisition and not the secular courts. This is because they could repent and be set free. I’m glad I don’t live in a fuedalistic society, but this is how it worked and its worth demonstrating that for the context. Anyone who is honestly researching a subject will do so in context and try to leave their biases to a bare minimum.
 
rr1213 said:
“Thieves and hooligans”? A bit of hyperbole huh? No more or less than the Catholic rulers of predominately Catholic countries at the time.
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No. Certainly not hyperbole. Have you heard of Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries? The Church of England still controls parishes, missions and Cathedrals which it stole from the Roman Church.
 
Semper_Fi said:
But he was in the United States and the United States authorities kidnapped him and sent him back to Canada where he waited for months and months for violating Canadian “hate crime” laws. He was then illegally transported back to Germany.

I disagree wholeheartedly with his views and consider him an anti-Semite, but I don’t think we should start convicting people for thought crimes else there’s no telling where it will end.
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Would you please provide a source for your allegation that US authorities “kidnapped” him?
 
rr1213 said:
Not that two or three thousand people executed for their religious beliefs is a good thing.
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Very true. But anyone with a sense of human history would find claims of 10-50 million people dying in the Inquisition implausible. I doubt if the entire population of Europe during the time of the Inquisition was more than 50 million people, especially, as another poster pointed out, after the Black Death killed 1/3 of the population of Europe. I’m not trying to justify imprisoning or torturing people on the basis of unpopular religious beliefs, but to claim that the Inquisition killed more than four times the number of people as the Holocaust, twice as many as the Black Death, is simply absurd on historical grounds.

I won’t attempt to describe the Inquisition, since, while I have studied European history, I have never studied the Inquisition in depth, so any explanation I give would be feeble and inaccurate.
 
valient_Lucy said:
Very true. But anyone with a sense of human history would find claims of 10-50 million people dying in the Inquisition implausible. I doubt if the entire population of Europe during the time of the Inquisition was more than 50 million people, especially, as another poster pointed out, after the Black Death killed 1/3 of the population of Europe.
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As one interesting data point, the population of Britain in 1400 is estimated to have been only 2 million.
I’m not trying to justify imprisoning or torturing people on the basis of unpopular religious beliefs, but to claim that the Inquisition killed more than four times the number of people as the Holocaust, twice as many as the Black Death, is simply absurd on historical grounds.
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And it is important to remember that there were many parts of Europe (most, actually) where the Inquisition was not active. Thus those 10-50 million cannot be “spread” over all of Europe, but only a relatively small area of the continent.
 
:twocents:
I’m glad that Manny mentioned the THREE Inquisitions: Medieval, Spanish and Roman. Many insist on just the second one.
Now, if ever someone raises this issue again, hopefully we can legitemately ask them right back–all together, now–WHICH ONE?
 
JFT said:
:twocents:
I’m glad that Manny mentioned the THREE Inquisitions: Medieval, Spanish and Roman. Many insist on just the second one.
Now, if ever someone raises this issue again, hopefully we can legitemately ask them right back–all together, now–WHICH ONE?
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Yes of course there were two Inquisition all done by the secular bodies of government.
 
Mannyfit75 said:
Yes of course there were two Inquisition all done by the secular bodies of government.
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Manny, this is simply not true. The Roman inquisition, of course, was clearly run by the Church. Further, everytime I point out the deep involvement of the Church in the Spanish Inquisition–quoting from a Catholic source mind you yet–it just gets ignored by Catholic posters.

“The Spanish Inquisition deserves neither the exaggerated praise nor the equally exaggerated vilification often bestowed on it…However, the predominant ecclesiastical nature of the institution can hardly be doubted. The Holy See sanctioned the institution, accorded to the grand inquisitor canonical installation and therewith judicial authority concerning matters of faith, while from the grand inquisitor jurisdiction passed down to the subsidiary tribunals under his control. Joseph de Maistre introduced the thesis that the Spanish Inquisition was mostly a civil tribunal; formerly, however, theologians never questioned its ecclesiastical nature. Only thus, indeed, can one explain how the Popes always admitted appeals from it to the Holy See, called to themselves entire trials and that at any stage of the proceedings, exempted whole classes of believers from its jurisdiction, intervened in the legislation, deposed grand inquisitors, and so on.”

newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm
 
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