I Am Roman Catholic

THE INQUISITION (What a Show!)



I’ve noticed that many people, especially those who want to attack the Catholic Church, always bring up The Inquisition as an example of the Church’s barbarity. There are two things wrong with this way of thinking: First, The Inquisition happened five hundred years ago, not last week; and second, it was not started by “The Catholic Church.”
The Inquisition was the bright idea of Queen Isabella of Spain (Yes, the Christopher Columbus lady). What happened was this. When Isabella was a girl she had a private confessor, Tomàs de Torquemada, to whom she confessed her sins on a regular basis. Now Torquemada had this thing about heretics, and he made Isabella promise that when she became queen she would do something about the number of heretics who were spreading false teachings in her kingdom. She agreed, and after she was crowned she and her husband, King Ferdinand, made good on her promise and appointed Torquemada, a Dominican prior, to the imaginative post of “Inquisitor General." She also wrote to Pope Sixtus IV to tell him that Spain was becoming overrun by spreaders of false teachings.
“Okay,” said the Pope. “I’ll send some guys.”
“No need,” Isabella wrote back. “I already have a guy.”
The Pope replied, “Then do what you have to do.”
Now Pope Sixtus did not realize that by his sanction he was turning Torquemada loose like a kid in a candy shop. With the help of other Dominicans, Torquemada drew up some guidelines for dealing with those he suspected of heresy. But he went further than that, and added to the list the crimes of blasphemy, apostasy, homosexuality, and any disloyalty to the Church.
Isabella gave Torquemada use of her torture chambers, because at the time torturing a confession out of someone was a common practice. The torture chambers were run by secular authorities—again, not “The Catholic Church”—with Dominicans asking the questions. After the victims "confessed" they were condemned by the secular courts in the employ of Queen Isabella.
Some heresies were discovered, but then the inquisitors went a bit nuts, to put it mildly. The same thing happened during the French Revolution, when anyone who even smelled like an aristocratic sympathizer was beheaded. People were leaving Spain in droves, especially Jews and Muslims, who also became targets.
Finally, the new Pope, Alexander VI, heard enough complaints from refugees and wrote to Torquemada, saying in effect, “Okay, that’s enough. You’re getting out of hand.”
Torquemada messaged back, saying in effect, “Hey, forget you, Pope. We’re on a roll here.”
To which Alexander replied, “Don’t make me come down there!”
As it was, the Pope did send some guys to stop Torquemada from his rampage, and forced him into retirement at his priory, where he died in 1494.
But The Inquisition was still on the books in Spain until 1830, when it was officially removed. Fittingly, some very angry people, thought to be descendants of Torquemada’s victims, dug him up and burned his bones on the same spot where he had executed so many people, many of whom were innocent of any crime except perhaps guilt by association.
So that’s the story. The Inquisition was not, as Mel Brooks says in the song, “A mission/ To convert the Jews.” It was basically the brainchild of an ill-advised queen, and sanctioned by a pope who did not realize the can of worms his approval would open.