Posted on 10/22/2013 10:38:54 AM PDT by juliosevero
I suspect that what this person knows about the Inquisition is what Protestants and antiCatholics have said about the Inquisition. Most of that is what we now term “disinformation.”
My understanding is that pimping your own blog is grounds for being banned from FR.
No, the problem is when bloggers post excerpts and force readers to click on the link to read the rest, driving hits to their own blog. That’s blog pimping.
As long as a blog post is posted in the Bloggers subforum, in its entirety, I don’t think FR has a problem with it.
Would really like to see her numbers on this claim.
A sterling example of how the Democrats (and Socialists in general) operate.
Not really. While all Catholics were on the Cavalier side, the great majority of Cavaliers were Anglicans of various types.
The Stuarts weren't as a dynasty Catholic. Mary Queen of Scots was Catholic, but never ruled England. James I and Charles I were both aggressively Anglican and Protestant. Charles II was a sort-of Anglican most of his life, converting to RC on his deathbed. James II was Catholic, but only ruled something like 4 years before being kicked out.
Why would any Pro-Lifer defend the Inquisition?
Just wait and see. I know a few who might try.
Why would anyone defend the inquisition?
The best I’ve heard anyone say is “it wasn’t that bad”. But no one wants to be on the receiving end.
Its one thing to recognize that people are human and the totalitarian tendencies run deep. Its another to imagine that the guy lighting the fire under the stake is doing so under the urgings of the Holy Spirit.
The inquisition did give Monty Python and Mel Brooks good opportunities for Ironic comedy routines. Vincent Price also got a good movie out of it, by way of “The Fall of the House of Usher” by way of Edgar Allen Poe.
They were, normally relatively kind to the unfortunate mentally ill people who were represented as witches. They were more cruel to Jews who falsely pretended to convert for tax benefits. Tax dodging is usually harshly punished.
Uh...how was the Inquisition *genocide*, exactly?
You're joking right? You must be joking.
Let me ask you one question that will tell me much of what I need to know going forward.
Did the Inquisition go after Jews for being Jews? Answer me that question.
Nobody defends the Spanish Inquisition!
Our chief weapon is surprise.
Because the stupid is a mile deep when it comes to this period in history, and there's nothing quite so insufferable as Christians posturing and preening their contempt for the Inquisition when they have zero historical knowledge of it and don't know the slightest thing about what it was and WHY it was.
I'm happy to debate specific instances & trials, some of which were outrageous....and I'll note that the Church itself voided and threw out one of those: the trial of St. Joan of Arc which had numerous canonical irregularities.
But as for the generality of the thing, try reading some primary sources and some good modern historians like Jeffrey Burton Russell.
First of all, you have to understand one thing. Heresy back then was a SECULAR crime punishable by THE STATE. This was a carryover from pagan law codes (why do you think Socrates was executed, and the early Christians?).
However, this arrangement was extremely rife with abuse: if I am your magistrate, all I have to do is get you taking for 15 minutes on the Trinity and I can pretty much guarantee you will say something heretical. "How many operations are there in the Godhead? How many wills?" Oh, lookee here, you're a heretic, let me condemn you to death and take your land.
The Inquisition was begun to reform this process. The Church said no way...you secular authorities have no right to charge and try people for heresy. That's the CHURCH's job, and the Church's alone.
So the Church took over the fact-finding phase of the trial from the state. It basically made the determination whether the person was an obstinate heretic or not and then...AND THEN *passed that finding onto the secular court*. If you read the trials of the day you find on a guilty conviction the phrase:
"And he was handed over to the secular arm to be burned"
We can argue whether this was a good policy or not. In point of fact though it was a reform, it had its own problems that we know about....especially in Spain. It used torture (just like the secular courts of the day) which not surprisingly, ended up in false confessions.
But genocide? That's absurd. The Inquisition had--if I remember right--something like a 95% acquittal rate. Ninety five freaking percent. Plenty of Catholic saints were brought before the Inquisition (St. Ignatius), they investigated, found nothing wrong, and turned them loose again. The amount of people it condemned to death--and remember, it wasn't killing them, the STATE was killing them--was on the order of a few thousand, perhaps up to 10,000. Over hundreds of years.
And since it was an ecclesiastical court, you HAD TO BE A CHRISTIAN to be brought before it. It had zero, ZERO authority over Jews and Muslims...except those who became Christians for whatever reason.
I’d say no, of course not. I’d also say, if it came up in the context of a pro-life/pro-abortion discussion: You brought the Inquisition up like it excuses abortion? [cue Sam Elliott] Yer a special kind of stupid, aren’t ya?
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