The Spanish Inquisition

Started by Jayne, June 29, 2018, 03:21:43 PM

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Jayne

Good article which shows why the common understanding is inaccurate:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/spanish-inquisition-courts-were-moderate-for-their-time/

Some excerpts:

QuoteIn fact, examined simply as a functioning court, the Spanish Inquisition was in many ways ahead of its time and a pioneer of many judicial practices we now take for granted.

Let's start with the basic legal concept of an "inquisition." It just means a court of inquiry in which the judges take the lead in directing proceedings in the pursuit of truth, rather than a prosecution-driven adversarial system. Such courts continue to function in many secular jurisdictions today, and there is, frankly, nothing very sinister about it, though it appears alien to those of us raised on American courtroom dramas.

Because it was a religious court primarily concerned with heresy trials, it has the reputation of being an ecclesiastical thought police run by religious fanatics who trapped innocent laymen with theological technicalities. The Inquisition was actually a reluctant creation of the Church.

QuoteThe pope hoped, perhaps naïvely, that by getting directly involved, the Church could bring the situation under control and end the frenzied religious denunciations.

Instead, while it did stop the pogroms, the religious authority of the Church was hijacked by the Crown. It took some years before the Church could wrest back control.

Although the institution lasted for centuries, the worst excesses of the Inquisition occurred in these first 30 years, when the Spanish Crown did use it as a means of control and oppression. By 1482, Pope Sixtus had publicly regretted allowing the Inquisition to be set up under state supervision. But the procedures the Inquisition developed to counter its own abuse came to outshine those of any comparable court of the time.

It is a bit long to post the whole thing.  I encourage people to read the whole article at the link.  It looks like another one of those cases in which the popular understanding of history has been driven by anti-Catholic propaganda.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto Thine.

Greg

Frankly, when I see how much fake news there is today I don't really trust much about historical accounts either way.

People can't even be honest about what Trump said or didn't say two years ago; in the final stages of the election.  Read the newspaper accounts from today in 500 years and you would get a totally false picture of what actually happened in 2016.

Partisan people find it VERY hard to be honest.  There is bias and spin everywhere.  I don't trust the priests, I don't trust the Spanish government and I don't trust the Protestants because they all have an axe to grind.  The only honest thing to do is say I simply don't know what happened.  There is no way of knowing what happened 500 years ago.

The National Review don't know either unless they have a video tape or new historical evidence.
Contentment is knowing that you're right. Happiness is knowing that someone else is wrong.

red solo cup

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