The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-07-25
THE SPANISH INQU|sFT|ON|

TRlBUNAL-POPES SOUGHT T(
I MITIGATE ITS SEVERITY AMI
| CLAIMED THE RIGHT OF AP
i PEAL FROM ITS SENTENCES.
History said the great Coun
De Maistre, ''has been for three cen
turtles conspiracy against the truth.
Catholic dogma, Catholic bishops
monks and nuns, Catholic princes, who
would not join the Erastian revolu
ton of the sixteenth century; every
thing has been distorted and put out
OF proper perspective. Has cleric
failed in any way, the whole Church
is blamed. Does Pope interpose be.
tween despotic king and his op-
pressed subjects he is stigmatized as
ambitious and hostile to the State.
And SO on, and SO on.
Among the objects of anti-Catholic
attack perhaps the Spanish Inquisi-
ton arouses most enthusiasm in both
speaker or writer and the hearers
and readers, says "The Live Issue"
From childhood on, to certain people,
the Inquisition has had the sound of
sizzling human flesh and gloating
ecclesiastics.
Were it called by the plain English
word, Court" no one would fear it
and yet it was simply high court
with special powers and universal
jurisdiction. No one was exempt from
its summons, neither the peasant nor
the bishop, and on one occasion when
it pleased the king to accuse the Arch
bishop of Toledo of heresy before
that tribunal, the Prelate remained in
prison several years in spite of the
intercession of the Pope This one
fact shows that the Inquisition was a
political machine, necessary at one
time and it seems to us not fierce
enough to handle the Infamous per-
sons, Jews, Moors and the mixed
breeds, who bent their every effort to
overthrow the Christian government
and reintroduce Mahometanism with
the Moors into Spain. While priests
were the judges in the one matter of
heresy, it was the King who gave them
their authority, and the Kings officers
who carried out the sentence imposed.
Never had the ecclesiastics the right
to torture or shed blood, and their
very calling ruled them out of such an
occupation.
When the special reasons for the
existence of this court had passed
away, the Kings of Spain, seeing in
it an engine by which they could curb
both State and Church, continued it,
and extended it as far as they were
able to all their dominions.
Far from the Church profiting by
the sentences imposed on the con-
victed, it was the King alone who
profited in every case.
Far from the Church dominating the
King or instigating to violence, the
bulls of many Popes stand as evi-
dence that the Church sought to miti-
gate the severity and sober the
methods of the Inquisition, and al
ways claimed the right of appeal from
it to her supreme judgment The
King usually laughed at these papal
claims, and went his own way. Any
one wishing to reach the truth about
the Inquisition must read not Llor-
ente, the special pleader of the usurp-
ing Bonapartist government; Llorente,
the traitor to his country; Llorente,
the apostate priest; but, let us say
such a one as Ranke, the Lutheran
historian, in his "The Ottoman En-
pre- After showing how little the
Catholic Church had to do with this
court he ends thus: (p. 7S) "It was in
spirit and tendency above all poll
tical institution. The Pope had an
interest in thwarting it, and he did so
as often as he could. But the King
(Charles) had an interest in constant
ly unfolding it."
About the "terrors" of this famous
court, it was only those as a rule who
were great criminals who suffered
death. Torture was seldom used and
not so frequently as in England. No
punishment could be too severe in the
opinion of the men of the sixteenth
century, for the traitors (apostates as
welD whom Ferdinand and Isabella
had to face But later on, the So
called abuses" of the Inquisition
were, according to the testimony of
Voltaire-the priest-hater par excel
lence-( Dictionary of Sciences)
foolishly exaggerated, in fact were lies
invented to render the institution
odious.
Burgoing, too, in 1889, French Min
lister to Spain, and a hater of the In
QUESTION, said Tin the Journal des
Debats 1906, September 10: Il will
acknowledge, in order to give homage
to the truth, that the Inquisition might
be cited in our days as model of
equity"
According to Limborch, the Calvinist
Dutchman, whose work on the Inqui-
sition is STEPPED in falsehood, there
were only nineteen persons put to
death in many years and these mostly
for sacrilege, witchcraft, etc., but not
for heresy!
But why, we are asked, do men like
Prescott stain their pages with a
repetition of century old lies against
the Church? We might ask: Why do
some educated men quote Fox's book
of Martyrs2 The Menace sells cheap