Free Republic

Pope Francis asked forgiveness on Monday for the Roman Catholic Church's "non-Christian and inhumane" treatment in the past of the Waldensians, a tiny Protestant movement the Vatican tried to exterminate in the 15th century. The Waldensians, who now live mostly in Italy and Latin America, were founded by Peter Waldo in France in the late 12th century. He gave up his wealth and preached poverty but as the movement grew it came into increasing theological conflict with the papacy. The movement, an early precursor of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, was branded as heretical and in 1487 Pope...

Last week I was writing about Magna Carta and how the Catholic Church’s role has been written out, in particular the part of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton. But the same could also be said about much of English history from 600AD to 1600; from the very first law code written in English, which begins with a clause protecting Church property, to the intellectual flourishing of the 13th century, led by churchmen such as Roger Bacon, the Franciscan friar who foresaw air travel. However, the whitewashing of English Catholic history is mainly seen in three areas: political liberty, economic...

The Protestant Inquisition: "Reformation" Intolerance and Persecution Dave ArmstrongMarch 07, 2007 "Disclaimer and statement of intent: Unfortunately, the religious "scandal score" needs to be evened up now and then, and the lesser-known "skeletons in the closet" need to be rescued from obscurity, surveyed, and exposed. I take no pleasure in "dredging up" these unsavory occurrences, but it is necessary for honest, fair historical appraisal. This does not mean that I have forsaken ecumenism, or that I wish to bash Protestants, or that I deny corresponding Catholic shortcomings." "Historical facts are what they are, and most Protestants (and Catholics) are unaware...

Communities in New Mexico and southern Colorado have found irrefutable evidence to say they are descended from Jews. What next? The crypto-Jews of Spain have fascinated Jews for decades. But it was not always fascination – it was once more about the frustration, even resignation, that hundreds of thousands of Jews had been stolen in martyrdom or in forced conversions to Catholicism. In 1492, consolidating their gains following the conquest of Granada, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella enforced the Spanish Inquisition to offer Jews under their rule three infamous options: leave, convert or die. For those who converted, it was...

Conservative media were in an uproar last week over the President’s remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. He said that we see “faith being twisted and distorted … sometimes used as a weapon” and “lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ." Nearly everyone took the statement to mean “Catholic pot, don’t call the Muslim kettle black.” And they were quick to point out that the “terrible deeds in the name of Christ” were...

What is wrong with this man? In the midst of what has been a videotaped bloodbath in recent weeks with stonings, beheadings, and one man even being set aflame, President Obama took to the podium of the National Prayer Breakfast to criticize the “terrible deeds” . . . committed “in the name of Christ” throughout the pass two thousand years or so. "And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ," he said. "In our...

Obama says, “No God condones terror.” Yet Muhammad is depicted in a hadith as having said: “I have been made victorious through terror” (Bukhari 4:52.220). And the Qur’an says: “Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah and your enemies…” (8:60)

Since the epiphany of last September, we have heard countless comparisons between the murders by militant Mohammedans and various epochs of Western history, in a bizarre, masochistic, self-condemning attempt to extenuate the current jihad movement. Dominating the examples of a Western conduit for bloodthirsty religious fervor similar to that of the Osama Movement has been the Spanish Inquisition. Unfortunately for our media and this self-deprecating sequela, examination of the Spanish Inquisition reveals it to be none of the things it is alleged to be, but to be in fact the most just tribunal of its time. The very word “Inquisition”...

Killing in response to insult, no matter how gross, must be unequivocally condemned. That is why what happened in Paris cannot be tolerated. But neither should we tolerate the kind of intolerance that provoked this violent reaction.

[SNIP] Well, if ISIS is not Islamic, then the Inquisition was not Catholic. The fact is that there are no defensible criteria for whether a faith is “true,” since all faiths are man-made and accrete doctrine—said to come from God, but itself man-made—that becomes integral to those faiths. Whatever “true faith” means, it doesn’t mean “the right religion: the one whose God exists and whose doctrines are correct.” If that were so, we wouldn’t see Westerners trying to tell us what “true Islam” is. No, if “true” means anything, it must mean “true to some principles.” As far as I...

More than 500 years after the Spanish Inquisition, the Spanish government has voted to facilitate the naturalization of Jewish families of Spanish descent, without demanding they give up their other citizenship. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain must be rolling in their graves: The government in Madrid on Friday approved legislation that would allow descendents of Jews who were exiled from Spain to be naturalized in the country without having to give up their former citizenship, which had been the law until now. Spanish Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon said that Spain "is indebted to Spanish Jews for spreading the...

Can a Pro-Life Activist Defend The Inquisition? By Julio Severo The answer to the title of this article is: Of course not! I, for example, have never defended any kind of Inquisition, and if someday I will do it, obviously I will have to abandon the pro-life fight, because it makes no sense selectively to condemn a genocide and support another. Pope John Paul II, author of the encyclical “The Gospel of Life,” was a pro-life champion and he did not defend the Inquisition. On the contrary, he had the honesty to ask forgiveness for what the Inquisition and its...

In an old (1950) monograph entitled The Truth about the Inquisition, Dr. John A. O’Brien, a Notre Dame history professor of the time, provides a brief but interesting exposé of the Albigensian heresy. Few people recall that that almost maniacal rebellion against Catholic teaching and, for that matter, commonsensical and civilized living was the trigger for the much-misunderstood Inquisition. O’Brien’s discussion makes one think of many aspects of our current civilizational crisis, even though the comparison could not have been so evident in 1950.The Albigensians, or Catharists, were neo-Manicheans, regarding material creation as an evil and viewing all of existence...

OFA volunteer at Climate Day Action in Huntington Beach calls for the arrest of Congressman Rohrabacher and anyone who opposes the government. He says opposing the government is treason.

The Inquisition! The Holy Office! The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith! Whichever name it has used, this is the arm of the Vatican that oversees the doctrinal integrity of the Faith. It watches, with eagle eyes, the goings on of theologians and other suspects around the world. Its staff is omnipresent, with sub-offices in every country and in most major dioceses. Its minions send daily reports to headquarters, where countless clerical workers do nothing but input information into massive databases. Very little escapes the CDF’s attention—and nothing of consequence. Its efficiency is the envy of national intelligence services....

Butler@AntheaButler Good Morning. How soon is Sam Bacile going to be in jail folks? I need him to go now.When Americans die because you are stupid... 12 Sep 12 Anthea Butler is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. The title of her most recent book, The Gospel According to Sarah: How Sarah Palin’s Tea Party Angels Are Galvanizing the Religious Right, gives you a pretty good idea of where she stands politically. This morning, she strongly implied that Sam Bacile is responsible for yesterday’s embassy attacks and, as a result, should be tossed into jail....

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy — For the second time in a week, Pope Benedict XVI has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, reasserting the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church and saying other Christian communities were either defective or not true churches.

The film “Angels and Demons” brings up the Catholic Church’s so-called war on science and the church’s treatment of Italian scientist Galileo Galilei. The following analysis sheds much-needed light on the case. In October 1992, Cardinal Paul Poupard presented to Pope John Paul II the results of the Pontifical Academy study of the famous 1633 trial of Galileo. He reported the study’s conclusion that at the time of the trial, “theologians ... failed to grasp the profound non-literal meaning of the Scriptures” when they condemned Galileo for describing a universe that seemed to contradict Scripture. The headlines that followed screamed...

The Inquisition 929. Does the Church give its tacit approval to the Inquisition? It explicitly condemns the extravagances and unwarranted cruelty of certain individuals who held office in the Inquisition. On the other hand, it explicitly approves the Inquisition as it should have been administered according to the social conditions prevailing in those times, and according to the particular evils to be eradicated. She would not approve the same measures in the present era. Changed conditions of society require a different approach to its various problems. 930. As the Church is responsible for religious seal inculcated in its majority membership,...

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair will appear at the Iraq Inquiry for a second time on January 21. Sir John Chilcot announced he would recall Mr Blair in December. It is thought Sir John and his panel were concerned about gaps and possible inconsistencies in the ex-PM's evidence. Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time of the invasion, cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell and Lord Turnball, his predecessor, have also been asked to return.