Inquisition wasn't quite as bad as people think, says Pope

[arcos]

Inquisition wasn't quite as bad as people think, says Pope

The Vatican sought to play down the terrors of the Inquisition yesterday, claiming that far fewer people were tortured and executed for heresy than was popularly believed.

<snip>

"For the first time we studied the Inquisition in its entirety, from its beginnings to the 19th century," said Agostino Borromeo, a professor of history of Catholic and other Christian confessions at Rome's Sapienza University. Prof Borromeo said that while there were some 125,000 trials of suspected heretics in Spain, research found that about one per cent of the defendants were executed, far fewer than commonly believed. Many of the burnings at the stake were carried out by civil rather than religious tribunals.

Yesterday, the Pope reiterated his mea culpa but stressed that actions which had "disfigured the face of the Church" had to be viewed in their historical context.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/06/16/wpope16.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/06/16/ixportal.html

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. Well that settles it..

When can I join?:D

[rooboy]

2. It was more like Frat House hazing...a brilliant strategy, really. n/t

[funnymanpants]

4. ha ha! n/t

[Kool Kitty]

12. Exactly like a frat house hazing,

'cept for that "burning at the stake" part. ;-) I have to wonder about the timing of this great explanatory report.

[mom cat]

3. Gosh. Another case of fuzzy math?

[agates]

5. WTF?

As long as only a few people were tortured, it was OK? Only 1 percent executed. Well, OK then. I think His Holiness spent too long talking with * last week. Next we'll hear that as long as the inquisitors got useful information using torture, it was justified.

[jukes]

22. agates

i think you might have Missed something. i think EVERYBODY got tortured, but most weren't burned. the other trifling few were only weighted to death, garroted, drawn/quartered or died "accidentally" whilst in stress positions w/ plastic bags on their heads.

[amber dog democrat]

I guess Torquemada wasn't such a bad guy after all.

But it wasn't just Spain. France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, - (most of Europe )and even England supported the Inquisition as an institution.

I wonder why this topic even comes up.

[Heddi]

6. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=623818

[DustMolecule]

7. Good news! There were 'far few people than believed....

...that had a red-hot poker rammed up their ass'....*hooray*

</sarcasm off>

[jobycom]

8. Well, yes and no

Certainly the Torguemoda style tortures and executions weren't really the norm. The Office of the Inquisition usually relied on interrogation, and not torture. A heretic was allowed to recant with little actual punishment. Relapses were bad, third times often led to deaths. Usually an Inquisitor would enter a region, round up a few suspects, and question them as to their beliefs. If they expressed heretical beliefs, the Inquisitor would correct them. If they clung to the belief, or if the belief seemed to be part or a system of heresy, they could be imprisoned, questioned, and even tortured. Usually, though, what the Inquisitor wanted was names, so he would have more people to question. And of course, he usually got a lot of names, and most of these people simply recanted their heresy (even if they didn't have one), said a few prayers, and went back to their lives.

But the fact that the Inquisition could torture a suspect, and could execute someone if they had reason, meant that most suspects did everything they could to avoid torture. False confessions, turning on friends and families, etc.

So yes, there were few executions in relation to the number of people questioned, and torture was more rare than modern movies claim it was. But the Inquisition was a terrifying, dehumanizing force that scared people into turning on their friends and families. As in 1984, suspects were often left with no friend except the Church, and this created a climate of fear and obedience that served the Church well.

As for the pope's claim that most heretics were executed by civil rather than religious tribunals, that's disengenuous. The Church did not allow executions, so when a heretic was found to be hopeless, or to have relapsed for the second time, they were turned over to the civil authorities for execution. For a civil authority to refuse to execute someone condemned by the Church would mean that they would have to face the Inquisition, too.

Terror doesn't have to be extensive to be effective.

[jukes]

23. jesus h.

so that's where mccarthy got it! and so the legacy is passed on...


now we've got cromwell, if not torque.

[nosmokes]

9. tomorrow's news will be the sun does revolve around the

earth, we were right gallileo in the first place...

[FleshCartoon]

10. It was truly one of the funniest...

...sketches the Holy Roman Catholic Church ever performed.


Oh, sorry, got them confused with some other comedic troupe.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

11. Another wack job

for God. I'm sorry but these "Shamins for Christ" make me throw up!

[theophilus]

13. No one expected THAT.......

nt

[PurityOfEssence]

14. Gosh, so they only killed 1,250 human beings?

Pshaw.

Wonder how the dismemberments stack up...

[Cronus Protagonist]

20. Yeah, how can such an organization still be in business?

I think it's time to take a look at that. Someone has to pay.

BLAME BUSH FIRST!

Click here for "BLAME BUSH FIRST", and other fair and balanced yet stunning buttons, magnets and stickers

[TahitiNut]

15. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

The conservatives that've taken over the Holy See are probably yearning for the "good old days."

[Solly Mack]

16. uh...ok

whatever gets you through the night, John Paul...


He repeated a phrase from a 2000 document in which he first asked pardon "for errors committed in the service of truth through use of methods that had nothing to do with the Gospel"

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=683442004

damn, sounds like something Bush and his legal advisors would say

[PartyPooper]

17. For accuracy, I want to view Mel Brooks' "History of the World Part I".

As I recall, he told the story quite well...as it really happened way back then. ;-)

At least, I can still remember a song about the "Inquisition" from this film. The lyrics were terrific!

:silly:

[stickdog]

18. Pope: Inquistion, like Bush, wasn't as bad as Hitler.

[Rex]

19. The Inquisition, what a show! The Inquisition, here we go!

I know your wishin that we'd go away!

So killing a few innocent people is okay when looked at in the bigger picture of mass torture? Sweet! Sign me up for some of dat! Do I get a quota on the number I can kill if it prevents (probable) future wrong doings in the larger scheme of things?

[jukes]

21. yeah

but they got valuable intel "chatter" though. learned a HELL of a lot about SATAN!

[thebigidea]

24. hell, if it wasn't that bad... why not another one?

Inquisition II: the Wrath of Ximenez

Incidentally, "Ximenez" is a very fun word to say.

[TacticalPeek]

25. I could see bringing it back,

just long enough to let them have a go at Reverend Moon. :evilgrin:

Then, back in the box.


http://www.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/PEOPLE/bolder/montypython/larch1.html

[Moderator]

26. duplicate thread

Please continue the heresy over here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=623818