The First Inquisition
Deuteronomy 17;
[2] “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,
[3] 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,
[4] and it is told you and you hear of it; then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abominable thing has been done in Israel,
[5] 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.
[6] On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses he that is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.
[7] The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.
If we think about this just a little we will see something in common between the Israelites and let’s say, the Spanish Inquisition.
In Israel from the time of Moses and throughout the history of the Israelites down to the Jews of Jesus’ time, whenever they were able to self-govern, that is, whenever they were not subjugated by some other power, there was no separation of church and state.
Now if we move forward to Europe in the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the majority of the countries were Catholic countries. There was technically a separation of church and state but not as we understand it today. When the King was Catholic the country was Catholic. The only thing comparible in our modern day are the Islamic states and even so they are structured somewhat differently.
In the Catholic states of Europe there was a secular power but because the cultural order and the Catholic faith were so intertwined and interdependent, in many cases, to distrupt the religious order was to disrupt the civil order. Any attack on the Church was an attack on the social order and an attack on the state itself. So in general, it was essentially treasonous to attack the Church, by extension. Heresy was viewed through that lens.
The Spanish Inquisition
In Spain at the time of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the situation was unique in this sense. They had been at war with Islam for some 779 years. The Christian north had taken that long to reconquer the whole of Spain, Granada being the final conquest. Because of this, there was an understandable paranoia, if you will, that Islam would return to attempt to once more conquer Spain. Nor was that an idle fear.
In 1480 the Ottoman Turks invaded Italy at Otranto, killing some 12,000 men 800 of which were martyred by beheading for refusing to renounce their Catholic faith. Their skulls are on the wall at the Skull Cathedral of Otranto to this very day. The Archbishop was sawn in half while still alive.
It is not hard to understand the fear that Ferdinand and Isabella had that the Muslim Turks might decide to invade and re-take Spain just when it had finally been restored to Catholic rule. Moreover, they were worried about help that the Muslims in Spain that remained might give to the invaders.
Because it was now a Catholic kingdom, the way to rise in the court or anywhere within the power structure was to be Catholic. Hence there were a number of “conversos” or converts to the faith who had done so merely for personal advancement. It fact, it was known that there were many conversos, as many as 10,000 it is estimated, that still practiced their Muslim religion or Jewish religion in secret. Some of them were even priests. Ferdinand and Isabella recognized the problem as not only a religious one but also a security problem and not having the expertise to ferret these people out and decide their cases, they called the Pope and the Spanish Inquisition was set up.
It must be remembered that it was not illegal to be a Muslim or a Jew in Spain. Their goal was to find the fake Christians who were Muslims or Jews, force them into the open and expose their religious fraud. What they had done was sacrilegious at the very least, and at that time of close ties between church and state, their crimes were treasonous as well. There was some evidence that some of these were plotting against the King and Queen.
All in all the Spanish Inquisition examined and released a large number of people as innocent of the charge against them. One of those was honoured by the Church as a Doctor of the Church.
(”Certain ecclesiastical writers have received this title on account of the great advantage the whole Church has derived from their doctrine.” -Catholic Encyclopedia)
Her name is St. Theresa of Avila, and like some others, was falsely accused of heresy. One of the reasons the Inquisition was asked for was so that those falsely accused would get a fair hearing by competent examiners and be exonerated if innocent.
Without getting too deep into the statistics, there were many imprisoned and some repeat offenders were executed. Approximately 2000 in total. That’s 2000 too many for a charge of heresy, obviously and in retrospect. (That is a far cry however, from the 93,000,000 number that some wild-eyed anti-Catholics have attributed to the “Black Legend”. Demographics alone would rule that out. In order to kill that many people every man, woman, and child in Spain would have had to die as well as large chunks of other European countries.)
Two things that we must remember in the context of the time. Again, any attack on the Church was an attack on the state in their minds, and the Church had jurisdiction over anyone validly baptized, whether done in subterfuge or not. The Church still claims authority over all the baptized.
Witch Hunts
As a side note this was not about witchcraft, as some have imagined. They have blurred and confused the Inquisition with the Protestant witchhunts that were rampant much later in places like southern Germany. In England of the 16th and 17th centuries (post-Reformation), the logic of the witch hunts and trials was similar to that of the Spanish Inquisition, although the target was different.
Because the monarachs of England, such as Elizabeth I, were the head of the Anglican communion, they viewed any rebellion as blasphemy against God and any blasphemy as rebellion against them. Perhaps, they were closer to the real unity of church and state than the Catholic nations of Europe.
Torture
One of the objections, and it has merit in the objective sense, is with respect to torture. Again, it must be remembered that the use of torture was a common method of extracting information throughout Medieval Europe and conducted by the state, whether in regular courts or on behalf of the Inquisition, wherein the state prosecuted and the Inquisitor examined. Methods and uses of torture varied by nation and region but it’s use was carried on right into the twentieth century in one form or another, most recently used as an interrogation method by police or government agents behind closed doors rather than on public display as in the former days. In fact, there has been an ongoing debate in America over the use of torture to interrogate terrorist suspects, as recently as 2008.
Hindsight
There are those who categorically condemn the Catholic Church and use the Inquisition as proof against the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility. If we were discussing papal impeccability they would be right. The Church should not have been associated with execution or torture for any reason, not even heresy. No doubt it was this bloody mindedness of the time, as well as the close ties between Church and state so that religious rebellion was indentified with political and social rebellion; that led the Reformation into open warfare and nations like England to the persecution and slaughter of Catholics who wouldn’t convert to the Church of England.
In retrospect we cannot justify bloodshed in the name of religion, but it was normal at the time and for many centuries after the Spanish Inquisition. Their world was threatened at any time by the Ottoman Turks and the invading Muslim armies were ruthless in persecution of Catholic priests and religious.
Common Themes
The theme that I see in common in all of this is the closeness of church and state, from the Israelites being commanded by God to purge idol worshippers from their midst to the Medieval Catholic Church ferreting out heretics to the English kings eradicating papists, right down to the Salem witch trials in the United States.
And I don’t think this can be wholly eliminated, or eliminated at all. The greatest experiment in governance emphasizing the separation of church and state started out with the constitutional statement that government could not make a law that instituted a state religion. Yet, up until JFK, it was not possible for a Catholic to hold the highest office in America.
And what did he have to do? He made the commitment that he would not let his faith interfere with his governing as president. There had been a certain fear among some that he would have greater allegiance to the Roman Pontif than to America.
It is a great irony that by the time he was elected a secular movement was underway that made his protestations moot, yet he paved the way for another generation of ambitious Catholics to renounce their faith on the public stage and pretend they could practice it in private nonetheless. Why? Has not the Protestant influence waned? Of course, yet what has taken its place is that secular movement that has begun to take on all the characteristics of a religion itself.
The great anti-religion has become a religion. It tolerates no heresy either. It has not reached the point yet of the Spanish Inquisition because people are allowed to rise to high office while maintaining a private religion other than secularism. But they are expected to make the Kennedy claim that their religion will not interfere with their politics, and most Catholics it seems are quite willing to do so.
The highest office in the House of Representatives is the Speaker, held right now by Nancy Pelosi, an advocate of abortion rights for women and as far left on the political spectrum as she can be without switching to the Communist Party of America. She has publicly made the JFK claim and sees nothing wrong in it. Other Catholics have done the same such as the late Senator Edward Kennedy, his junior Senator John Kerry, the appointed head of Health and Human Services in the Obama cabinet Kathleen Sebelius and so on.
It seems to me that they have been called by Caesar to worship him and having done so are allowed to practice their private religion, something that the early Christian martyrs would not do.
In Canada the debate is long over, and the Catholics have capitulated for the sake of power. Jean Chretien and Paul Martin are two that come to mind as Catholic former Canadian Prime Ministers.
The final analysis in this overview is that there will be a religion that is offical to the government no matter what century or form of government. It gradually returns even when the possibility is specifically warned about by the founding fathers. I don’t think there will ever be a complete absence of religion in the public square. It is only a matter of which religion it happens to be.