Of Inquisitions and Witches

The Inquisitions§ When the sins of the Catholic

Church are recited (as they so often are) the Inquisition figures prominently.

§ People with no interest in European history know full well that it was led by brutal and fanatical churchmen who tortured, maimed, and killed those who dared question the authority of the Church.

§ Or were they?

The Inquisitions§ The criticisms we find

today about the Inquisition put Catholics in a difficult position.

§ There are incredible exaggerations floating around in the secular media and among Evangelicals, yet …

§ If a Catholic corrects the exaggerations then he or she is accused of making excuses for the Inquisition.

A Scandal an Embarrassment and a Confusion

§ To non-Catholics, the Inquisition is a scandal.§ To Catholics, an embarrassment.§ To both, a confusion.§ It is a handy stick for Catholic-bashing, simply because most

Catholics seem at a loss for a sensible reply.§ But is all that we have heard and read about the Inquisition from

secular and protestant sources really true?§ That millions upon millions of people were tortured and consigned to

the flames?§ This presentation was not put together to exonerate or make excuses

for the Inquisitions.§ It is simply, in using the latest research in the field and archival

evidence, to put the Inquisition into it’s proper historical perspective and proportion.

§ Did millions die … as the current popular understanding runs.§ Hundreds of thousands … as others are willing to concede.§ Thousands … which few will take seriously.

Heresy§ One thing we should keep in mind is that people in the past

viewed the world and their place in it differently than we do today.

§ For people who lived during those times, religion was not something one did just at church.

§ It was science, philosophy, politics, identity, and hope for salvation. It was not a personal preference but a universal truth.

§ The same would be true if you were an ancient Persian, Greek, Roman, Celt, Jew or … yes even a Christian.

§ Heresy struck at the heart of that truth. It doomed the heretic, endangered those near him, and tore apart the fabric of the community.

The Inquisitions§ The crucial thing for

Catholics, is to explain how such an institution as the inquisition could have been associated with a divinely established Church and why it is not proper to conclude, from the existence of the Inquisition, that the Catholic Church is not the Church of Christ.

§ This is the real point that opponents of the Catholic Church are driving at.

The Opening of the Archives§ The Historical revision of the

Inquisition started to emerge in the late 1970s, with the opening of the Spanish archives.

§ Parallel to that, in preparation for the Jubilee in 2000, Pope John Paul II also wanted to find out just what happened during the time of the Inquisition's (the institution's) existence.

§ So in 1998 the Vatican also opened the archives of the Holy Office to a team of 30 scholars from around the world.

§ Those scholars after years of sifting through the archives prepared an 800-page report that was unveiled to the public.

The Inquisitions

§ Their most startling conclusion was that the Inquisition was nowhere near as bad as many of us had been lead to believe.

§ Torture was rare and only about 1 percent of those brought before the Spanish Inquisition were actually executed.

The Inquisitions§ The Spanish and Vatican archives confirmed that most

people 98-99% accused of heresy and brought before the Inquisition were either acquitted or had their sentences suspended.

§ Those found guilty of grave error were allowed to confess their sin, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ.

§ The underlying assumption of the Inquisition was that, like lost sheep, heretics had simply strayed.

§ If, however, an inquisitor determined that a particular sheep had purposely left the flock, there was nothing more that could be done.

§ Unrepentant or obstinate heretics were excommunicated and given over to secular authorities.

The Inquisition Saved Lives

§ Despite popular myth, the Inquisition did not burn heretics.

§ It was the secular authorities that held heresy to be a capital offense, not the Church.

A Crime Against the State§ The Inquisition was not born out of a desire to

crush diversity or oppress people; it was rather, believe it or not, an attempt to stop unjust executions.

§ What do we mean …§ Heresy was a crime against the state. Roman law

in the Code of Justinian made it a capital offense.

§ Rulers, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did the common people, who saw them as dangerous

Brought for judgement to the Local Lord

§ When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig or damaged shrubbery.

§ Yet in contrast to those crimes, it was not so easy to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. For starters, one needed some basic theological training, something most medieval lords sorely lacked.

§ The result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent assessment of the validity of the charge.

The Lost Sheep§ The Catholic Church's response to this problem

was the Inquisition.§ It was born out of a need to provide fair trials for

accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges.

§ From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the King and therefore deserved death.

§ From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the Pope and Bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them.

Saving Souls§ So, while medieval

secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls.

§ The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community.

§ In any case, it is easy to see how those who led the Inquisitions could think their actions were justified …

§ Why?

Heresy and Deuteronomy§ That is because the Bible itself records instances where

God commanded that formal, legal inquiries—Inquisitions—be carried out to expose secret believers in false religions.

§ God said: "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, 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, 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, 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." Deuteronomy 17:2–5

Heresy and Deuteronomy§ It is clear that there were some Israelites who posed as

believers in and keepers of the covenant with Yahweh, while inwardly they did not believe and secretly practiced false religions, and even tried to spread them (Deut. 13:6–11).

§ To protect the kingdom from such hidden heresy, these secret practitioners of false religions had to be rooted out and expelled from the community. This directive from the Lord applied even to whole cities that turned away from the true religion (Deut. 13:12–18).

§ Like Israel, medieval Europe was a society of Christian kingdoms that were formally consecrated to the Lord Jesus Christ.

§ It is therefore quite understandable that these Catholics would read their Bibles and conclude that for the good of their Christian society they, like the Israelites before them, "must purge the evil from the midst of you" (Deut. 13:5, 17:7, 12). Paul repeats this principle in 1 Corinthians 5:13.

Heresy and Deuteronomy§ The early Church though did not apply the punishments of

Deuteronomy, but deemed that excommunication from the Church was sufficient enough.

§ St Cyprian 308 AD “religion being a matter of the will, it cannot be forced on anyone; in this matter it is better to employ words than blows.”

§ The early Christians insisted on complete religious liberty; furthermore, they not only urged the principle that religion could not be forced on others – a principle always adhered by the Church in her dealings with the unbaptised but when comparing with the Mosaic law and the Christian religion, they taught that the latter was content with spiritual punishment of heretics (excommunication) while Judaism applied death to religious dissidents.

The Medieval Inquisition § When studying the

inquisition, we must keep in mind that there was not one monolithic Inquisition, but rather, three distinct inquisitions.

§ The first was the Medieval Inquisition which began in the early 13th century in southern France in response to the Catharist heresy, and dissolved at the end of the 14th Century as Catharism died out.

The Spanish Inquisition§ El Santo Oficio de la Santa

Inquisition, better known as the Spanish Inquisition, started in 1478 AD as a State institution appointed to discover heresy, deviations from the true Faith.

§ It is important to note that the Inquisition had authority only over baptized Christians, converted Jews and Muslims.

§ Unbaptized Jews and Muslims were completely free of its disciplinary measures unless they violated natural

The Roman Inquisition§ Finally, the Roman Inquisition, was begun in 1542, the least active

and most benign of the three variations.§ A recent study by the scholar John Tedeschi, “The Prosecution of

Heresy,” 1991, overturns long-standing assumptions about the corruption, inhumane coercion, and injustice of the Roman Inquisition of the Renaissance.

§ What he discovered was that the Inquisition was not a chamber of horrors, or a judicial labyrinth from which escape was impossible. The inquisitorial process included the provision of a defense attorney. Further, the accused was given right to counsel and even received a notarized copy of the entire trial (with the names of prosecution witnesses deleted) so that he might make a response.

§ In contrast, in the secular courts of the time, the defense attorney was still playing only a ceremonial role, the felon in secular courts, was denied the right to counsel (until 1836), and evidence against the accused was only read in court, where he had to make the defense on the spot.

The Albigensian Crusade§ At the beginning of the 13th

Century, the Inquisition was established in southern France in response to the Albigensian heresy, the Cathars (pure ones), which found particular strength in the cities of Lombardy and Languedoc and was centered around the city of Albi in Southern France.

The Cathars§ The Cathars rejected the dogma

of the Trinity and the sacrament of the Eucharist, among others, as abominations.

§ This world was the only hell — there was nothing to fear after death, save perhaps rebirth.

§ The God found in the Old Testament had nothing to do with the God of Love known to Cathars.

§ The Old Testament God had created the world as a prison, and demanded from the "prisoners" fearful obedience and worship.

The Cathars§ They preached that marriage was evil.§ That all oaths were forbidden.§ That religious suicide was good.§ That man had no free will and therefore could not be held

responsible for his actions.§ That civil authority had no right to punish criminals or

defend the country by arms, all of which were notions that struck at the very root of medieval society.

§ For example, the simple refusal to take oaths would have undermined the whole fabric of feudal legal structures, in which the spoken word carried equal or greater weight than the written.

§ In fact more Cathars died by forced religious suicide by their fellow Cathars, than through the Inquisition.

The Medieval Inquisition§ In northern France, the Church was facing sporadic mob violence

and lynchings that often fell on the innocent.§ The people thought that the Church was treating the Cathars too

leniently and all across Europe they and their Lords began to take things into their own hands.

§ As early as March 1224, Emperor Frederick the II, ordered that any heretics convicted in Lombardy be burned alive (the ancient Roman penalty for high treason) or as a lesser penalty, their tongues torn out.

§ Peter Cantor, the most learned man of his time and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and many members of the Church spoke out against the violence.

§ “Whether they are convicted of error, or freely confess their guilt, Catharists are not to be put to death, at least not when they refrain from armed assaults upon the Church. For Although the Apostle said, A man that is a heretic after the third admonition, avoid, he certainly did not say, Kill him. Throw them into prison, if you will, but do not put them to death.” Peter Cantor “de investigatione Antichrist III 42)

The Medieval Inquisition§ Pope Gregory, fearful that Frederick was

committing to flames men who were not heretics but merely his own personal enemies, and that the emperor was encroaching on ecclesiastical grounds, applying the roman law that punished treason with death, which is how the secular lords viewed heretics, sought to find a more measured way to deal with the problem.

§ It was a delicate balancing act. Protecting the religious prerogative of the Church, while at the same time not offending the Emperor or encroaching on his sphere as temporal Lord over his domain.

The Medieval Inquisition§ In 1233 Pope Gregory IX

responded with his own solution: to replace the lynch law with a regular legal process headed by the mendicant Dominicans and Franciscans.

§ They would be examiners and judges specially trained for the detection and conversion of heretics, protected from avarice and bribery by the vow of poverty, and devoted to justice.

The Medieval Inquisition§ The Medieval Inquisition

introduced law and justice where before there was mob rule.

§ The mendicant orders were charged with the task of preserving the integrity of the Faith as well as the security of society.

§ The failure to stem the tide of this heresy would have seriously damaged Western Christendom.

The Inquisitions

§ Despite the compelling Gothic fictions, the evidence leads us to a wholly different conclusion.

§ The Inquisitors were certainly interrogators, but they were theological experts who followed the rules and instructions meticulously, and were dismissed and punished when they showed too little regard for justice.

§ When, for example, in 1223 Robert of Bourger gleefully announced his aim to burn heretics, not to convert them, he was immediately suspended and imprisoned for life by Pope Gregory IX

Inquisitorial Procedures§ The inquisitorial procedures

were surprisingly just and lenient. In contrast with other tribunals throughout Europe at the time.

§ In theory, it was a sinner, and not a criminal, who stood before the Inquisitor.

§ If the lost sheep returned to the fold, the Inquisitor counted himself successful.

§ If not, the heretic died in open rebellion against God, and, as far as the Inquisitor was concerned, his mission was a complete failure.

Systemic Torture?§ Torture was first authorized by Innocent IV in the bull Ad

exstirpanda of May 15, 1252, with limits that it could not cause the loss of a limb or imperil life, could only be applied once, and then only if the accused seemed already virtually convicted of heresy by manifold and certain proofs.

§ Certain objective studies carried out by recent scholars have argued that torture was practically unknown in the medieval inquisitorial process.

§ The register of Bernard Gui, the inquisitor of Toulouse for six years who examined more than 600 heretics, shows only one instance of where torture was used. Further, in the 930 sentences recorded between 1307 and 1323, the majority of the accused were sentenced to imprisonment, the wearing of crosses, and penances.

§ Only 42 were abandoned to the secular arm and burned. An average of less than three a year!

False Legends of the Inquisition§ Legends about the brutality of the Inquisition in regard to

the numbers of persons sentenced to prison and of those abandoned to the secular power to be burned at the stake have been exaggerated through the years.

§ After painstaking analysis of the archives, Professor Yves Dossat concluded that in the mid-13th Century, only one out of every hundred heretics sentenced by the Inquisition was abandoned to the secular power for execution, and only ten to twelve percent even received prison sentences.

§ Further, the Inquisitors often reduced sentences to lesser penances and commuted others.

§ The large numbers of burnings detailed in various histories are generally unauthenticated, or are the deliberate invention of anti- Catholic propagandists of later centuries.

The Legend of the Spanish Inquisition

§ On November 6, 1994, the BBC aired a documentary titled “The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition.”

§ In it, historians admitted that “this image is false. It is a distortion disseminated 400 years ago and accepted ever since. Each case that came before the Spanish Inquisition in its 300-year history had its own file. Now, those files are being gathered together and studied properly for the first time.”

§ Prof. Henry Kamen, an expert in the field, admitted candidly that the files are detailed, exhaustive, and bring to light a very different version of the Spanish Inquisition.

The Legend of the Spanish Inquisition

§ Concerning torture, Prof. Stephen Haliczer stated, "In fact, the Inquisition used torture very infrequently. In Valencia, I found that out of 7,000 cases only two percent suffered any form of torture at all and usually for no more than 15 minutes . . . I found no one suffering torture more than twice.”

§ Prof. Henry Kamen. agreed: “We find when comparing the Spanish Inquisition with other tribunals that the Spanish Inquisition used torture much less. And if we compare the Spanish Inquisition with tribunals in other countries, we find that the Spanish Inquisition has a virtually clean record in respect to torture.”

The Legend of the Spanish Inquisition

§ During this same period in the rest of Europe, hideous physical cruelty was commonplace. And the protestants were conducting their own inquisitions which were far more brutal.

§ In England, transgressors were executed for damaging shrubs in public gardens, poaching deer, stealing a woman's handkerchief and attempting suicide.

§ In France, those who stole sheep were disemboweled. During the reign of Henry VIII, the recognized punishment for a poisoner was to be boiled alive in a cauldron.

§ As late as 1837, 437 persons were executed in England in one year for various crimes, and until passage of the Reform Bill, death was the recognized penalty for forgery, coining, horse thieving, burglary, arson, robbery and interference with the postal service, and sacrilege.

The Making of a Myth-Montanus

§ The Inquisition Myth, which Spaniards call “The Black Legend,” did not arise in 1480 when the Spanish Inquisition started.

§ Instead, the myth began almost 100 years later …§ With the publication of a pamphlet ...§ In 1567 a fierce propaganda campaign began

against Catholic Spain with the publication of a Protestant leaflet that painted Spaniards as barbarians who ravished women and sodomized young boys. The propagandists soon created “hooded fiends” who tortured their victims in horrible devices.

The Making of a Myth-Montanus§ A discouery and playne declaration of sundry subtill

practises of the Holy Inquisition of Spayne, Published 1568

§ The pamphlet was written under the pseudonym Reginaldus Gonzalvus Montanus (Peters 1988: 133). This document, along with a number of successive publications, was reprinted and translated throughout Europe and became the definitive source on “The Inquisition” for hundreds of years. “Montanus portrayed every victim of the Inquisition as innocent, every Inquisition official as venal and deceitful, and every step in its procedure as a violation of natural and rational law” (Peters 1988: 134).

§ The majority of the “histories” about “The Inquisition” written after 1567 and up to the 20th century, relied on Montanus as their main source.

The Legend of the Spanish Inquisition

§ The Inquisition's main purpose was to investigate conversos, (Jews and Muslims who had converted to Christianity) who were accused of still practising their old faith.

§ As for the Jews, and Muslims they were immune to the Inquisition.

§ Remember, the purpose of an inquisition was to find and correct the lost sheep of Christ's flock. It had no jurisdiction over other flocks.

The Legend of the Spanish Inquisition

§ After concerns surfaced, Pope Sixtus ordered the bishops to take a direct role in all future tribunals. They were to ensure that the Church's well-established norms of justice were respected. The accused were to have legal counsel and the right to appeal their case to Rome.

§ In the Middle Ages, the Pope's commands would have been obeyed. But those days were gone. King Ferdinand was outraged when he heard of the Pope’s letter.

The Legend of the Spanish Inquisition

§ Opposition in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to the Spanish Inquisition only increased. Many churchmen pointed out that it was contrary to all accepted practices for heretics to be burned without instruction in the Faith.

§ If the conversos were guilty at all, it was merely of ignorance, not willful heresy. Numerous clergy at the highest levels complained to Ferdinand. Opposition to the Spanish Inquisition also continued in Rome.

§ Sixtus's successor, Innocent VIII, wrote twice to the king asking for greater compassion, mercy, and leniency for the conversos but to no avail.

The Legend of the Spanish Inquisition§ After a number of years of

questionable practices and procedures, reforms were introduced.

§ the Spanish Inquisition was eventually staffed by well-educated legal professionals, making it one of the most efficient and compassionate judicial bodies in Europe.

§ No major court in Europe executed fewer people than the Spanish Inquisition.

§ This was a time, after all, when, damaging shrubs in a public garden in London carried the death penalty. Across Europe, executions were everyday events. But not so with the Spanish Inquisition.

A 350 Year History …§ In its 350-year lifespan about 4,000 people were put to death

by the Spanish Inquisition. Compare that with the witch-hunts that raged across the rest of Europe, in which over 60,000 people, mostly women, were roasted.

§ Spain was spared this hysteria precisely because the Spanish Inquisition stopped it at the border. When the first accusations of witchcraft surfaced in northern Spain, the Inquisition sent its people to investigate.

§ These trained legal scholars found no believable evidence for witches' Sabbaths, black magic, or baby roasting.

§ It was also noted that those confessing to witchcraft had a curious inability to fly through keyholes.

§ While Europeans were throwing women onto bonfires with abandon, the Spanish Inquisition slammed the door shut on this insanity. (For the record, the Roman Inquisition also kept the witch craze from infecting Italy.)

The Protestant Inquisitions

§ And yet, hardly anybody has heard or read about the Inquisitions conducted by the various Protestant denominations throughout the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

Aims of the Inquisitions§ The general aim of the

three Catholic Inquisitions was to bring the heretic back into the fold of the Church.

§ A heretic that repented and who’s soul was saved was considered a success.

§ The general aim of the Protestant inquisitions was to punish nonbelievers.

§ Repentance the objective for one

§ Punishment the objective for the other.

Protestant Inquisitions§ What many Evangelicals

don't know is that there was also a Protestant Inquisition.

§ It was not a "warm fuzzy" Holy Spirit environment back in the early days of the Reform. Tens of thousands of non-Anglicans were killed in England. It was brutal. In America, the Puritans (Protestants) also conducted an Inquisition where people were burned at the stake.

Protestant Inquisitions§ Even the early reformers were not into "freedom of religion"

and "free speech". Martin Luther said: “There are others who teach in opposition to some recognized article of faith which is manifestly grounded on Scripture . . . Heretics of this sort must not be tolerated, but punished as open blasphemers . . . If anyone wishes to preach or to teach, let him make known the call or the command which impels him to do so, or else let him keep silence. If he will not keep quiet, then let the civil authorities command the scoundrel to his rightful master - namely, Master Hans [i.e., the hangman].” (Janssen, X, 222; EA, Bd. 39, 250-258; Commentary on 82nd Psalm, 1530; cf. Durant, 423, Grisar, VI, 26-27)

§ "The Reformation of the 16th century was not aware of the true principles of intellectual liberty . . . At the very moment it was demanding these rights for itself it was violating them towards others." E. Francois Guizot (P) (50:297/3)

Protestant Inquisitions

§ Johann von Dollinger "Historically nothing is more incorrect than the assertion that the Reformation was a movement in favor of intellectual freedom. The exact contrary is the truth. For themselves, it is true, Lutherans and Calvinists claimed liberty of conscience . . . but to grant it to others never occurred to them so long as they were the stronger side. The complete extirpation of the Catholic Church, and in fact of everything that stood in their way, was regarded by the reformers as something entirely natural." (51;v.6:268-9/1)

Protestant Inquisitions§ "If any one still harbors the

traditional prejudice that the early Protestants were more liberal, he must be undeceived. Save for a few splendid sayings of Luther, confined to the early years when he was powerless, there is hardly anything to be found among the leading reformers in favor of freedom of conscience. As soon as they had the power to persecute they did." (B. Preserved Smith (Secularist) 115:177)

Protestant Inquisitions

§ "This fact is forgotten by Protestants. They read blood-curdling stories of the Inquisition and of atrocities committed by Catholics, but what does the average Protestant know of Protestant atrocities in the centuries succeeding the Reformation? Nothing, unless he makes a special study of the subject . . . Yet they are perfectly well known to every scholar . . . If I do not enumerate here the persecutions carried on by Catholics in the past, it is because it is not necessary in this book to do so. This volume is addressed especially to Protestants, and Catholic persecutions are to them sufficiently well known.” John Stoddard "Inquisition Polemics"

Protestant Inquisitions§ The Calvinists in France caused Ten wars between 1562

and 1628.§ In one year alone (1561), according to one of THEIR

OWN estimates, the French Calvinists "murdered 4,000 priests, monks and nuns, expelled or maltreated 12,000 nuns, sacked 20,000 churches, and destroyed 2,000 monasteries " with their priceless libraries, Bibles and works of art. The rare manuscript collection of the ancient monastery of Cluny was irreparably lost, with many others.

§ In fact, throughout Protestant Europe, tens of thousands of Priests, monks and nuns were killed, along with countless other Catholics … not to mention …

§ Witches …

A Letter to a Danish King§ “We have heard from your people that you have been

blaming priests for bad weather, storms, and many illnesses … Therefore we order you with Apostolic authority totally to eradicate this harmful custom in your kingdom and dare shift such a disgrace onto priests and clergy, who are instead worthy of all honour and respect.”

§ “Moreover you must not believe that you can mistreat women, who suffer the same inhumanity for the same reason, condemned according to a barbaric custom. Rather through sincere repentance, you should learn to deflect God’s terrible judgement, which you have earned, instead of attracting God’s wrath all the more by punishing these innocent women …” Pope Gregory VIII 1080 AD, letter to King Harald of Denmark.

The Witch Hunts§ During the Early Middle Ages, the Church did not conduct

witch trials. Witchcraft was considered a heresy and dealt with in that fashion and not specifically differentiated.

§ It was the various Protestant Inquisitions that were known for witch trials and the burning of witches.

§ Witch hunts were widespread from the 16th century up to the 18th.

§ “A . . . patent cause of the mania was the zeal and bibliolatry of Protestantism . . . Luther . . . seeing an idiotic child, whom he regarded as a changeling, . . . recommended the authorities to drown it, as a body without a soul. Repeatedly, both in private talk and in public sermons, he recommended that witches should be put to death without mercy and without regard for legal niceties . . .” (Mr. A Preserved Smith, the secularist historian 115:186-7)

The Witch Hunts§ In 1258 AD. Pope Alexander IV explicitly refused to

allow the Inquisition from investigating charges of witchcraft: "The Inquisitors, deputed to investigate heresy, must not intrude into investigations of divination or sorcery without knowledge of manifest heresy involved.”

§ "manifest heresy" meant: "praying at the altars of idols, to offer sacrifices, to consult demons, to elicit responses from them... or if [the witches] associate themselves publicly with heretics.“

§ In other words, in the 13th century the Church did not consider witches heretics or members of a rival religion.”

The Witch Hunts§ It wasn't until 1326, almost 100 years

later, that the Church reversed its position and allowed the Inquisition to investigate witchcraft. But even so they played a very insignificant part in it.

§ And even then Catholic Inquisitions only applied to baptized Catholics who were practicing witchcraft. The Inquisition had nothing to do with pagan, secular or protestant witches.

§ The Catholic Church had nothing to do with the Salem Witch burnings in the US, that was a Protestant thing, as were the witch burnings in Scotland, England and most of Germany.

The Witch Hunts§ Up until the late 1400's the Church downplayed the

role of witchcraft. Before that the church tried to discourage it as superstitious, rather than an actual power.

§ However, after the Black death, things changed. People began to take witchcraft seriously and to consider it as a genuine threat. Many people at that time believed that witchcraft was real, and that it actually could cause harm. So they treated it much the same way as they treated other forms of serious harm such as murder.

The Malleus Maleficarum

§ According to The Da Vinci Code, ‘‘The Catholic Inquisition published the book that arguably could be called the most blood-soaked publication in human history. Malleus Maleficarum—or The Witches’ Hammer—written by the German monk Heinrich Kramer, indoctrinated the world to ‘the dangers of freethinking women’ and instructed the clergy how to locate, torture, and destroy them’’ (page 125)

§ In fact, the Catholic Church did not publish Malleus Maleficarum, and the Inquisition actually condemned its views.

§ In 1487, Kramer attempted to have the book approved by the Catholic faculty of Cologne University; they rejected it because its legal procedures were unethical and because Kramer’s demonology differed radically from the church’s understanding of Scripture. In response, Kramer forged a glowing letter of approval and claimed it came from them. The Inquisition found out and condemned Kramer and his book in 1490.

The Malleus Maleficarum§ “You also have to take the

Malleus' theories with a grain of salt. As I've said, Kramer's views were condemned by the Inquisition. They certainly don't represent the official view of the Church of the 15th century … The big thing to remember, however, is that the Malleus does not give an accurate picture of what Witch hunting was like. It's an extreme, radical text, and gives a very distorted view of life in the Burning Times.” Jenny Dobbins MA in medieval history and a minor in the Great Hunt. (In a review of the book)

The Witch Hunts§ “… in the last 20 years virtually

all reputable secular historians have revised witch death rates to 40,000-60,000 … And less than 500 witch deaths caused directly by the Church through the Inquisition. Although these deaths are inexcusable, they are a long way from the “9 MILLION” number quoted in the Nation Film Board's popular (but unhistorical) movie called "The Burning Times.“ This mostly from going through the European archives of that time.” Jenny Dobbins MA in medieval history and a minor in the Great Hunt.

The Witch Hunts§ “When the Church was at the height of its power

(11th-14th centuries) very few witches died. Persecutions did not reach epidemic levels until after the Reformation, when the Catholic Church had lost its position as Europe's indisputable moral authority. Moreover most of the killing was done by secular courts. Church courts tried many witches but they usually imposed non-lethal penalties. A witch might be excommunicated, given penance, or imprisoned, but she was rarely killed. The Inquisition almost invariably pardoned any witch who confessed and repented...” Jenny Dobbins MA in medieval history and a minor in the Great Hunt.

The Witch Hunts§ “For years, the responsibility

for the Great Hunt has been dumped on the Catholic Church's door-step … popular writers trumpeted that the Great Hunt was not a mere panic, but rather a deliberate attempt to exterminate Christianity's rival religion. Today, we know that there is absolutely no evidence to support this theory...” Jenny Dobbins MA in medieval history and a minor in the Great Hunt.

The Witch Hunts§ “When the trials peaked in the 16th and 17th century, the

Inquisition was only operating in two countries: Spain and Italy, and both had extremely low death tolls ... We Neopagans now face a crisis. As new data appeared, historians altered their theories to account for it. We have not. Therefore an enormous gap has opened between the academic and the "average" Pagan view of witchcraft. We continue to use out-dated and poor writers, like Margaret Murray, Montague Summers, Gerald Gardner, and Jules Michelet. We avoid the somewhat dull academic texts that present solid research, preferring sensational writers who play to our emotions ... We owe it to ourselves to study the Great Hunt more honestly, in more detail, and using the best data available.” Jenny Dobbins MA in medieval history and a minor in the Great Hunt.

Joan of Arc§ The death of Joan of Arc was a rigged bogus Inquisition set

up by the English to kill the French heroine that defeated them. It was not about heresy, or witchcraft. In fact the French Church empowered her to lead the French troops as a religious visionary against the English.

§ Some of the court officials later admitted that the English conducted the proceedings for the purposes of revenge rather than out of any genuine belief that she was a heretic.

§ Joan continually appealed for her right to see the Pope, but the corrupt English court would not allow it because they knew the Pope would have set her free. This was not a Church crime, it was a crime of the English against the French, thinly disguised as a Catholic inquisition. But the court was anything but faithful to the Pope, and the Magisterium.

Put into Perspective

§ Reputable scholars conclude that the entire Inquisition of 500 years, caused about …

§ 5,000-6,000 deaths.§ These atrocities are completely inexcusable.§ These numbers are however, a far cry from the

those used in the popular press, millions or of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of victims who perished at the stake.

§ The deaths attributed to the inquisitions during the 500 year period, work out to about 12 per year!

Put into Perspective§ Executions in the US.

1930 – 1967 …§ 4,291§ Executions

1976 – 2010 …§ 1242§ In other words, in about 80

years, the US has executed almost as many people as the Catholic Inquisitions are believed to have been responsible for, in 500 years!

Pope John Paul II§ Though we have shown that the Inquisitions were no

where near what popular culture would lead us to believe, Pope John Paul II nevertheless warned us …

§ “Yet the consideration of mitigating factors does not exonerate the Church from the obligation to express profound regret for the weaknesses of so many of her sons and daughters who sullied her face, preventing her from fully mirroring the image of her crucified Lord, the supreme witness of patient love and of humble meekness. From these painful moments of the past a lesson can be drawn for the future, leading all Christians to adhere fully to the sublime principle stated by the Council: “The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it wins over the mind with both gentleness and power.”

Not a Museum for SaintsBut a Hospital for Sinners

§ In times past, cruel practices were commonly used by legitimate governments to maintain law and order, often without protest from the Pastors of the Church, who themselves adopted in their own tribunals the prescriptions of Roman law concerning torture. Regrettable as these facts are, the Church always taught the duty of clemency and mercy. She forbade clerics to shed blood. In recent times it has become evident that these cruel practices were neither necessary for public order, nor in conformity with the legitimate rights of the human person. On the contrary, these practices led to ones even more degrading. It is necessary to work for their abolition. We must pray for the victims and their tormentors (CCC. no. 2298).

And Yet Is Modern Society more

§ So far 45,000,000 babies like the ones above have died in North America since abortion was legalized in 1973.

§ How will those who come after us … judge us …

As a Final Note . . .§ In the end, whether it be the Crusades or the

Inquisitions, no Evangelical, or secularist will bring up the subject unless he or she thinks it proves something about the Catholic Church.

§ What is that something?§ That the Church contains sinners?§ Guilty as charged.§ That at times sinners have reached positions of

authority?§ Yes.§ That even otherwise good Catholics, afire with zeal,

sometimes lose their mental balance?§ True, all true . . .

As a Final Note§ Yet to call an institution into question is not to prove it false.§ The Church has not been false to its’ commission, individual

Catholics … Yes.§ It has always been that way since the denial of Peter, and the

apostles abandoning Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.§ As God remained faithful to his Covenant with the chosen people,

Israel, even when they sinned and rebelled from Him, so too is he faithful to his New Covenant with his Church on earth, even when it fails at times to live to the ideals of our Lord.

§ Where in the old days God would send Prophets to bring his children Israel back to the righteous path when they strayed.

§ So too does He send Saints to bring his Church back to the righteous path when it strays …

§ The one true church … The Holy Catholic Church.§ Not as a museum for Saints … But as a hospital for Sinners!§ Amen!

Sources

§ Inquisition (1988) by Edward Peters§ The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition. Catholic

Dossier. Vol. 2, No. 6 (Nov-Dec, 1996). by Ellen Rice.

§ The Spanish Inquisition: An Historical Revision (1997) by Henry Kamen

§ The Real Inquisition: Investigating the Popular Myth. National Review Online (June 18, 2004.) by Thomas Madden

§ The Spanish Inquisition (2006) by Helen Rawlings