Newsgroup: it.cultura.cattolica
Titolo: Truth About The Spanish Inquisition

Truth About The Spanish Inquisition
   Here is a short portion taken from David Goldstein's 1943 book, "LETTERS
Hebrew-Catholic to Mr. Isaacs". It is valuable not only because it clears
up the many lies that have been formed over the years regarding the Spanish
Inquisition and the Church, but also because the author himself is of
Jewish extraction, having converted to Catholicism; in 1955 he was named a
"Knight of St. Gregory" for his apologetic works by Pope Pius XII.
   Catholics should no more feel ashamed when they hear of the "Spanish
Inquisition" than when they hear of the convening of an historical General
Council, or even the denial of St. Peter. The former being beneficial and
necessary for the Church, the latter being an abuse that cannot be
attributed to the Church Herself. Let us spread the truth about the Spanish
Inquisition so as to counteract the libelous things being spread about the
Church to the public by means of school books and the Mass Media.
__________________________________________________
   A student of prejudices once said,
"The mind is like a sheet of white paper in this, that the impressions it
receives oftenest and retains longest, are the black ones."
   The truth of this observation is never more apparent than when
considering the Jews and the Spanish Inquisition. If the teachings of the
Old Testament were dinned into the minds and hearts of Jews as continually
as is this historic calamity, the rabbis would not have to bemoan the lack
of interest in religion on the part of children of Jewish parentage as they
did lately at their Atlantic City Conference. Jewish book after book,
weekly and monthly publication after weekly and monthly publication, so
incessantly harp upon the Spanish Inquisition that it has become a Jewish
"persecution complex," as Maurice Fueurlich said in the "Forum" (Sept.,
1937). In writing on "Children of a Martyr Race," this writer says, that
"the Spanish Inquisition has been dinned into my consciousness so deeply
that it became a basic element in my emotional life."
   The Jewish version of the Spanish Inquisition, which took place four
hundred and fifty years ago, is the source from which has emanated much
Jewish fear of the Catholic Church, and much hostility towards Jews who
enter her communion. This is true even among rabbis who seek a union of
forces with Catholic priests against the injustices of our time that
afflict the Jews. They hold that as long as Christianity is divided; as
long as Catholics are in the minority there is no fear. But should the
Catholic Church ever become the only Christian Church, as she was during
the middle ages, then beware of the Auto-da-Fe (Act of Faith), a solemn
religious ceremony that the uninformed and the misleaders hold to have been
a place of torture and burning at the stake.
   Those in Jewry who speak or write about the Spanish Inquisition, with
minor exceptions, have received their knowledge of it from prejudicial
sources, or from persons whose data concerning it were taken from poisoned
sources of information. That accounts for your prodding me, as have many
others, with the query:
"How can you join a church that inflicted the cruelties practiced upon your
own people during the Spanish Inquisition?"
   Your query could be dismissed with the simple declaration that my
journey to the baptismal font of the Catholic Church was conditioned upon
my belief in her principles, and not upon agreement with everything done by
Catholics during the Spanish Inquisition, or any other intense historic
period. But the import of your query, considering that the Spanish
Inquisition is a bugbear that closes the Jewish mind to things Catholic,
prompts me to deal with the subject at length, and without any equivocation.
   Properly to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind
the fact that an inquisition is a court of inquiry; that all societies,
including your Masonic lodge, have temporary or permanent trial courts,
under different names, to examine members charged with violating their
principles. If adjudged guilty, such members are punished, though not by
"having their throats cut across, their tongues torn out by the root, and
their bodies buried in the sands of the sea," as you "solemnly swore" to
permit your lodge to do when you became a Master Mason, in the event that
you revealed its secrets. If secular societies may legitimately institute
such courts, and impose sentences, then why has not the Catholic Church a
greater reason for the institution of an inquisitorial court, considering
that to violate her sacred principles is to violate the principles God
taught man through Moses and His Son Jesus, the Messiah?
   To properly understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind
the fact that the Inquisition was instituted in Spain for persons who
professed to be Catholics and not for practicing Jews. It was to unearth,
and to bring to penance, not merely heretics, as many Jews believe, but
also bigamists, adulterers, blasphemers, and other violators of the
principles of the Church to which they, as baptized men and women, were
obligated to be true. George E. Sokolsky, publicist, of New York City, says
in "We Jews,"
"The task of the Inquisition was not to Persecute Jews but to cleanse the
Church of unorthodoxy. The Inquisition was not concerned with infidels
outside the Church but with heretics within it" (N.Y., 1935, p. 53).
   The Spanish Inquisition was instituted to weed out those baptized Jews
and Moslems who pretended to be sincere Catholics, while they secretly
adhered to the practices of Judaism and Mohammedanism, which is a most
serious sacrilegious offense. They were also enemies of the State, which
was Christian in principle and carried the Cross in battle against the
Crescent. As further evidence, consider what Dr. Salo Wittmayer Baron, one
of America's foremost Jewish historians, has to say about this matter. I
quote from "A Social and Religious History of the Jews" (N.Y., 1937, VOL 2
p. 58) -
"It appears to be a fact as well as a theory that Jews who never ceased
professing Judaism were, on the whole, left undisturbed.-In the fourteen
years of the activity of the Spanish Inquisition, from its establishment in
1478 to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, we hear of only one
persecution directed against a Jewish community, where the Jewry of Huesca
was accused in 1489 of having admitted conversos (pseudo-converts from
Judaism to Christianity) to the Jewish fold. It was precisely the inability
of the inquisitorial courts to check Jewish influence on the conversos that
served as a decisive argument for the Catholic monarchs in banishing Jews
from Spain......
   Properly to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind
the fact that Spain was at war for more than a half dozen centuries against
the Mohammedans with whom the Jews were lined up against the Spaniards. It
was a battle of the Cross against the Crescent. This is vouched for by
Graetz's "History of the Jews," the "Jewish Encyclopedia," the
"Encyclopedia of Jewish Knowledge," "Vallentine's Jewish Encyclopedia," and
other authorities of foremost standing in Jewry. The two last named say,
"The Spanish Jews welcomed, it is even said that they invited, the Arab
invasion. Under the Caliphate (Mohammedan ruler) of the West, with its
capital at Cordova, their members (the Jews) grew and they attained great
influence in the State" (Dr. Cecil Roth, in Vallentine's J.E., p. 612).
"It is admitted that the African Jews aided the Arabs in the capture of
Cordova, Malaga, Granada, Seville, and Toledo and these cities were placed
under Jewish control by the conquerors" (Ency. J. Knowledge, p. 531).
   Properly to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind
the fact that as far as the abuses of the Inquisition are concerned, the
Catholic Church is no more responsible for them than she is for the Spanish
bull fights which she condemned. Those abuses were committed, with a few
exceptions, by the civil power, and they were condemned by Popes Leo X,
Paul III, Paul IV, and Sixtus IV who reigned during that period of history.
That is very likely news to you, as it is to most Jews, who have been "fed
up" with stories of the Auto-da-Fe that are as far from being true as are
the stories about Jews slaughtering Christian children to use their blood
for ritual purposes.
   Properly to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind
the fact that the popes were the protectors of the Jews, and not their
enemies. Rome was a haven of refuge for the persecuted Jews when the
Eternal City was ruled by the popes, to which many of the Jews driven out
of Spain migrated. You need not take my word regarding the friendliness of
the popes, as it is confirmed by Dr. Cecil Roth of London, Jewry's leading
present-day historian on the middle ages. He said a few years ago, while
addressing the Zionist Forum in Buffalo, N.Y.
"Only in Rome has the colony of Jews continued its existence since before
the beginning of the Christian era, because of all the dynasties of Europe,
the Papacy not only refused to persecute the Jews of Rome and Italy, but
throughout the ages popes were protectors of the Jews.
"Some Jews have the feeling that the Papacy has a policy of persecuting
Jews. But you must remember that English history is definitely
anti-Catholic' and your views of Catholicism may have been colored by
English history. We Jews who have suffered so much from prejudices, should
rid our minds of prejudices and learn the facts. The truth is that the
popes and the Catholic Church from the earliest days of the Church were
never responsible for physical persecution of Jews and only Rome, among the
capitals of the world, is free from having been a place of Jewish tragedy.
For this we Jews must have gratitude" (Feb. 25th, 1927).
   Properly to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind
the fact that many, many centuries before the Catholic Church came into
existence the Jewish Church put to death violators of the Mosaic Law, for
infractions of that Law which were not as serious as the offenses of which
Jews were guilty in Spain. This was done by the priests of Jewry, whereas
the extreme penalties during the days of the Spanish inquisition were
imposed by the state, as heresy was considered to be a crime in those days.
That abuses took place at times on the part of the inquisitors is not
denied. The Catholic Church, while divinely protected from error in
defining matters of faith and morals, does not claim to be immune from acts
of abuse of power on the part of some of her children, even in high places.
Such an abuse on the part of officials of the Church caused Pope Leo X to
excommunicate the Catholic tribunal at Toledo, and to have the witnesses
who appeared before its inquisitorial trial arrested for perjury. This was
during Spanish Inquisition days. But such an abuse of power was rare, as
the spirit of charity dominated those historic inquiries regarding heresy.
Persons called before the inquisitors who repented were released after
promising to mend their ways and to do the penances enjoined, such as
fasting, wearing a special penitential garb for a time, and imprisonment,
which very often was in the houses of the penitents themselves. Torturing
and burning were no part of the solemn religious ceremony called the
Auto-da-Fe, where the penitents abjured their errors and made public
recantation, by making an Act of Faith.
   To properly understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind
the fact that extreme punishments meted out during the middle ages, such as
burning at the stake, which you and I abhor, were common throughout the
world at that time. They did not originate during the middle ages, having
been the law before the Christian era. Such punishment did not shock the
people then any more than the people of our country are shocked at the
present time by the lethal chambers, hanging, lining men up against the
wall before firing squads, and electrocution, penalties imposed for
kidnapping and sometimes burglary, as well as for murder and treason,
Please do not conclude from this that the people in former times were less
merciful than we are. Such punishments were meted out more often, and for
lesser offenses, in Protestant England (the source from whence most
anti-Catholic history emanated) than in Catholic Spain. As evidence, I
recommend reading "The Protestant Reformation," by William Cobbett, a
Protestant historian.
   Properly to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind
the fact that Jewry inflicted the same sort of severe punishments long
before the Christian era, when blasphemy was rightly considered to be a
major offense, being directed against Almighty God. It is for that offense,
falsely charged, that the Sanhedrin, under the direction of the high
priests, declared Jesus to be worthy of death, for claiming to be the
Messiah. In answering the inquiry, "What are the types of capital
punishment according to Jewish law?" the "Oracle," a Jewish publication,
replied,
"According to the Jewish law there are four kinds of execution, stoning,
burning, the sword and strangling. Death by strangling is not in the
scriptures, but the rabbis interpreted that wherever death is mentioned
without specific mode, strangling is generally meant" (Carl Alpert, Boston.
1935, p. 77).
Such capital punishments were inflicted in Jewry not only for blasphemy,
but for Sabbath-breaking, witchcraft, idolatry, refusal to submit to the
decrees of the priests or judge, and for a dozen other offenses, as well as
murder.
   Properly to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind
the fact that the Catholic Church can no more be judged by the abuses of
the Spanish Inquisition, which ended in the deportation of about 160,000
Jews (including many who were not guilty of offenses against the Church or
the State), than Judaism can be judged by the persecution of the people of
Edom, descendants of Esau. Jewish minds have been poisoned against the
Catholic Church through stories about the Inquisition; whereas it is most
difficult to find Catholics who have even heard the story of Jewish
persecution of the Idumeans. I quote it from "The History of the Jews," by
Graetz, though the same thing can be found in the life of Josephus, the
Jewish Encyclopedia, and many other authoritative Jewish publications,
"After the victory over the Samaritans, Hyrcanus marched against the
Idumeans, laid siege to their two fortresses, and after having demolished
them, gave the Idumeans the choice between acceptance of Judaism, and
exile.... For the first time Judaism, in the person of its head, John
Hyrcanus (high priest), practiced intolerance against other faiths, but it
soon found out with deep pain how highly injurious it is to allow religious
zeal for the preservation of the faith to degenerate into the desire to
effect violent conversion of others...."
   These forced conversions of the people of Edom did bring a painful
experience upon Jewry from which it never recovered. It robbed Jewry of
more than Esau (of whom the Idumeans are descendants) robbed his brother
Jacob. It gave Jewry the Herods (Idumeans) who ruthlessly ended the Judaean
Maccabean dynasty and its Hasmonaean high priestly family; the Herods who
"appointed the high priests (including Caiaphas and Annas) - and took over
the government of the Jews," as Josephus says, and finally lined up with
Titus in the siege of Jerusalem.
   After all that has been said, the fact remains that the Spanish
Inquisition was a much to be regretted calamity; it was necessitated by the
conditions of the time, and it cannot be rightly understood by the
conditions of our time. Our "third degree," drastic though it is, cannot be
compared to the in. human methods in the world during inquisition times,
and for many centuries before the Christian era. Deportation, which
climaxed the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, is always to be deplored
irrespective of the cause of it or whom it afflicts. It was resorted to
because, as Dr. Baron the Jewish historian said, "the inquisitorial courts
could not check the Jewish influence on the conversos," the fake converts
from the Synagogue to the Church, "who," the Encyclopedia of Jewish
Knowledge says, "were the direct cause of the inquisition" (p. 331).
   Whatever may be said about the abuses of the Spanish Inquisition, which
are to be deplored, the following two simple facts ought to remove from
Jewish minds that historic obstacle to an open-minded examination of the
teachings of the Catholic Church. First, the Catholic Church has as
legitimate a right to weed out pseudo converts from Judaism as the priests
and Sanhedrin in Jewry had to bring to book the members of their Church who
violated the Mosaic Law. The Catholic Church had a much sounder right to do
so than had the descendants of the deported Spanish Jews to excommunicated
Spinoza and other pantheistic Jews from the Synagogue in Amsterdam, finally
driving them out of Holland. Heinrich Graetz says,
"The Amsterdam rabbis introduced the innovation of bringing religious
opinions and convictions before their judgment seat, of constituting
themselves a sort of inquisitional tribunal, and instituting autos-da-fe
which, even if bloodless, were not less painful to the sufferers" ("History
of the Jews," Vol. 4, p. 684).
Secondly, if our country may rightly put men through the "third degree";
into concentration camps and prisons; deport them, as well as line them up
before firing squads, for sabotage, espionage, "fifth column" activities
and other treasonable acts during our short wars; then was the Spanish
Government doubly warranted in so doing, considering that she was at war
for centuries.
   To come back once more to your query, if "what is good for the goose is
good for the gander"; if I should not have become a Catholic on account of
the injustices perpetrated upon the Jews by the Catholics of Spain, then
ought you to refuse to remain a Jew on account of the injustices of the
Jews in Edom. Such logic, which follows from the sentiment expressed in
your query, is strongly against yourself, because the abuses of the Spanish
Inquisition were committed by the State; whereas the forced circumcision of
the Idumeans was the work of official Jewry.
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
   ...I called to see Mr. C... F..... 
   His understanding of Judaism, like that of most Americanized Jews, was
limited to knowing that Jews are circumcised, barmitzvah, keep the Saturday
Sabbath, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, refrain from eating pork, & etc.
When it came to principles that are Jewish, he was so lacking in knowledge
of them that it was necessary to talk Judaism to him, for without that
knowledge it is impossible to understand that Judaism in its fullness is
Christianity. Ah, he did know of the Spanish Inquisition. He wanted to know
if "the Catholic Church still holds non-Catholics to be heretics, as she
did the Jews and Moslems in Spanish Inquisition days." This was not a
surprise, because of all things related to the Catholic Church during the
twenty centuries of her existence, the Spanish Inquisition is foremost in
the minds of Jews. Considering that my conversation with your friend came
right after I had written to you about the Spanish Inquisition, a word
regarding heresy and heretics will add to your understanding of the
subject, as I hope my outline of it last night enlightened Mr. C... F.....
   It is a commonplace for non-Catholics to assume that the Jews in Spain
were all held to be guilty of heresy; that both Jews and Protestants are
considered by Catholics to be heretics. This is a false notion, based upon
failure to realize that heresy charges by the Catholic Church are brought
against Catholics, and not against persons who openly profess to be Jews,
Moslems, or Protestants, though they may believe in some things that are
heretical....
   The Maranos were tried, and rightly found guilty of heresy. They were
under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church through baptism, hence their
public declaration that they were Catholics, while they were secretly
following Jewish practices, was heretical. It was their action that caused
the Inquisition to be instituted in Spain in 1480, which lasted until 1492....
   Heresy is a sin. It is so declared in Jewish as well as Christian law.
St. Paul enumerates heresies among "works of the flesh" (Gal. 5:20). A
Catholic who denies one or more of the teachings of Christ is held by the
Church to be a heretic. The Catholic Church teaches with absolute authority
in matters of faith and morals, hence she is obligated to declare, as did
St. Paul,
"Even if an angel from heaven should preach a gospel to you other than that
which we have preached to you, let him be anathema" (Gal. 1:8).
This applies to the denial of a single basic Christian teaching, for to
deny one of God's teachings is to deny God. Hence a Catholic who proclaims
belief in only nine of the Ten Commandments, for instance, is a heretic, as
the denial of one of the Commandments is a denial of God, its Author. The
same thing applies to every article in the Apostles Creed, and other
teachings of the Church.
   Heresy, properly understood, is worse than murder. Murder robs man of
his physical life, which at best is limited to a short term of years;
whereas heresy robs man of his spiritual inheritance; it murders the soul,
with the result that the heretic is deprived of an eternity of happiness,
in the event of dying unrepentant.
   Trial and punishment for Heresy is of Jewish and not of Catholic origin,
its objective being to keep pure in hearts the teachings of God; and to
safeguard the attainment of eternal life. Look under "Heresy and Heretics"
in "Vallentine's Jewish Encyclopedia" for an understanding of the Orthodox
Jewish concept of the subject. This is what you will find,
"The term 'heretic' in connection with Judaism may conveniently be applied
to any one who does not accept the two Torahs-the Written and Oral-in which
Jewish teaching is contained. Apart from the idolaters of ancient times,
the Talmud knows four main kinds of such heretics, which however, it is not
always careful to distinguish: (1) the Cutheans or Samaritans, who accepted
only the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua as inspired, and rejected the
rest of the Scriptures; (2) the Sadducees and Boethusians, who rejected the
Oral Law; (3) the MINIM - Judaeo-Christians (that is converts from the
Synagogue to the Church) and Gnostics-who desired to supplement the TORAH
Of Moses with some other TORAH Of superior authority; (4) the APIKORSIM,
who denied the divine origin of the TORAH. The Karaite heresy, which
appeared later, was essentially the same as that of the Sadducees" (p. 279).
Charges of heresy are not so frequent among non-Catholics today as they
were in the religious past, on account of religious indifference, and
theological incoherence. In our country, in which about one-third of the
Jews of the world reside, a man may believe anything or nothing and be
designated by sons of Israel as a Jew. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise could stand up
in his "Free Synagogue," in Carnegie Hall, and shout out, 
"I do not believe that the Ten Commandments were given by God on tablets of
stone and handed to Moses on Mount Sinai. If that be heresy, then banish me
from the Synagogue."
This sensational statement obtained the desired front page in the public
press throughout the country. Of course, no one can be charged with heresy
in a Synagogue that is "Free" from dogma, and from control of any one but
the Rabbi himself. Heresy assumes an authoritatively defined belief and
practice, such as obtains in the Catholic Church. Hence I asked at the
time, "Who has any right to try Rabbi Wise for heresy, in a pulpit where he
may speak on any thing he desires, in any manner that suits him personally?
The Rabbi was only making a 'stageplay' when he challenged any one to try
him for denying the Mosaic miracle." The so-called Jew of Jews, Einstein,
went a step further. He denied belief in a personal God, while speaking in
a Jewish Theological Seminary. Was he tried for heresy? Not at all. He
would very likely have been, and rightly so, were he a member of an
Orthodox Synagogue.
   I told in my last letter of Spinoza, whose denial of belief in a
personal God caused him to be excommunicated by the sons of Jews who were
deported from Spain and Portugal on account of the heretical conduct of the
Maranos. Spinoza was banished from Amsterdam, and to avoid assassination,
after "a fanatic made an attempt on his life with a knife," he left his
native city where the "curses had been pronounced upon him" by the rabbis
in their leading Synagogue. Gabriel da Costa, is another leading Jew whose
tragic life and treatment by these Amsterdam Jews, on account of his
heretical teachings, was most dramatic. It inspired Gutzkow's tragedy,
"Uriel Acosta"; and Zangwill's "Dreamers of the Ghetto." His denial of the
immortality of the soul was rightly called a heresy. The Rabbis caused him
to be arrested in Amsterdam, fined 300 guilders, and his "heterodox book to
be publicly burned." Let the Encyclopedia of Jewish Knowledge say a further
word about him:
"He fled to Hamburg, but soon returned to Amsterdam, and in 1633 became, in
his own words, 'an ape among the apes' offering his submission to the
Synagogue. Formalist he could not be, and his contrariness resulted in his
being made subject to the 'great ban.' For seven years he lived silent and
solitary, boycotted even by his relatives. Then he yielded, made confession
of error and suffered the ignominy of a public scourging and 39 stripes. He
went home, wrote an impassioned sketch of his own life, 'A Specimen of
Human Existence,' and shot himself" (p. II).
That the charges against Spinoza and da Costa were warranted, no one can
rightly deny, for the Jews of Amsterdam had a definite doctrinal code which
they had a right to uphold, as did the Church and the State in Spain. Yet
these Rabbis, who belonged to the Amsterdam community that was started by
the Maranos (the pretended-to-be-Catholics), who cursed the Catholic Church
and Spain for the deportation of their forbears, deemed it legitimate to
curse, scourge, excommunicate, and drive from Amsterdam those of their
fellow-Israelites who were guilty of heresy. To these Iberian descendents a
Dutch Auto da. Fe was perfectly legitimate, but not one in Spain or
Portugal, where the welfare of the State as well as the Church was at stake.
   I carried a four page leaflet with me on my visit to the Copley Plaza
Hotel, that was being distributed on the streets of Boston, called "Sucker
Bait." It told of "Rumors-Lies-Deceits" being circulated by agents of
Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito. It called upon citizens to report such
"fifth columnists" to the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety. I asked
Mr. C... F...., and I ask you, Mr. Isaacs, if it is proper during the
present World War, as we three believe it is, to report such "whisperers,"
who are trying to "Divide and Conquer"; to have them placed into
concentration camps if found guilty, then why was it not perfectly
legitimate to punish heretics in Spain who pretended to be Catholics in
order to undermine the State as well as the Church? Remember that the
Maranos were the fifth columnists of the fifteenth century.
__________________________________________________
   Other chapters from David Goldstein's book can be found at the Catholic
Dispatch web site [below].
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Truth About The Spanish Inquisition
E' possibile mandare articoli in italiano (e possibilimente piu'
corti, almeno per aprire un thread)?
Salutissimi. 
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