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So What About The Inquisition? A Practical Response

Recently a reader emailed us a question about the Inquisition and how it relates to the Catholic teaching of infallibility. The answer is simple....it doesn't. As we have said many times on this blog, the Catholic teaching of infallibility is defined as follows:

INFALLIBILITY: The gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church whereby the pastors of the Church, the pope and those bishops in union with him, can definitively proclaim a doctrine of faith or morals for the belief of the faithful (para. 891). This gift is related to the inability of the whole body of the faithful to err in matters of faith and morals (para. 92). - taken from the glossary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Ed., pg. 883

Many believe that the Inquisition was a direct activity of the Church that involved the torture and execution of any individual who wasn't Catholic during those "dark" Middle Ages. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I think in order to best understand the Inquisition we must analyze the century in which it occurred. The 16th century was a brutal time for any individual found quilty of any crime, lest of all treason. In "Protestant" England capital punishment took on its most horrific form - individuals would be hung, cut down while still alive, disembowelled, and then cut into four pieces; hence the phrase "hanged, drawn, and quartered. In France, individuals were boiled alive. And as we know from those stories about the Inquisition, Spain was known to burn guilty individuals at the stake. Extreme punishments for various crimes existed in Muslim, African, New World, and Eastern countries as well but our focus needs to be on "Christian" nations for the sake of this discussion. It was also a time of strong religious and national identity. For the most part, countries in Europe were either Catholic or Protestant. We don't find multiple denominations agreeing to live in harmony, even among different Protestant denominations. Yet certain countries, like Spain, had to deal with the presence of the Moors (Muslims) on their native land due to invasion. In most countries, Jews were also present and for the most part distrusted because they were often believed to be power and money hungry. As sad as this is, it was the nature of those cultures during those centuries.

So what brought on the Inquisition?

As stated above, Spain during that time period was dealing with the presence of the Moors in their country who were there namely due to invasion, i.e. brutal and forced entry into Spain. There was also a strong Jewish presence in different areas of Spain. At the time the monarchy of Spain, as well as the national religion, was Catholic. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel ruled at that time and constantly dealt with the threat of treason within their nation. Many false Conversos and Moriscos (Spanish names for Jewish and Muslim converts to Catholicism) had penetrated both the Spanish government and the Catholic Church in an effort to divide the nation and gain power. Many of these false converts wanted to overthrown the King and Queen, especially the Moriscos, who wanted to conquer Spain entirely. In light of this threatening situation, Queen Isabel launched the Inquisition, a court that would evaluate evidence and judge whether a person was truly a faithful convert, to King, country, and Church, or whether the person was an impostor and an enemy. It is worth noting here that this same format has been used by many other countries and alliances down through the ages including the United States. The United States, in an effort to weed out Communist spies, carried out such inquiries, we even executed two individuals who were accused of espionage. The worst of these types of inquiries being the witch trials carried out in England and in the Northeast (US) where innocent people were tried and executed through the use of a number of cruel and torturous forms of execution. I think this is especially relavent considering that most these trials were carried out directly by certain Protestant denominations.

Initially, the Inquisition was abused, judges saw it as an opportunity to weed out any Muslim and/or Jewish convert who they personally didn't approve of, torture was being widely used, and innocent people did suffer. It was at this point that the Pope stepped in and appointed new Inquisitors, with the Grand Inquisitor or head of the Inquisition, being Tomas de Torquemada, a Dominican monk. This was wanted and embraced by Queen Isabel who sincerely wanted justice to be administered. Torquemada greatly reformed the Inquisition process making the overall procedures more merciful and the punishments for treason less severe. He also improved the conditions of the prisons in which individuals were being held. In terms of the use of torture, Torquemada greatly reduced its use as well, although in some cases torture was used. Again, all governments were known to use torture at that time, not that that justifies its use.

Another important aspect to remember is that all those found guilty were given an opportunity to repent. It was only if they refused to repent or if they relapsed into their treasonous crimes after promising repentance were they executed as treasons. It was not because they didn't believe in the Catholic faith.

Another point that needs to be considered, especially by those Christians of other denominations, is that because of the penetration of some of these false converts into the clergy, the Church had to be involved. Imagine if I, as a die-hard Catholic, decided that I would enter a Protestant seminary, become a pastor, and then secretly begin to preach, in the most sutle of ways, different Catholic doctrines within a Protestant church. Would you not condemn this as a deceitful and manipulative act? Would you not want to have me cast out of your church? So did the Church in the 16th century...keep in mind they didn't drag these individual down to the local prision, torture them, and then kill them. They turned them over to the appropriate government court system at that time, allowed the evidence to be reviewed by that court, and then let the court provide the guilty party an opportunity to repent.

When all was said and done, 100,000 converts were brought to trial. Out of that number only 2,000 were actually executed. All were found guilty of treason against the monarchy of Spain with substantial evidence to prove their guilt and unwillingness to repent for the crimes they had done.

As shown by this information, it is clear to see that this in no way relates to the Catholic doctrine of infallibility since there was no attempt, on the part of the Church, to infallibly proclaim anything.

I hope this provides some clarity on this often misunderstood topic.

In Christ,
Joe