THE HOLY INQUISITION - the ultimate religious murder machine

The Catholic Church tends to play down the evil of the Inquisition which was set up by her to destroy anybody who differed from her. You will read in books like Apologetics for the Pulpit that it was not the fault of the Inquisition which was a legitimate arm of the Church that the secular powers went too far in killing heretics for the Church (page 431). But the fact is that excommunication in those days made you a complete outcast and if you were an excommunicated king you had no authority so the Church could have used excommunication to deter Inquisitors from going too far. And besides the Church was not forced to hand heretics over to the state for punishment. The state would not have been so keen to destroy heretics had it not been for the Church teaching that the heretic was a powerful instrument of the Devil and had to be destroyed for to destroy him was to weaken the Devil and destroy his plan. They knew fine well that there were plenty of harmless heretics and a large chunk of the population was made up of closeted heretics and no harm had come. It is a fact that no pope for centuries condemned the view that heretics have no rights while the Inquisition was in force (page 227, Vicars of Christ). They encouraged the Inquisition by their silence.

The Fourth Lateran Council which took place in 1215 AD in Rome, stated that all who disagree with the Catholic Church in any way are heretics and all heretics are as bad as each other and their goods must all be taken from them and if they are priests or princes they must lose their authority and it shall be taken from them and heretics have no right to testify legally and they must be rooted out and excommunicated (page 287, Fifty Years in the “Church” of Rome). The Council offered a plenary indulgence to Catholics who took it on themselves to exterminate heretics. They were granted the same spiritual benefits as those who fought in the Crusades. (The decree can be read in the book, Documents of the Christian Church, pages 132-133.)
 
The Catholic doctrine that even an apparition of Jesus or the Virgin Mary must be ignored if it commands what is contrary to the will of the Church or the parish priest or bishop or anybody in authority in the Church obviously shows that the Church is claiming a monopoly on the right to tell people what they should believe. If the Church commands the slaughter of heretics even Jesus is forbidden to say nothing against her. So the Church is not so worried about the will of God after all! Well that is assuming God has any kindness in him at all.
 
It does not really help the Church if the numbers murdered were low for it was still evil and intolerant for her to kill them and shows what he would like to do to heretics.
 
But many Catholic scholars who know a thing or two believe that the horrific and unbelievable account of the Inquisition put together by Henry Charles Lea who many Catholics disparage is the truth. Lord Acton endorsed it and he was hard to please (page 637, Vicars of Christ).
 
The accused would never have been sure about what he was supposed to have done for he was never fully informed (Difficulties, page 14). The Inquisition hypocritically forbade anybody from being tortured more than once but allowed the torture to go on indefinitely. We know that “a Toledo record which extends over forty years (1648-1694) contains 1,205 cases (2 cases per month, almost exactly) of which only six ended in complete acquittal” (Difficulties, page 14). The Inquisition did not mind if it made mistakes and killed good Catholics for it felt it was better to do that then to let one heretic escape (Difficulties, page 16). All Mgr Knox can do in response to all this is appeal to the Chambers Encyclopaedia of 1860 which stands refuted by the historical evidence.
 
The Inquisitor, Bernard Gui, said that even the testimony of a notorious perjurer against a person should be accepted and the names of the witnesses were never disclosed to the accused (Difficulties, page 36). In Difficulties it will be seen that the Catholic Fr Knox does not really make an answer to any of that. He tries to claim that the papal protests against the Inquisition were ineffective not because the pope didn’t want them to work but because it is sometimes hard for even the pope to influence the Church. He says that Rome forbade duelling and few listened (page 39). Surely he knows that the nations obeyed the pope when he wanted the Inquisition established though it was an inhuman institution that had a different legal procedure from that of the state. A lot of countries wouldn’t have wanted it for that reason but still they accepted it to please the pope. Some of the popes did not like innocent Catholics being jailed and tortured just because they were accused and tried to PARTLY restrain the evil urges of the Inquisition but what does that do to redeem them from the charge of wickedness and fanaticism? Nothing. Excommunication was the weapon used by the popes to enforce obedience for once a person was an outcast from the Church the person had no rights at all so the pope could have forced the Inquisition to disband. The idea that its cruelty was right was not regarded as heretical but orthodox. But when the popes themselves complained at times it shows they knew the Inquisition was partly heretical and did not care enough to stop it by force. And the pope was not interested in stopping duelling for sin was forbidden but people were given the freedom to commit it. Knox knows fine well that this issue has nothing to do with proving papal inability to stop the Inquisition.

Most people would have seen the Inquisition for what it really was and would have inwardly frowned on its speciality, forcing people to confess under torture to things they never did. They could have torn it down but did nothing because they believed the pope who said that all this was right. The papacy is certainly mainly to blame for the excesses of the Inquisition.
 
The Roman Inquisition in Spain was told to stop using torture by Pius VII in 1816. This was not out of kindness but out of a desire to prevent fanatical Catholics from being forced to confess to what they never did. A dead devotee was not use to the pope. The torturing, however, did not stop for at least two more decades proving that the pope did not mind that much if it continued. Perhaps he only forbade the torturing to give the Church a better image for it had many troubles and did not mean it.
 
Catholics often try to blame the evil of the Church on the barbaric climate of the times. That is offensive to us for even the blind can see that the things she did were wrong as the Protestant Hubmaier wrote in 1524 (Vicars of Christ, page 247).
 
CONCLUSION
 
Roman Catholicism is the most murderous religion in history. Its thirst for blood was sanctioned in its holiest decrees and when it killed once it can do it again.
 
BIBLE QUOTATIONS FROM:
The Amplified Bible

BOOKS CONSULTED
 
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All Roads Lead to Rome, Michael de Semlyen, Dorchester House Publications, Bucks, 1993 (page 120 recounts Cardinal Konig of Vienna’s testimony that the Vatican helped Nazi war criminals to escape)
Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, Part 1, Most Rev M Sheehan DD, M H Gill & Son, Dublin 1954
Apologetics for the Pulpit, Aloysius Roche Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd, London, 1950
Blind Alley Beliefs, David Cook, Pickering & Inglis, Glasgow, 1979
Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988
Christianity, David Albert Jones, OP, Family Publications, Oxford, 1999
Convert or Die, Edmond Paris, Chick Publications, Chino, California, undated
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Documents of the Christian Church, edited by Henry Bettenson, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979
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Does Conscience Decide? Bishop William J Philbin, Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, Dublin
Ecumenical Jihad, Peter Kreeft, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1996
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Human Rights, Michael Bertram Crowe Veritas, Dublin, 1978
In God’s Name, David Yallop, Corgi, London, 1987
Is the Roman Catholic Church a Secret Society? John V Simcox, Warren Sandell and Raymond Winch Watts & Co London, 1946
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Jesuit Plots, From Elizabethan to Modern Times, Albert Close, Protestant Truth Society, London undated
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Radio Replies, Vol 1, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul, Minnesota, 1938
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Radio Replies, Vol 3, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul, Minnesota 1942
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Roman Catholicism, Loraine Boettner, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1987
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Sex Education in Our Public Schools, Jack Hyles, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1969
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The Church of Rome, Wilson Ewin, Bible Baptist Church, Nashua NH USA
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The Last Temptation of Christ, Its Deception and What you Should Do About it, Erwin T Lutzer, Moody Press, Chicago, 1988
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The Rise of the Spanish Inquisition, Jean Plaidy, Star, London, 1978
The Sacred Executioner Human Sacrifice and the Legacy of Guilt Hyam Maccoby Thames and Hudson, London, 1982
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The Truth About the Homosexuals, Dr Hugh F Pyle, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1978
The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life, Watchtower, New York, 1968
The Unequal Yoke, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1946
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The Vatican Connection, The Explosive Expose of a Billion-Dollar Counterfeit Stock Deal Between the Mafia the Church, Richard Hammers Penguin, Middlesex, 1982
Their Kingdom Come, Robert Hutchison, Corgi, London, 1997
Torquemada and the Inquisitors, John Edwards, Tempus, Gloucestershire, 2005
Unholy Sacrifices of the New Age, Paul de Parrie and Mary Pride, Crossway Books, Westchester, Illinois 1988
Vatican USA, Nino LoBello, Trident Press, New York, 1972
Vicars of Christ, Peter de Rosa, Corgi Books, London, 1993
Walking with Unbelievers, Michael Paul Gallagher SJ, Veritas Dublin 1985
War and Politics The Christian’s Duty, Peter Watkins, Christadelphian Bible Mission, Birmingham
What About Those Who Have Never Heard? Radio Bible Class, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986
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Where is that in the Bible? Patrick Madrid, Sunday Visitor, Indiana, 2001

THE WW

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