Catholic Inquisitions

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CoreIssue

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More bloody than the Catholic Church now admits.

Fact is there was more than one inquisition by Catholicism.
 
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farouk

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It was indeed extraordinarily repressive. When Tyndale the English Bible translator was strangled and burnt at the stake, it was in the southern Netherlands, under Spanish rule.
 
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Marymog

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Again. Started thread you want your timing instead of trying to derail this thread.
Thank you CI,

Bringing honesty and facts about the brutality of all our Christian history is derailing? How so?
 

theefaith

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Inquisition simply means to inquire

the church has the duty to safeguard the faithful and the sacred deposit of faith against all error!
 

Illuminator

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If the Inquisitions disprove Catholicism, then the Protestant Inquisition disproves Protestantism. It's a stupid nowhere discussion. Seventh Day Adventists are obsessed with bashing Catholics. If they spent as much money on helping the poor instead of their propaganda campaign, I might take them seriously.
 
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Illuminator

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Sooner or later, any discussion of apologetics with Fundamentalists (or SDA) will address the Inquisition. It is a handy stick for Catholic-bashing, simply because most Catholics seem at a loss for a sensible reply. This tract will set the record straight.

There have actually been several different inquisitions. The first was established in 1184 in southern France as a response to the Catharist heresy. This was known as the Medieval Inquisition, and it was phased out as Catharism disappeared.

Quite separate was the Roman Inquisition, begun in 1542. It was the least active and most benign of the three variations.

Separate again was the infamous Spanish Inquisition, started in 1478, a state institution used to identify conversos—Jews and Muslims who pretended to convert to Christianity for political or social advantage and secretly practiced their former religion. More importantly, its job was also to clear the good names of many people who were falsely accused of being heretics. It was the Spanish Inquisition that, at least in the popular imagination, had the worst record of fulfilling these duties.

The Main Sources
Fundamentalists writing about the Inquisition rely on books by Henry C. Lea (1825–1909) and G. G. Coulton (1858–1947). Each man got most of the facts right, and each made progress in basic research. The problem is that they did not weigh facts well, because they harbored fierce animosity toward the Church that had little to do with the Inquisition itself.

The contrary problem has not been unknown. A few Catholic writers have glossed over incontrovertible facts and tried to whitewash the Inquisition. These well-intentioned but misguided apologists are, in one respect, much like Lea, Coulton, and contemporary Fundamentalist writers. They fear, while the others hope, that the facts about the Inquisition might prove the illegitimacy of the Catholic Church.

The various inquisitions stretched through the better part of a millennium, and can collectively be called “the Inquisition.”

Don’t Fear the Facts
But the facts fail to do that. No account of foolishness, misguided zeal, or cruelty by Catholics can undo the divine foundation of the Church, though admittedly these things are stumbling blocks to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

What must be grasped is that the Church contains within itself all sorts of sinners and knaves, and some of them obtain positions of responsibility. Paul and Christ himself warned us that there would be a few ravenous wolves among Church leaders (Acts 20:29; Matt. 7:15).

Thinking that Fundamentalists might have a point in their attacks on the Inquisition, Catholics tend to be defensive. This is the wrong attitude; rather, we should learn what really happened, understand events in light of the times, and then explain to anti-Catholics why the sorry tale does not prove what they think.

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.

In fact, no one knows exactly how many people perished through the various Inquisitions. We can determine for certain, though, one thing about numbers given by Fundamentalists: They are far too large. One book popular with Fundamentalists claims that 95 million people died under the Inquisition.

The figure is so grotesquely off that one immediately doubts the writer’s sanity, or at least his grasp of demographics. Not until modern times did the population of those countries where the Inquisitions existed approach 95 million. Inquisitions did not exist in Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, or England, being confined mainly to southern France, Italy, Spain, and a few parts of the Holy Roman Empire. The Inquisition could not have killed that many people because those parts of Europe did not have that many people to kill!

Furthermore, the plague, which killed a third of Europe’s population, is credited by historians with major changes in the social structure. The Inquisition is credited with few—precisely because the number of its victims was comparatively small. In fact, recent studies indicate that at most there were only a few thousand capital sentences carried out for heresy in Spain, and these were over the course of several centuries.
 

Illuminator

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What’s the Point?
Ultimately, it may be a waste of time arguing about statistics. Instead, ask Fundamentalists just what they think the existence of the Inquisition demonstrates. And what is that something? That Catholics are sinners? Guilty as charged. That at times people in positions of authority have used poor judgment? Ditto. That otherwise good Catholics, afire with zeal, sometimes lose their balance? All true, but such charges could be made even if the Inquisition had never existed and perhaps could be made of some Fundamentalists.

Fundamentalist (and SDA) writers claim the existence of the Inquisition proves the Catholic Church could not be the Church founded by our Lord. At first blush it might seem so, but most people see at once that the argument is weak. One reason Fundamentalists talk about the Inquisition is that they imagine it was established to eliminate the Fundamentalists themselves.

The Real Point
Many discussions about the Inquisition get bogged down in numbers and many Catholics fail to understand what Fundamentalists are really driving at. As a result, Catholics restrict themselves to secondary matters. Instead, they should force the SDA to say explicitly what they are trying to prove.

However, there is a certain utility—a decidedly limited one—in demonstrating that the kinds and degrees of punishments inflicted by the Spanish Inquisition were similar to (actually, even lighter than) those meted out by secular courts. It is equally true that, despite what we consider the Spanish Inquisition’s lamentable procedures, many people preferred to have their cases tried by ecclesiastical courts because the secular courts had even fewer safeguards.

The crucial thing for Catholics, once they have obtained some appreciation of the history of the Inquisition, is to explain how such an institution could have been associated with a divinely established Church and why it is not proper to conclude from the existence of the Inquisition that the Catholic Church is not the Church of Christ.

To that end, it is helpful to point out that it is easy to see how those who led the Inquisitions could think their actions were justified. The Bible itself records instances where God commanded that formal, legal inquiries—that is, inquisitions—be carried out to expose secret believers in false religions. In Deuteronomy 17:2–5, God said: “If there is found among you, within any of your towns which the Lord your God gives you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, and it is told you and you hear of it; then you shall inquire diligently [note that phrase: “inquire diligently”], and if it is true and certain that such an abominable thing has been done in Israel, then you shall bring forth to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones.”

It is clear that there were some Israelites who posed as believers in and keepers of the covenant with Yahweh, while inwardly they did not believe and secretly practiced false religions, and even tried to spread them (cf. Deut. 13:6–11). To protect the kingdom from such hidden heresy, these secret practitioners of false religions had to be rooted out and expelled from the community. This directive from the Lord applied even to whole cities that turned away from the true religion (Deut. 13:12–18). Like Israel, medieval Europe was a society of Christian kingdoms that were formally consecrated to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is therefore quite understandable that these Catholics would read their Bibles and conclude that for the good of their Christian society they, like the Israelites before them, “must purge the evil from the midst of you” (Deut. 13:5, 17:7, 12). Paul repeats this principle in 1 Corinthians 5:13.

These same texts were interpreted similarly by the first Protestants, who also tried to root out and punish those they regarded as heretics. Luther and Calvin both endorsed the right of the state to protect society by purging false religion. In fact, Calvin not only banished from Geneva those who did not share his views, he permitted and in some cases ordered others to be executed for “heresy” (e.g., Jacques Gouet, tortured and beheaded in 1547; and Michael Servetus, burned at the stake in 1553). In England and Ireland, Reformers engaged in their own ruthless inquisitions and executions. Thousands of English and Irish Catholics were put to death—many by being hanged, drawn, and quartered—for practicing the Catholic faith and refusing to become Protestant. An even greater number were forced to flee to the Continent. We point this out to show that both sides understood the Bible to require the use of penal sanctions to root out false religion from Christian society.

The fact that the Protestant Reformers also created inquisitions to root out Catholics and others who did not fall into line with the doctrines of the local Protestant sect shows that the existence of an inquisition does not prove that a movement is not of God. Protestants and SDA cannot make this claim against Catholics without having it backfire on themselves.

The Inquisition | Catholic Answers
 

tsr

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The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy. The Inquisition started in 12th-century France to combat religious dissent, in particular the Cathars and the Waldensians. Other groups investigated later included the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites (followers of Jan Hus) and the Beguines.

The Inquisition was a powerful office set up within the Catholic Church to root out and punish heresy throughout Europe and the Americas. Beginning in the 12th century and continuing for hundreds of years, the Inquisition is infamous for the severity of its tortures and its persecution of Jews and Muslims.
 

Gary Urban

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The fact that the Protestant Reformers also created inquisitions to root out Catholics and others who did not fall into line with the doctrines of the local Protestant sect shows that the existence of an inquisition does not prove that a movement is not of God. Protestants and SDA cannot make this claim against Catholics without having it backfire on themselves.

I would offer that is why it is important to look to the foundation of any reformation that is needed to restore the government of our Holy Father working with the Son to bring us the peace of God that does surpass our understanding as His understanding. The first century reformation sets the standard.

There we a can find men with a false zeal based upon what the eyes see as in "out of sight out of mind". (Paganism) And therefore not all things written in the law and prophets (sola scriptura) What is applied to the first century reformation is the same with the 15th .

Men given letters of approval from the High priest or Pope to murder men and woman. . the misperceived competition

Acts 22: 3-5 I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day. And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished.

When Paul was born again according to the water of the word .Paul as leader of the Narene sect become # 1 on the ten most wanted to murder . They hated all things written in the law and the prophets (sola scriptura) and tried to prove it was heresy so that they could keep "I heard it through the grape vine" but they could not. You could say it backfired they walked away faithless trusting in the temporal things seen

Acts 24: 13-14 Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me. But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets:

Unlike the legion of fathers they worshiped themselves as a legion of gods.rather than our one unsen Holy Father. Comparing themselves to themselves as a hierarchy of men that lord it over the faith or understanding of the non venerable show watchers..
 
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