What happens during the Spanish Inquisition?
Okay, I'm going to explain this, please spread this as far as wide as you can. EVERYTHING that you know about the Spanish Inquisition is false, EVERYTHING that you have been told about the Spanish Inquisition or read about it has been made up. A lot of it was made up hundreds of years ago: Spain and England were at war (think of the sixteenth century, seventeenth century) and consequently the English made up all kinds of horror stories about the Spanish. This was so long ago, and they have been told so many times by so many people that it has made it into history books with quotations, references, etc. But they are all historical facts based on lies. The fact that the lies are 400+ years old makes it difficult to sort out these days. But if you have read these lies in your history books, if you see movies, if you hear references to the Spanish Inquisition, you think "horrible, torture, beyond comprehension". Okay, now, just for laughs, they have uncovered the actual RECORDS of the Spanish Inquisition, it turns out that nothing happened without some poor monk or friar sitting right there and recording every bit of torture, and every reaction, including confessions.You may view the actual discovery, and the records for yourself at the links below. In the meantime, Diane Moczar, a professor in Virginia, who has done a lot of study in these matters, has written several books:Extracted from Seven Lies About Catholic History Infamous Myths About the Church’s Past and How to Answer Them by Diane Moczar, c 2010 by TAN Books, Charlotte, North CarolinaOf all the Inquisitions (and there were a few from the 12th century until the 19th century), practically synonymous in the popular mind with the term is the Spanish Inquisition, mostly due to anti-Spanish Black Legend Propaganda that has been produced from the Reformation until now. Thanks be to God, finally, truth is started to take hold due to people like Diane Moczar, an history professor at North Virginia Community College, Dr. William A. Donahue, the founder and president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights as well as Henry Kamen, a British Historian and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Please see the links below.One of the myths that Diane Moczar speaks about in her book, Seven Lies About Catholic History, is the one spun by English Protestant writers detailed the sadistic tortures supposedly used by Spanish Inquisitors.:"It turns out that torture was in fact rarely used, and even when it was, it was very limited. In one group of seven thousand accused persons who came before the Inquisition in Valencia, for example, only two percent were tortured, and for no more than fifteen minutes."And now for the evidence:Here are the links to the documentary I spoke of regarding the true nature of the Inquisition-- It would be interesting to contrast to the latest interpretation from the History Channel, still perpetuating the old myths.... Worthwhile for apologetic minded Catholics...AnswerAlthough the question may not be about the brutality and sadism of the Spanish Inquisition, it is certainly true that the Spanish Inquisition was more humane than the medieval Inquisition or the Roman Inquisition. That does not win it a Nobel Peace Prize, but by the standards of religious bigotry of its day, the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition were far from the worst. The Inquisitors may even have thought of themselves as liberal, limiting periods of torture to no more than 15 minutes each time, and generally applying torture only one time. In the 350-year lifespan of the Spanish Inquisition, only about 4,000 people were put to the stake, compared to some 60,000 burnt by Catholics and Protestants in the rest of Europe. One reason was that, while Europe was in a frenzy of killing supposed witches, thetrained legal scholars in Spain found no believable evidence for witchcraft.Pope Sixtus IV issued a bull on November 1, 1478, allowing the Spanish crown to form an inquisitorial tribunal. As was now the custom, the monarchs would have complete authority over the inquisitors and the inquisition.In this early stage of the Spanish Inquisition, Old Christians and Jews used the tribunals as a weapon against their converso enemies. Since the Inquisition’s sole purpose was to investigate conversos, the Old Christians had nothing to fear from it and the Jews were immune to the Inquisition.In later years, the Inquisition was concerned with 'heresy' - the spread of Protestantism.After the reforms of the early sixteenthcentury, the Spanish Inquisition was staffed by well-educated legal professionals and was one of the most compassionate and efficient judicial bodies in Europe. No major court in Europe executed fewer people than the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition's objectives were wrong and its methods were wrong, just as it was wrong to punish people for their sincerely held beliefs, but they compare well to the Inquisitions set up under direct control of the Church. On the one hand it is useless to criticise churchmen who simply did not understand the ethical standards we would set today, nor on the other hand to excuse the base religious intolerance and abuses that the Spanish Inquisition represented.
Judy
Vivi
Professor
