August, 1553
The General Inquisitor leaned over, peering eye to eye with the defendant, “So you... you call yourself a Reformer? You blasphemed when you wrote that the devil is a part of God, did you not?”
“The papacy is magnificent proof that God has a bit of the Devil in Him,” Michael Servetus shot a defiant look towards the Inquisition and then the spectators who filled the courtroom. The defendant was playing to the crowd, all of whom were tired of Rome’s iniquities under Julius III and the gossip about his boy-toy living in the papal quarters. Everyone was becoming more and more outraged at church abuses.
Some in the crowd were praying for the reformer’s release. After all, he was not under the jurisdiction of this city. The Inquisition had circumvented the law in order for this proceeding to continue. The leading members of the city, outraged at what Servetus was teaching, had already confiscated his property and thrown him into jail and now were calling for his death. His “execrable blasphemies” --what they called his writings ---questioned the doctrine of the Trinity and clearly, he favored Jews and Moslems. The Indictment: forty charges of theological incorrectness.
But what was worse, far worse, is that Servetus arrogantly criticized the writings of their most prominent and beloved clergyman, Père Cauvin. To which Cauvin replied several months earlier, “if [Servetus] comes here and I have any authority, I will never let him leave alive.” When the reformer did enter the city, he made the mistake of attending Cauvin’s Sunday sermon and was immediately arrested when the clergyman pointed him out to the police.
After all, it had been less than a year since the city council had declared that Cauvin’s writings were officially, “holy doctrines which no man has the right to speak against.” This was the first time that particular law had to be enforced in Geneva.
The prosecutor walked about the room, forming his next question when he walked back to the witness’ stand and continued the cross-examination.
“As has been said, this is simply a long volume of your ranting, Servetus.” The Inquisitor General slapped one of the last copies of Restitutio sitting on the judge’s bench. This one book had not yet been destroyed for it was needed as evidence against the reformer. “In this work you are insulting and attacking sound doctrine--established Christian doctrine! With great audacity you claim it is evil to baptize infants, do you not?”
“It is an invention of the devil, and infernal falsity for the destruction of Christianity,” Servetus replied.
The Inquisition’s decision had been pre-determined and no one was surprised when the trial ended with the judge’s verdict: “burn the heretic at the stake.”
When Père Cauvin heard the outcome of the trial, he wished they had chosen beheading rather than the more torturous burning, but he was glad to rid the city and himself of this archenemy and arch-heretic. Cauvin argued that Christianity must not be stained with the sin of leaving such a heretic alive.
On October 27, 1553 with what the officials believed to be the last copy of the infamous Restitutio chained to his leg, Servetus cried out “O Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, have pity on me!” as the flames began to burn his flesh.
One of the witnesses commented later that if only Servetus had cried out to Jesus as the “eternal Son” the Inquisition would have pulled him from the flames.
It wasn’t just the people of Geneva who wanted Servetus silenced. Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, the Spanish and French Inquisitions all had condemned his writings. The particular Inquisition that finally got to Servetus was the Protestant--not Catholic--one in Geneva, Switzerland. The city’s famous leader who called the Inquisition as well as recommended death was the Reformer, Père Jean Cauvin who is better known to us who speak English as John Calvin.
At this time in Christian history torturing and killing an unrepentant and persistent heretic was considered necessary to keep the flock from falling to a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The souls--the eternal life--of the parishioners were in the hands of God’s appointed bishops and kings, they must protect and defend their people by protecting and defending the faith.
John Calvin, the Jean Cauvin of our story, wrote to defend his position of the death sentence for Servetus:
“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. ... Wherefore does [God] 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.” [from Calvin’s, Defense of Orthodoxy Faith against the Prodigious Errors of the Spaniard Michael Servetus.]
Servetus would not be the only heretic killed in Protestant Geneva. In the next few years there would be fifty-seven more and seventy-six exiled. Anabaptists were often drowned as fit punishment for a second adult baptism.
[Note: the courtroom scene is a dramatization of the facts.]
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1568, The Netherlands
The cosmopolitan city of Antwerp was in panic. As the richest trading city of Europe at that time, with hundreds of ships arriving daily, laden with exotic spices for wealthy merchants trade, a religious uprising was not what they wanted. The alarming newspaper headlines reported that the fervent Catholic, King Philip of Spain, was sending some officials back to his old haunting ground--the areas of Holland and Flanders--to coax the Protestants back into his church. The Danish knew all about these “officials.” Newspapers had been spreading terror for years about this Spanish Inquisition.
The liberal and tolerant-minded Flemish believed the House of Hapsburg was determined to stamp out religious freedom and now the papal-puppet King Philip aimed his heretic hunt at their little area. Though the Netherlands had their own state run inquisition, they focused on what the papers had told them year after year--all the propaganda of the horrors and tortures of the iron-handed and cruel Catholics. The newspaper cartoons painted pictures of a hellacious fraternity of vile monks who delighted in finding the most heinous ways of torturing human flesh.
Though King Phillip’s wife, the Queen of Great Britain known better as “Bloody Mary,” had died a decade ago, memories of her soaking England’s soil in the blood of the Protestant martyrs was well known. During her reign, the Protestant heretics had few choices, convert or burn. Of the 284 who died under the Marian Persecutions of England, the most tragic story was of a man, his wife and their little daughter who were consumed on the flaming pyre together.
King Philip, himself, was not too popular when he levied high taxes on the Dutch to keep Spain from bankruptcy. This fresh fear of the Inquisition must have been in retaliation of the Protestant iconoclasm two years ago. In 1566, the city had already been desperate because a fabricated food shortage had been created by the grain merchants driving up the cost of basic necessities so high no one could afford them, causing hunger riots. Then to add to the chaos fiery Calvinist preachers who stirred the people to vandalize the Catholic churches.
Their smashing campaign swept the Catholic churches in Flanders targeting the Cathedral of Our Lady, who recently had just been repaired from a total gutting by fire. These reformers whipped up religious riots claiming that the country must be purged of Catholic idolatry.
Their smashing campaign swept the Catholic churches in Flanders targeting the Cathedral of Our Lady, who recently had just been repaired from a total gutting by fire. These reformers whipped up religious riots claiming that the country must be purged of Catholic idolatry.
During this mayhem two years earlier, King Philip had lost control of the Netherlands, so he sent an army of 10,000 to extinguish the uprising. Over a thousand people were executed during the House of Hapsburg’s Blood Court. Now with this fresh in their memories, the Danish people were anxious about King Philip’s new quest to see Protestantism wiped out entirely. Yet, the dreaded Inquisition never came. A war did: the Eighty Years’ War for Dutch Independence.
What the people of the Netherlands never understood, was that the Spanish Inquisition was used as a political tool to whip up such fear of Catholic oppression that they would risk their lives to prevent the new merchant lords from having to pay taxes to the King. Reminds one of what Vinzzini says in the movie, The Princess Bride, “I've hired you to help me start a war! It's an prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition.” The war wasn’t based on Catholicism or even the Inquisition, but financial independence for the locals! The Inquisition provided the perfect, battle-ready grounds on which to build a house of lies and distortions. It was about money, and as today, the newspapers would distort the facts to serve the purposes of those who held power. So, the potent merchants won the propaganda battle creating hatred for the straw men--the officials of the Inquisition. Kings have long known that people will rarely die for politics, but if you can bring religion into it, Voila! you can have war!
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Spanish Church, London, England, 1568
Having recently fled his parish in Antwerp under mysterious reasons, Pastor Antonio del Corro, a zealously anti-Catholic Spaniard had come to the British Isle with his own theological brand of Protestantism. Influenced by the Reformation, Antonio had left a monastery in Seville ten years earlier and had zig-zagged his way across Europe looking for a place that would welcome his less than orthodox theology. Even the broad minded Calvinists of the Netherlands had failed to embrace him.
Growing up in Seville, Antonio could not have failed to be influenced by the memories of the 1391 pogroms that killed hundreds of Jews in that city. And although Seville would not have an Inquisition court for almost another twenty-five years after Antonio had left Seville, the Spanish Monarchy had begun searching out conversos (Jews who converted to Catholicism) who continued to keep Jewish laws. During it’s most infamous fifty years, 1480-1530, it is estimated that two thousand people were executed by the dreaded Spanish Inquisition, with more than 1,900 of them being conversos. It was feared by the King, that these Jews were secretly trying to seduce Catholics away from the church.
So when Antonio wrote a book about the Inquisition from the safety of England, his actual knowledge seems limited. Published under the fictitious name of Reginaldus Gonzalvus Montanus in 1567, A Discovery and Plain Declaration of Sundry Subtile Practices of the Holy Inquisition of Spain, became one of the most successful book about the Inquisition, translated and reprinted as it spread its fiction across Europe. It has been used by innumerable Protestants for hundreds of years as the primary historical source of information about the Spanish Inquisition, igniting a fear and hatred of Catholicism.
Yet, use of the book by Protestants shows their ignorance of the facts. Protestants were hardly the main target of the Spanish Inquisition. After the conversos, the small percentage left who were brought before the court are identified as people accused of witchcraft, blasphemy, bigamy, sodomy, rape, bestiality and freemasonry. Of those identified as Protestant, the classification is difficult to judge, because the Inquisition labelled anyone who spoke against the church as “Lutheran.”
Of the 200 legitimate Protestants who did make it before the Spanish Inquisition less than a dozen were martyred. Historians, who have researched the hundreds of thousands of Spanish archives, have proven that Antonio’s book was a gross and ridiculous exaggeration of the facts.
The Black Legend, the epithet given to the Spanish Inquisition, circulated all over Europe. Spain’s reputation as a dark and cruel place, where brutality knew no bounds was strengthened by Huguenot Pierre Loyseleur of Villiers’, Apologie, published a few years after Antonio’s book. La Leyenda Negra, (The Black Legend) became the inspiration for European artists who drew or painted agonizing scenes of howling in the bowels of underground torture chambers. All propaganda used by savvy politicians to stir up war against the Catholic nations.
While it is understandable that those reading the fictitious accounts of the Inquisition in the 16th century believed them, today there is no excuse for the myths to continue.
Background
It is very difficult for a person raised with a twentieth-century western mindset that sees the highest values as freedom, tolerance and equality to enter into the perspective of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Yet to make a fair judgment of the Inquisition, it is impossible unless you attempt to reach back and see the world as they did. This is certainly not to excuse torture and violence, but to understand it in the context of the times. It is also helpful to discover the facts and let go of the hundreds of years of misinformation and distortion. Let’s begin with a short understanding of how earlier civilizations dealt with heretics.
In the book of Deuteronomy, (see chapters 13 and 17) God commands the leaders of Israel to bring anyone found worshipping another god before the courts and to “inquire diligently” (17:2-5), in other words, assemble an inquisition and if they are found to be guilty they should be stoned to death. God set up a system for His people to root out heretics and kill them.
For those living in medieval Europe they saw Christendom as an extension of the people of God recorded in the Old Testament. The Kings, Queens and Lords were placed in their positions of authority by Jesus Christ to protect the souls within their realm. Their was no separation of church and state, not even a whiff of it in their worldview. The King and Pope, the Lord and Bishop worked in unison to shepherd the people, body and soul, and to assure their easy transition from the Kingdom of God on earth to the Kingdom of God in heaven.
Most cultures have dealt harshly with people they feared were corrupting society with strange dogma. The Greeks poisoned Socrates for “corrupting the youth” with his new ideas. The ancient Hammurabi Code included an anathema against anyone who defies the gods. The early Christians were accused of being “atheists” because they refused to recognize the gods of Rome and at times persecuted. This human need to have those who oppose your views marginalized is not just a religious phenomenon. Those who hold the reins of political power, never want to hand them over. And when ideas spread that threaten the established authorities, they always try and suppress the opposing ideas.
The Albigensian Heresy
The Inquisition was formed in the aftermath of the Albigensian episode in the 12th century. It is critical to understand the how the inquisition seemed to be the civilized method of dealing with heretics after this experience.
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Many Protestants try to tie a historical rope from the Reformation back to the early Apostles with groups who they identify themselves with, groups who also defied the Catholic church. Very often they place the Catharists, Waldensians and Albigensians (all basically the same group) as part of this proud historical heritage. Yet very few of the Protestants really understand why the Catholic church felt these groups were so theologically dangerous.
It seems the very root of these Cathars came from heretics who had fled the Orthodox church in the Byzantine Empire. They held beliefs based in Arianism and Manicheanism with a little magical gnosticism thrown in. The only relation to Protestantism is that they had their own translation of the Bible and they believed in strict literal interpretation, but they were not even on the same planet as Sola Scripturists. The Albigensians were extremist in their proselytizing. They had to be because they did not believe in marriage or children. Anything that had to do with the flesh, even eating, was evil.
There were two levels of adherents, there were the Perfects and the second-class Believers. The Perfects never engaged in any form of sexuality and were strict vegans except for the occasional fish. Those who could not live up to these strict standards, Believers, were allowed sex in the form of sodomy because no pregnancy could occur. In the event of a disaster--pregnancy--an abortion was urged.
Suicide by starving was a noble sacrifice that often was helped along by their “nurses.” Occasionally suicidal patients, who had second thoughts, tried to escape only to find themselves trapped in the religious compound by their clergymen. Among the lesser heresies of the group was a denial of the Trinity (some believed in two gods: an evil and a good one), denial of the divinity of Christ and it certainly didn’t help that they preached the Catholic church as the antichrist (although this is another way in which they resemble some Fundamentalists today). This was a scary group and believe it or not, they were growing.
As always, the politicians of Southern France where the cult was flourishing, thought it might be a good idea to use the Albigensians as a wedge between themselves and Rome.
At first when the papacy sent missionaries to reclaim the heretics by evangelization, it looked as if Rome would win. But, after years of Catholic successes and defeats the heretics continued to befoul the souls of southern France. Eventually, the local lords needed the Albigensians as agitators against the church, so they sent a knight, sympathetic to the cult, to kill one of the pope’s legates. Pope Lucius III had actually formally introduced the Inquisition in Ad Abolendam in 1184. It wasn’t until Pope Innocent’s frustration with the irresponsible bishops of southern France who had failed to stamp out the dissidents, that he decided the Inquisitional courts alone could not suppress these suicidal, sexual deviants.
At first when the papacy sent missionaries to reclaim the heretics by evangelization, it looked as if Rome would win. But, after years of Catholic successes and defeats the heretics continued to befoul the souls of southern France. Eventually, the local lords needed the Albigensians as agitators against the church, so they sent a knight, sympathetic to the cult, to kill one of the pope’s legates. Pope Lucius III had actually formally introduced the Inquisition in Ad Abolendam in 1184. It wasn’t until Pope Innocent’s frustration with the irresponsible bishops of southern France who had failed to stamp out the dissidents, that he decided the Inquisitional courts alone could not suppress these suicidal, sexual deviants.
“Enough” thought Pope Innocent III in 1199. Like Janet Reno with the Waco Cult, the pope declared a crusade against the Albigensians and sent in the big guns. He called upon all faithful Catholic men of France to rise up and protect Christendom .
In the 1213 Battle of Muret, the Albigensians were joined by an army led by Spaniards who wanted to crushed France and used the religious skirmish for--what else but--political purposes. Estimates are that the Spaniards outnumbered the French anywhere from 20 to 55 to 1. Which made the French’s stunning victory that much more miraculous. Yet that battle led to more battles and eventually the pope lost all control. It devolved into a land and power grab by local lords. The French massacred the Albigensians and everyone else who happened to own land that looked inviting. The pope was outraged that Christendom had been defended by a bunch of unrestrained barbarians.
In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council was attended by over 1200 church bishops and leaders across Europe. In response to the grievous crimes against the innocent French and the unrestrained massacre of the Albigensians, the church put together a very civil court with strict protocol so that mob justice would never plague the Holy Roman Empire again. From now on anyone accused of heresy would be summoned to defend himself and given a fair and just hearing. This court became known as the Inquisition. (This was run by the Catholic religious institution--not to be confused with Inquisitions run by the state.)
The penalties for being convinced of heresy was excommunication; for more dangerous heretics who stubbornly proselytized, they would be exiled or their property confiscated, but torture and death were not legally part of the Inquisition. No Jews or Moslems were to ever be brought before the Inquisition because they were technically not under the jurisdiction of the pope. The Council ruled that to protect Jews and Moslems from undue punishment, they must be visually set apart. Hence the beginning of the Jewish clothing that had to differ from Gentiles. For the next few centuries, few inquisition trials were held and fear of the Inquisition was virtually non-existent.
Inquisition Procedures
Ten Dominican cardinals, hand picked by the pope, are in charge of the Inquisition. If someone were found guilty they were given the opportunity to repent and renounce their errors, if they did so they were offered forgiveness and then released. The ultimate goal of the Inquisition was not only justice, mercy and protection of the sheep from wolfish false teachers. The objective was to draw the heretic back into truth and into the safety of the Catholic church. All proceedings were supposed to be geared towards that purpose. If a heretic proved unreachable the inquisitors would turned the criminal over to the state for sentencing and the administration of the penalty. Far from being cruel, there are many documents from this period where criminals pled to be sent to the church inquisition rather than the harsher civil courts.
Within a half century abuses of the system crept in and those accused of heresy who were known to be guilty were allowed to be ill-treated in order to extract a confession for their own soul’s sake. But where a confession was extracted during punishment, it was inadmissible in court. Only a freely given confession was considered legal.
Fear of the Inquisition did not surface for several hundred years, probably because most parts of Europe had no inquisition. If you lived in the British Isles or most of northern Europe, you did not have a religious court. Yes, there were the occasional witch trials presided over by the Inquisition during the 13th and 14th centuries that used psychological pressure as well as physical bullying. But soon the Inquisitors found that torture could be “deceptive and ineffectual” though some inquisitors practiced it without the papacy’s knowledge. It was only after the 15th century that torture and execution of heretics became less rare making it subject to wild exaggerations and myths. Book published by Protestants claimed that millions of people had been the victim of the papacy’s inquisitions.
Return to the Spanish Inquisition
Spain, where for centuries the Jews, Moslems and Christians has co-existed peacefully suddenly turned against the Jews. In 1483 the Spanish monarchy, Ferdinand and Isabella, felt the Spanish people cry out against not only the Jews, but also the Jews who had converted to Christianity. There was a growing suspicion that Jews only converted for political or social reasons and secretly the kept the Jewish rituals. So Ferdinand and Isabella petitioned the pope for a state-run Inquisition. Although it would operate independently from the Holy See, they needed the pope’s approval.
The pope had protected Jews in Rome and though the was against the idea of a Spanish Inquisition, he was under enormous pressure from Spain. He decided upon what he thought was a masterful idea. He would appoint a former Jew who would undoubtedly be sympathetic the his own people as Inquisitor-General. With Dominican Friar Thomas de Torquemada mercy would be assured. The pope could not have been more wrong.
The friar was zealous in wanting to rid Spain of all Jews so he used every bit of his influence to that end and he was successful. Yet the Inquisition courts could only be used against Hebrews who had been baptized into the Holy Mother Church, so Torquemada turned his most powerful weapon against Jewish pseudo-Catholics. It was the years the Spanish Inquisition was under the control of Torquemada that brought about the Black Legend. Previous to him and after him there was little to fear and often the punishment of the Inquisition was mild.
Yet, as bad as he was, Torquemada was not the sadistic fiend of his Protestant reputation. Even he had to at least pretend to stay within the boundaries of the Inquisitions protocol laid out in the Directorium Inquisitorum.
In it was described the reason given for even having the Inquisition. It reminded the Spanish that religious institutes were essential for a culture’s survival and yet careful investigation was needed before any arrest was made. Witnesses must provide hard evidence for all accusations, the accused must then the opportunity for rebuttal. Torture to extract a confession could only be done in cases involving heresy alone which were extremely rare because most brought before the courts were charged with several crimes with only one being heresy.
There are many sensationalized Renaissance paintings and etchings depicting the notorious Auto de Fe. They are fictional. Instead of being a time of torture and burning at the stake, the Auto de Fe is the Catholic prayers and Mass said for the convicted criminal.
We cannot completely sweep away the abuses of the Spanish Inquisition, for there were times it ran amuk of its judicial duties and was used for revenge. The Inquisition set up by King Phillip in the Americas from the early 17th to the 19th century has many stories of maltreatment.
Other Inquisitions
After the reigns of several very vile Popes it is no wonder Christendom was falling apart. The leaders of the church in Rome were very corrupted and although the Catholic parishioners themselves were pious and remained the backbone of the church, there was a general outcry for change. Even though there were many, indeed tens of thousands of reformers who stayed within the church, like the newly founded Society of Jesus (Jesuits), this was a dark moment for the Spouse of Christ.
The Portuguese Inquisition also had a scandalous reputation. The facts are bad, yet not as heinous as reported. Between the years of 1536 and 1821 almost 1200 people were burned at the stake.
The French King Henry II joined with many others during the first century of the Protestant Reformation in his severe persecution of those he deemed dangerously heretical. Those who followed Luther, Calvin, Knox and Zwingli had infiltrated even the Eternal City of Rome and in 1542, Pope Paul III responded with Licet ab initio, the Roman version of the Inquisition. Here, throughout the next centuries over 62,000 heresy cases were tried and approximately 1,250 given the death sentence.
No Catholic can look back on this time with pride, but at least we can breath a sigh of relief that the numbers are not anywhere in the vicinity of millions. Also we must keep in mind that by turning these heretics over to God in death, they felt they were saving so many others from eternal damnation. It was not for sadistic purposes, but to protect the flock, the wolves had to be eradicated.
No Catholic can look back on this time with pride, but at least we can breath a sigh of relief that the numbers are not anywhere in the vicinity of millions. Also we must keep in mind that by turning these heretics over to God in death, they felt they were saving so many others from eternal damnation. It was not for sadistic purposes, but to protect the flock, the wolves had to be eradicated.
Today, the Catholics Inquisition has dissolved into what is called The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith which functions as an advisory board to the pope on theological issues.
Protestant Inquisitions
Most Protestants today are totally unaware that even they had their Inquisitions and death sentences. As our first story told, John Calvin did not shrink at the drowning or beheading of those he felt were dangerous to “established doctrine.” You see, Protestant Reformers such as Luther and Calvin interpreted Old Testament scriptures exactly as the Catholic church did. Deuteronomy commands that those leading God’s people astray are to be killed.
The time would come when the Protestant Church of England would starve to death hundreds of thousands of Catholics in the name of religion. They would create their own Inquisitions and execute Catholic for practicing their faith and other Protestants they deemed heretics! Indeed the Puritan Separatists of England fled to the Netherlands to get away from the maltreatment of the Anglicans only then to come to America. They were not getting away from Catholics, but from other Protestants. Waves of Catholics made the difficult and dangerous passage to America because they had been persecuted and thrown out of Protestant countries.
KNOW THE FACTS!
Why is knowing the facts about the Dark Legend so important? So what? It’s meaningless today, you say? Well, not really....
There are two important reasons. One, truth is important. We are cast into a whirling, tempestuous ocean of “truths” all boldly clamoring for our attention until we are seasick. Christian Relativism tries to resolve this chaos by telling us truth doesn’t really matter and that we cannot know for certain what God thinks--there is nothing except scripture that is objective and even then, we all read it differently. So use your private judgement, that is as authentic as it gets.
But truth is important. Truth is a gift of God and outside of individual, personal judgement. Truth is life-giving and that which is false takes away life. Satan is described as the Father of Lies and so all distortion of truth cannot be viewed as acceptable to the Christian. It all comes down to whose got the truth and how do we know who to trust to give it to us?
Secondly, and more to the point of why I researched this article, is that Protestants have been so successful at distorting the reason for and actions of the Inquisition for their purposes that the propaganda has backfired.
God's holy Church has crumbled into tiny bits of sand. What was supposed to built upon the ROCK, the Cornerstone, is now sinking because its foundation has crumbled into tiny fragments and when the storms come..... woe unto those whose foundation is sand! Christ has been re-crucified by His own people! We have sliced and diced the Body to the point it is in civil war. This Dark Legend of the Inquisition has been used not only to set Protestant against Catholic, but the world agains the Church!
The great irony is that even atheists in the last three centuries have held up the intolerant Inquisition as reasons not to tolerate religion! So our lies have come full circle. Yet, Jesus told us the world will know us by our love, one for another. With so much malicious gossip repeated generation after generation our suspicions and distrust can hardly be seen as love.
Yes, there was an inquisition. Yes, at times it was abusive. But it is time we let go and forgive each other and bring the church back into unity. The Catholic church has repeatedly asked for forgiveness for the things in her past. It has been five hundred years! Isn’t it time to let go and heal? I can imagine there are Protestants out there who are not only suspicious of anything the Catholic church says, they are always on guard against what they believe to be a tyrannical institution that is just waiting to spring her trap and start up the Inquisition again.
Well, just do a little studying about the Catholic church today. Read the Catechism. Read some history from her side. It’s not what you think. Most of what Protestants accuse her of melt and dissolve upon close examination. Satan has set up a straw man to keep us infighting so we ourselves will destroy the Body of Christ. But in truth, the facts work in our favor! It’s time the brothers and sisters make up and toss out the lies Satan has used to scare us away from each other.
Well, just do a little studying about the Catholic church today. Read the Catechism. Read some history from her side. It’s not what you think. Most of what Protestants accuse her of melt and dissolve upon close examination. Satan has set up a straw man to keep us infighting so we ourselves will destroy the Body of Christ. But in truth, the facts work in our favor! It’s time the brothers and sisters make up and toss out the lies Satan has used to scare us away from each other.
Sources:
Among various sources I explored for general and specific historical information here are a few:
Online:
Books:
Calvin, John, Corpus Reformatorum, Vol. 36 (Opera Vol. 8) p. 475. Available online.
Carroll, James, Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews, Houghton Mifflin Company, NY 2002 (pp. 355-338).
Crocker, H.W. III, Triumph: The Power and Glory of the Catholic Church, Three Rivers Press, NY, 2001.
Kamen, Henry, The Spanish Inquisition: An Historical Revision, Yale University Press, 1999.
Kot, Stanislas, Socianism in Poland: the Social and Political Ideas of the Polish Antitrinitarians. Starr King Press, Boston, 1957.
Kurzman, Dan, A Special Mission: Hitler’s Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII, Da Capo Press, 2007.
Marshall, John, John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture : Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Peters, Edward, Inquisition, Free Press, MacMillian, Inc. Berkeley, CA, 1989.
Reyburn, Hugh Young, John Calvin: His Life, Letters, and Work, Hodder and Stoughton, NY, 1914, p. 175. (Reprinted in 1983 by Ams Press, Inc. (Available at Amazon.com)
Copyright 2010 by Teresa Beem. Copy by permission of the author only.
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