What was the Inquisition?

[rr1213]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II#Apologies

Apologies
Over the later parts of his reign, John Paul II made several apologies to various peoples that had been wronged by the Catholic Church through the years. Even before he became the Pope, he was a prominent supporter of initiatives like the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops from 1965. During his reign as a Pope, he publicly made apologies for over 100 of these wrongdoings, including:

The persecution of the Italian scientist and philosopher Galileo Galilei in the trial in 1633 (October 31, 1992).
Catholic involvement with the African slave trade (August 9, 1993).
The Church Hierarchy’s role in burnings at the stake and the religious wars that followed the Protestant Reformation (May 1995, in the Czech Republic).
The injustices committed against women in the name of Christ, the violation of women’s rights and for the historical denigration of women (July 10, 1995, in a letter to “every woman”).
Inactivity and silence of some Roman Catholics during the Holocaust (March 16, 1998).
For the execution of Jan Hus in 1415 (December 18, 1999 in Prague). When John Paul II visited Prague in 1990s, he requested experts in this matter "to define with greater clarity the position held by Jan Hus among the Church’s reformers, and acknowledged that “independently of the theological convictions he defended, Hus cannot be denied integrity in his personal life and commitment to the nation’s moral education.” It was another step in building a bridge between Catholics and Protestants.
For the sins of Catholics throughout the ages for violating “the rights of ethnic groups and peoples, and [for showing] contempt for their cultures and religious traditions”. (March 12, 2000, during a public Mass of Pardons).
For the sins of the Crusader attack on Constantinople in 1204. (4 May 2001, to the Patriarch of Constantinople).
For missionary abuses in the past against indigenous peoples of the South Pacific (November 22, 2001, via the Internet).
For the massacre of Aztecs and other Mesoamericans by the Spanish in the name of the Church.

John Paul II was a fine Christian man and a powerful Christian leader. He probably has done more than any other Catholic to earn the respect of Protestants (not that he needed to earn that respect). I don’t know of a single Protestant who does not admire the man (although there are no doubt a few deceived individuals who don’t). John Paul II is a saint if there ever was a saint.

 

[newbie1234]

John Paul II was a fine Christian man and a powerful Christian leader. He probably has done more than any other Catholic to earn the respect of Protestants (not that he needed to earn that respect). I don’t know of a single Protestant who does not admire the man (although there are no doubt a few deceived individuals who don’t). John Paul II is a saint if there ever was a saint.

I do admire JP2. Had an audience with him a couple of times.
But his devotion to Mary raises a red flag with me.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

But his devotion to Mary raises a red flag with me.

O-------kay.
Would you mind starting a separate thread to discuss this? I don’t wish to hijack this one, but seriously, statements like yours are problematic to me as a Christian and I would welcome the opportunity later this evening to discuss this concern of yours.

 

[newbie1234]

O-------kay.
Would you mind starting a separate thread to discuss this? I don’t wish to hijack this one, but seriously, statements like yours are problematic to me as a Christian and I would welcome the opportunity later this evening to discuss this concern of yours.

I already discussed Marion apparition devotion on another thread.
You could start another thread if you wish or look up ‘Split Fatima thread’

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Yes, I remember.

In my opinion, though, the remark you made (as I highlighted) is inappropriate to this particular thread. I don’t believe it should be ‘passed over’ as though we Catholics ‘accepted’ it as an accurate judgment-- any more than you would let pass, without question or response, a slur (and it is a slur though I’m sure you did not mean it as such) on a respected Protestant leader. Since we are discussing the Inquisition, I respectfully request that any parentheticals which have (as you noted) been dealt with elsewhere should be eliminated; let’s stick to the topic at hand.

 

[newbie1234]

Yes, I remember.

In my opinion, though, the remark you made (as I highlighted) is inappropriate to this particular thread. I don’t believe it should be ‘passed over’ as though we Catholics ‘accepted’ it as an accurate judgment-- any more than you would let pass, without question or response, a slur (and it is a slur though I’m sure you did not mean it as such) on a respected Protestant leader. Since we are discussing the Inquisition, I respectfully request that any parentheticals which have (as you noted) been dealt with elsewhere should be eliminated; let’s stick to the topic at hand.

Fair enough.

 

[miguel]

But religious liberty, especially within Christianity, simply didn’t exist as a concept back then. One could sit down with a history book and find any number of past attitudes and practices that are today repugnant, but what is the point of such an exercise? What, really, is the point? To actually understand, or to continue to accuse people from 600 or 1000 or 1400 of not being people from 2000? OK, they’re all guilty.

(BTW, those in the past would also find any number of our own attitudes and practices repugnant. It takes a very, very long view of history to judge a past era, not to mention judging our own era.)

Religious liberty is not really a moral absolute anyway. In our own (American) history, it was a political compromise. The Constitutions’s framers were all too aware of the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in Europe. And they simply wanted to avoid that here. Is it good that some people accept and live their lives in accordance with certain heresies? No it isn’t. There are always negative consequences to embracing heresy. Heresy is unreality. It may be well-intentioned, but it is still heresy. Protestant rejection of Our Lord’s teaching on divorce for example has had very negative consequences in society. There’s no denying it. But it still beats killing each other over our differences. And that was the framers intent. If only that was in fact the case. We shouldn’t forget the right to abortion has also been justified on religious freedom grounds. But the whole point of religious freedom was to avoid killing each other. This is how heresy messes things up.

 

[E.E.N.S]

Religious liberty is not really a moral absolute anyway. In our own (American) history, it was a political compromise. The Constitutions’s framers were all too aware of the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in Europe. And they simply wanted to avoid that here. Is it good that some people accept and live their lives in accordance with certain heresies? No it isn’t. There are always negative consequences to embracing heresy. Heresy is unreality. It may be well-intentioned, but it is still heresy. Protestant rejection of Our Lord’s teaching on divorce for example has had very negative consequences in society. There’s no denying it. But it still beats killing each other over our differences. And that was the framers intent. If only that was in fact the case. **We shouldn’t forget the right to abortion has also been justified on religious freedom grounds. **But the whole point of religious freedom was to avoid killing each other. This is how heresy messes things up.

Which brings to light another, far more heinous reality - abortion. With abortion we kill more each year than all who were killed in 600 years combined of the inquisitions. * And these who are aborted are completely innocent of any personal crime.* But I digress…

 

[rr1213]

Actually in the American legal system the “right” to an abortion is justified as a component of the right to privacy under the Constitution. Not that the right to privacy, to the extent that it exists under the Constitution, actually would extend to aborting your unborn child.

 

[miguel]

Actually in the American legal system the “right” to an abortion is justified as a component of the right to privacy under the Constitution. Not that the right to privacy, to the extent that it exists under the Constitution, actually would extend to aborting your unborn child.

I was referring more to the propaganda justification. There is no explicit right to privacy in the Constitution. It was deemed to be implicit because of other concepts contained in the Bill of Rights like religious freedom.

 

[Contarini]

Now I am for example not asking Edwin to ‘apologize’ on behalf of the Protestants in England for torturing Catholics, such as Edmund Campion, who was racked so hard that he could not even stand at his trial.

But I will happily do so. The treatment of Campion was a shame and a disgrace and an abomination. Apology is a weak word–we need to repent deeply of this. And furthermore we (Protestants as a whole this time–the Campion business is a specific Anglican issue) need to repent of our repeated desecrations of the Blessed Sacrament in particular and of traditional Christian piety in general. I would like to see the Archbishop of Canterbury make a procession barefoot from the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, with all the bishops of the Church of England following behind him carrying candles and dressed in sackloth.

OK–in part I’d like to see it because it would look cool. . . .

Edwin

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

So the inquisition was like a positive thing.

Cut the sarcasm.

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

Offcourse! what else could it be from the infallible church.

Turn the other cheek and love your enemies was just expressed differently back then.

Excuse me, brother. But didn’t I just explain that it wasn’t the Church that executed these people? There were secular laws which deemed heresy punishable by death. There was no church law (canon law) which deemed heresy punishable by death.

And we are supposed to turn the other cheek and not try to correct a brother in grave error? How is that a Christian principle?

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

So far as numbers go, I think fifty million is way too high, but 2000 rather low. According to “Western Europe in the Middle Ages”, seven thousand people were killed in the 1209 attack on Beziers alone. There is a rather disturbing quote from the papal legate Arnold Amalric that is also included in the account, “Kill all, for God will know his own.”

Hmm, I could have sworn it was Martin Luther who said something similar…

 

[Lion_of_Narnia]

Hi all,

So far as numbers go, I think fifty million is way too high, but 2000 rather low.

response: the 2200-2700 Kamen estimates and the 3000 of Weller are of the Spanish (& Portugese) Inquisitions only The Medieval & Roman Inquisitions are seprate institutions. The former was founded in 1215 as a reaction to the Albigensian-Cathar heresy and the excess of the Albigensian Crusade–the Crusade was a battle axe that went way out of the church’s control–the Inquisition in comparison was a scapel. The MI lasted a bit over a century, confined to the areas of the heresy (southern France, mostly)–while records of the MI are less preserved than the SI, we can come up w/ some estimates in the range of 3000 executed, a larger number punished but not executed, and an even larger number questioned (which might or might not involve torture)–like the SI, a lumping of trials & executions in the first few decades, tapering out as the heresy died out.

According to “Western Europe in the Middle Ages”, seven thousand people were killed in the 1209 attack on Beziers alone. There is a rather disturbing quote from the papal legate Arnold Amalric that is also included in the account, “Kill all, for God will know his own.”

response: That was an act of warfareof the AC, not of the activities of the MI–an Inquisition by definition is an ecclesiastical court, follwing current court proceedures on charged individuals. War casualties, mob violence should not be confused with the activities of a court procedure–as repugnant as we may find those proceedings.

Also, that quote has never been corroborated–it may have been the attitude of the time, but it has not been definitly documented (much like Louis XIV’s “I am the state”)

Or was this not considered part of the Inquisition?

response: Nope
Zirconia

 

[newbie1234]

Excuse me, brother. But didn’t I just explain that it wasn’t the Church that executed these people? There were secular laws which deemed heresy punishable by death. There was no church law (canon law) which deemed heresy punishable by death.

And we are supposed to turn the other cheek and not try to correct a brother in grave error? How is that a Christian principle?

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?

 

[rr1213]

Excuse me, brother. But didn’t I just explain that it wasn’t the Church that executed these people? There were secular laws which deemed heresy punishable by death. There was no church law (canon law) which deemed heresy punishable by death.

And we are supposed to turn the other cheek and not try to correct a brother in grave error? How is that a Christian principle?

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,

“[T] the predominant ecclesiastical nature of the institution [Spanish Inquisition] 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

The Church turned heretics over to the State with full knowledge that the State was going to execute them for the crime of heresy. The Church was complicit in the process and in the result.

 

[VociMike]

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?

No, and neither do you burn him at the stake in the public square in Geneva. But at some point you have to stop living in the 16th century and enter the 21st. It is precisely this reliving of ancient injuries that perpetuates blood feuds throughout the world. Just look at how the Muslims are still worked up over the Crusades and the reconquista, rather than facing the task of improving their lot here and now.

BTW, here’s a quote from Calvin on the subject of punishing heretics, since you seem determined to focus solely on the Catholic Church in this regard:

“Whoever shall maintain that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in their crime and guilty as they are. There is no question here of man’s authority; it is God who speaks, and clear it is what law he will have kept in the church, even to the end of the world. Wherefore does he demand of us a so extreme severity, if not to show us that due honor is not paid him, so long as we set not his service above every human consideration, so that we spare not kin, nor blood of any, and forget all humanity when the matter is to combat for His glory.”

 

[jmcrae]

The Church turned heretics over to the State with full knowledge that the State was going to execute them for the crime of heresy. The Church was complicit in the process and in the result.

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?

 

[mozart-250]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II#Apologies

Apologies
Over the later parts of his reign, John Paul II made several apologies to various peoples that had been wronged by the Catholic Church through the years. Even before he became the Pope, he was a prominent supporter of initiatives like the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops from 1965. During his reign as a Pope, he publicly made apologies for over 100 of these wrongdoings, including:

Amen!

Speaking on being more Catholic than the pope; what I don’t understand on these assorted “Inquisition” threads why the response just isn’t “Our Holy Father has apologized for it and so do we”.

And don’t us Protestants have enough skeletons in our own closet so that any self-righteousness on our part is blatant hypocrisy anyway.

What I don’t get is the emphasis on numbers anyway.

OK…so the Catholics killed 69,345,234,267 folks during the inquistion. The fact remains that both Calvin and Zwingli were also responsible for the deaths of anabaptists (I dunno about Luther). Google anabaptist martyrs and you can read for yourself. Why does murdering 50 million folks during the inquisition make one more of a murderer than murdering a lesser number during the same time period.

Because of the sins of our reformers, I can not in good conscience get self righteous over the sins of the Catholics.