Initially, it was created to ensure orthodoxy from those Christians that had converted from […] A few Catholic writers have glossed over incontrovertible facts and tried to whitewash the Inquisition. Torquemada oversaw the Spanish Inquisition for fifteen years until his death. These well-intentioned but misguided apologists are, in one respect, much like Lea, Coulton, and contemporary Fundamentalist writers. The death toll numbers that you may have heard are wrong. The nephew of a noted Dominican cardinal and theologian, Juan de Torquemada, the young Torquemada joined the Dominicans and in 1452 … Pope John Paul II publicly apologized the Inquisition in 2000. He also cites Hernando de Pulgar, a secretary to Queen Isabella, as estimating 2,000 people were burned before 1490. It was a mess. The Catholic Church was the NKVD and KGB of the Middle Ages. Catholic Church means “Universal” Church. It is not a thing. If the Church didn't step in, the Catholic lay people would gather together in search of heretics and they sometimes got the wrong guy. Summary: Is Religion the cause of the most wars? Is the Catholic Church alone guilty of an “inquisition”? It was he who expanded the fledgling organization into a system with 24 Holy Offices in Spain. The Inquisition and communism, both Jewish programs are both nearly identical systems of mass murder, torture, and enslaving the masses. The Spanish Inquisition, however, properly begins with the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella. The pope had removed the documents first! Non-Catholic Christians and the secular world have used the Inquisitions, the Crusades, and the Galileo incident, as “clubs” to bash the Church for almost 500 years. A:The 'Inquisition' was actually a series of tribunals set up, originally to combat what the Catholic Church considered heresy. Well, that would be a serious massacre for heretics if that is true and perhaps that could be the end of the humanity in Europe that might lead TO EXTINCTION OF WORLD POPULATION! Seriously, Holy Inquisition is a Catholic Inquisition that used to expel heretics through making a … And if your knowledge of the "Burning Times" is based on popular or Pagan literature, nearly everything you know may be wrong. For instance, John Calvin, during his rule of Geneva between 1546-64, had 58 executed for heresy or serious sin, 73 exiled, and 900 imprisoned out of a population of 20,000. Hardly. by sempaiscuba on StackExchange. Death Toll No one knows exactly how many people perished because of the Inquisition, but it is thought to be between 3,000 and 5,000 people during the 350 years of its existence. If numbers of millions killed by the Inquisitions was actually true there would have been not one soul left in all of the countries of Southern Europe nevermind the additional millions required from the rest of Europe to make this myth come true. After his death, Ripoll’s body was put into a barrel that had flames painted on it, which was meant to symbolize burning. Flat out wrong. During the Protestant revolt, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and the English Tudors all used and condoned torture and capital punishment for heresy. For example, a Cathar preacher made a bonfire and … Estimates of the death toll during the Inquisition worldwide range from 600,000 to as high as 9,000,000 (over its 250 year long course); either is a chilling number when one realizes that nearly all of the accused were women, and consisted primarily of outcasts and other … 6 Another Protestant text, “The Mystery of Babylon Revealed” claims 95 million people were killed during the Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition was a tribunal started in 1478 in Spain. Protestant preacher Jimmy Swaggart claimed that 20 million people were murdered by the Catholic Church during the Inquisition. And although Jews were sometimes the focus of that first Inquisition, as they primarily were in Spain, the more urgent targets were Christian heretics in the south of France and northern Italy. The Inquisition was only formally abolished in the early nineteenth century. Ferdinand and Isabella, the Spanish Catholic monarchs, established the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in 1478. However, rumors of his death toll have been exaggerated. Spain fights to dispel legend of Inquisition and imperial atrocities This article is more than 2 years old Campaigners want to reclaim the country’s past from ‘distorted propaganda’ Giordano Bruno? Death was a mercy The inquisition was created to deal with people who contradicted Roman Catholic teachings. The Catholic faith was then endangered by pseudo-converts from Judaism (Marranos) and Mohammedanism (Moriscos). Many saved themselves by converting to Roman-Catholicism, so that is some sort of inquisition too. Torture and violence were used by the Inquisition for eliciting confessions from heretics. The Roman Catholic Inquisition was one of the greatest disasters ever to befall mankind. Nothing in the whole history of the Catholic church did more than the Inquisition to damn it in the eyes of rational, enlightened thinkers, or to give it the reputation for medieval barbarism it held in many quarters until recently. For more detailed information, read The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. On 1 November, 1478, Sixtus IV empowered the Catholic sovereigns to set up the Inquisition. The Inquisition was also an attempt to stop Catholic lynch mobs that went around punishing heretics. "Christianity and communism are very close spiritually and … Some writers quote figures so wildly impossible it is amazing they have any purchase at all (I’ve seen numbers nearing 95 million—more than the entire population of the countries the Inquisition was held in!). 19th century historians ascribed the persecution to religious hysteria. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. Every aspect of the Great Hunt, from chronology to death toll, has changed. Well, besides him! The last person sentenced to death by the Inquisition was a deist named Cayetano Ripoll. During world war 2, in Yugoslavia, Roman-Catholic friars were in charge of biggest death camp, Jasenovac, where 700 000 People were slaughtered, mostly Orthodox, and some Jews. One Catholic writer says no man was ever put to death by the Roman Inquisition. In practice, the Spanish Inquisition served to consolidate power in the monarchy of the newly unified Spanish kingdom, but it achieved that end through infamously brutal methods. According to myths and legends, the Holy Inquisition death toll is about 600,000 to millions of victims. For years, the responsibility for the Great Hunt has been dumped on the Catholic Church's door-step. Tomás de Torquemada, (born 1420, Valladolid, Castile [Spain]—died September 16, 1498, Ávila, Castile), first grand inquisitor in Spain, whose name has become synonymous with the Christian Inquisition’s horror, religious bigotry, and cruel fanaticism.. It was started by Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, with the assistance of Torquemada.During the Spanish Inquisition many people were burnt in front of crowds in the streets. — The Thirty Years’ War produced the largest religious death toll of all time. But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. But that was mostly because of nationalism, Roman-Catholic Croats hate Serbian Orthodox, but there are no … It's a black mark, for sure. A new, fictional Spanish Inquisition had been constructed, designed by the enemies of Spain and the Catholic Church. The Inquisition everyone has heard of is the Spanish Inquisition, but there was more than one Inquisition, and the earliest, at the start of the 13th century, wasn't in Spain. It is impossible to estimate how many were persecuted, but no-one denies that torture was used and some victims were burnt alive. They fear, while the others hope, that the facts about the Inquisition might prove the illegitimacy of the Catholic Church. When, a hundred years ago, Leo XIII boldly threw open the secret archives of the Vatican, the records of the Inquisition were not there. A teacher, he was essentially arrested for neglecting his students’ religious education. Many churchmen pointed out that it was contrary to all accepted practices for heretics to be burned without instruction in the Faith. Opposition in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to the Spanish Inquisition only increased. I found the following superbly written and researched article: What was the death toll during the Inquisition? 1517: Martin Luther (or see a Catholic take on him) begins his protests 1540: Jesuit Order founded 1542: Bernardino Ochino flees Italy, converts to Protestantism Paul III establishes the Roman Inquisition Limited press censorship, banning of Ochino's works . No matter the death toll, the Inquisition is still a black mark on the Church. It depends on the source and whether you consider the direct or indirect death toll. Death tolls are given by historians such as Will Durant, who, in The Reformation (1957), cites Juan Antonio Llorente, General Secretary of the Inquisition from 1789 to 1801, as estimating that 31,912 people were executed from 1480-1808. If the conversos were guilty at all, it was merely of ignorance, not willful heresy. It’s the entire body of the church, that is, all the people who are members of the church, now and in the past. No, absolutely not. The Inquisition, in historical ecclesiastical terminology also referred to as the "Holy Inquisition", was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy. The Inquisition was an ecclesiastical court and process of the Roman Catholic Church setup for the purpose towards the discovery and punishment of heresy which wielded immense power and brutality in medieval and early modern times. The Spanish Inquisition, already established as a bloodthirsty tool of religious persecution, was derided by Enlightenment thinkers as a brutal weapon of intolerance and ignorance. In the name of Jesus Christ, Catholic priests mounted an enormous effort to kill all "heretics" in Europe and Britain. The Inquisition was early communism. Commonly referred to as the Spanish Inquisition, all of Spain and its colonies in Europe and the Americas fell under its authority. In July 1826, after being held in jail for two years, Ripoll was hanged for heresy. For centuries people were burned at the stake, stretched to death or otherwise tortured for failing to be Roman Catholic. It began in 1618 when Protestant leaders threw two Catholic emissaries out of a Prague window into a dung heap. The greatest killer of the population was not Inquisition but the black death, the plague. Don't get me wrong, this was not a proud moment in the history of the Church. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). Numerous clergy at the highest levels complained to Ferdinand. Flat out wrong. Spanish Inquisition (1478–1834), judicial institution ostensibly established to combat heresy in Spain. These mobs would go around doing violence to people who were teaching heresy. An issue of the scholarly Catholic Dossier magazine (Nov/Dec 1996), edited by Ralph McInerny, was dedicated to the history and "myths" of the Inquisition, with articles by noted Catholic historians that analyzed the work of the most recent Inquisition scholarship, including a review of a 1994 BBC/A&E documentary "The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition" which has been replayed on the … War flared between Catholic and Protestant princedoms, drawing in supportive religious armies from Germany, Spain, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, France and Italy. 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