The Truth about the Inquisition by Catholic Bible 101

"The formal process was necessary because of the Albigensian Crusade (also known as the Cathars). The Albigensians were a movement out of France that preached that marriage was evil, but that fornication was OK. They believed that there were two gods – the mean old God of the Old Testament who killed everyone, and the nice God of the New Testament who came to save everyone. They preached that the material world was evil, and therefore suicide was great."

Source: Catholic Bible 101

Nothing causes more heartburn for Catholics than when they are confronted by well meaning protestants about the Inquisition. The accusations by non-Catholic Christians goes something like this:

“The Catholic Church tried, convicted, tortured and killed millions of bible-believing protestants just like me in the middle ages, because they refused to convert to Catholicism and to bow down to the pope. And therefore this proves that the Catholic Church is evil and is not the one true church.”

Once this accusation is out there, the Catholic will usually look sheepish and mutter something about “that was a long time ago,” “We don’t do that anymore,” or else they just shutup and turn and walk away. But the accusation is 100% false, and is nothing more than 16th century propaganda that has been passed down through the ages as fact, with the purpose of trying to prove the worth of protestantism by tearing down the Catholic Church. This webpage will explore the facts and the fantasy of inquisition myths and lore.

The period in history known as “The Inquisition” was actually a series of European church/state trials in several countries. Most European countries in those days were like Israel in the Bible – The Church and State were NOT totally separated from each other, but were a kind of a marriage between the two. The Holy Roman Empire and many of its countries had Catholicism as its state religion, following in the footsteps of Constantine, who encouraged this practice. Catholicism was a unifying cultural faith for the communities in the different European Kingdoms. Quite a difference from today in the Unites States, with its Masonic “separation of Church and State,” a phrase nowhere to be found in the Declaration of Independence or the original Constitution, but which the Supreme Court “interpreted” for all of us as “the law of the land.” In Europe of those days, to violate Catholic practices was seen as unpatriotic as well as heretical. And to violate the Catholic faith was not seen as a private matter either, but one that affected the entire community. It is this setting that gave birth to the “Inquisition,” which sought to preserve faith and culture in the Kingdoms where they were threatened by those who only pretended to be Catholic, but who were in fact, Albigensians, Jews, or Muslims. The struggle for the Church was to use the force of the secular state to enforce its findings, at the same time preserving the true meaning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this, the Church was sometimes successful, sometimes not, as we shall see.

The inquisition process was set up by the Church in the 13th century, well before Luther’s 16th century heresies of “saved by faith alone” and “the bible alone.” The formal process was necessary because of the Albigensian Crusade (also known as the Cathars). The Albigensians were a movement out of France that preached that marriage was evil, but that fornication was OK. They believed that there were two gods – the mean old God of the Old Testament who killed everyone, and the nice God of the New Testament who came to save everyone. They preached that the material world was evil, and therefore suicide was great. In 1208 (supposedly the same year that Mary gave St. Dominic the Rosary), the Albigensians killed a papal representative in France, and Pope Innocent III reacted by instituting better preaching of Catholicism, education, and reforms. But mob rule broke out instead, and for 20 years there was back and forth skirmishes between local citizens, priests, bishops, armies, and the Albigensians. So in 1231, Pope Gregory, the same great Pope who gave us the accurate Gregorian calendar we still use today, initiated a series of canonical instructions which formalized the process of fighting the Albigensians, many of whom had gone underground to escape death by the army. These canonical instructions became the blueprint for the inquisition courts.

Inquisitions were local trials, usually with a papal representative, the bishop of the area, or maybe even a priest from a local religious order. These trials were never ongoing non-stop, but rather started and stopped many times. The purpose of the trial was to root out clandestine heretics who pretended to be Catholic, but who were secretly behind the scenes implementing heresy to destroy the Kingdom from within. This is similar to today, where many people believe that some leaders are closet muslims who only pretend to be Christian. The danger is that enemies of the state may be getting aid and comfort from the very people who are supposed to be protecting citizens from the enemies. The goal of the Church in these trials was the conversion of the apostate soul. If the person repented and converted, a simple confession with resultant penance was the judgment of the court. If he or she did not convert, then that person was handed over to the secular authorities for whatever punishment the state deemed necessary. In some cases, this involved torture and capital punishment if the person was deemed a threat to the state.

It’s important to note that the prevalent means of obtaining confessions in those days was torture. However, the priests were forbidden to participate in it, and the torture by the inquisition court was much less severe than that of the civil court. In fact, many citizens who weren’t accused of heresy, but rather of a civil crime like theft, would often blurt out heretical statements in their secular trial so that they could be tried instead by the much easier inquisition. Again, no torture today is justified, but in those days, it was the accepted means of obtaining confessions. Most of the crimes investigated by the inquisition consisted of things like fornication, adultery, not attending Mass, etc. And a LOT of the perps were clergy, which should please a lot of secular people today, who falsely believe that all priests are child molesters and should all be in jail.

So what about the millions of protestants and scientists being tortured and killed by the inquisition? Well, those are two lies – In the case of Galileo, he was tried by the inquisition for presenting the Copernican theory of heliocentricity (the earth revolves around the sun) as a fact before it was proven (it was proven centuries later, by the Catholic Church). And he began to lecture the Pope publicly about the true meaning of scripture, which was definitely outside the purview of a scientist. Galileo was never tortured, and was not killed by the inquisition, but was rather placed under house arrest, in a very nice comfy mansion. Regarding the “millions of protestants” killed under the inquisition, Spain, which led the majority of inquisitions in killing heretics, simply did not have that many protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. And in fact, after Luther’s revolt in the 16th Century, thousands of Catholics and witches were killed by protestant authorities in Germany, in the protestant counter-inquisition. Henry VIII continued this tradition of killing Catholics who wouldn’t convert to protestantism as well, both in England, and later on, in Ireland, where the British Crown refused to even let the Mass be said! In America, the protestants in Salem had their own inquisition of clandestine witches, and executed them when found guilty. In 1834, the Spanish government officially ended the inquisition in Spain.

The big myth of the inquisition is that almost 100 million people were killed by the inquisition. But the few countries that carried out inquisitions – France, Italy, Spain – simply did not have that many people living there in those days. The best estimates of those who were killed range from a few thousand to ten thousand, over 5 centuries! Of course, today, we see all of this as being evil, through the lens of history in our Monday morning quarterback seats. But back then, it was the norm.

Summing up, the Church originally instituted the formal process known as the inquisition to quell the mob violence against the Albigensians, who preached that there was more than one god, that marriage was evil and fornication was good, that no formal government oaths should be taken, that all matter in this world (including the body) is evil, and that ritualistic suicide to escape this evil world is a wonderful thing. One can only imagine what would have happened if these guys would not have been fought against and destroyed by the Catholic Church!

Converted to the Catholic Faith after reading the Truth about the Inquisition from Catholic Answers

"Many Fundamentalists believe, for instance, that more people died under the Inquisition than in any war or plague; but in this they rely on phony "statistics" generated by one-upmanship among anti-Catholics, each of whom, it seems, tries to come up with the largest number of casualties."

Source: Catholic Answer

THE INQUISITION

Sooner or later, any discussion of apologetics with Fundamentalists will address the Inquisition. To non-Catholics it is a scandal; to Catholics, an embarrassment; to both, a confusion. It is a handy stick for Catholic-bashing, simply because most Catholics seem at a loss for a sensible reply. This tract will set the record straight.

There have actually been several different inquisitions. The first was established in 1184 in southern France as a response to the Catharist heresy. This was known as the Medieval Inquisition, and it was phased out as Catharism disappeared.

Quite separate was the Roman Inquisition, begun in 1542. It was the least active and most benign of the three variations.

Separate again was the infamous Spanish Inquisition, started in 1478, a state institution used to identify conversos—Jews and Moors (Muslims) who pretended to convert to Christianity for purposes of political or social advantage and secretly practiced their former religion. More importantly, its job was also to clear the good names of many people who were falsely accused of being heretics. It was the Spanish Inquisition that, at least in the popular imagination, had the worst record of fulfilling these duties.

The various inquisitions stretched through the better part of a millennia, and can collectively be called "the Inquisition." 

The Main Sources

Fundamentalists writing about the Inquisition rely on books by Henry C. Lea (1825–1909) and G. G. Coulton (1858–1947). Each man got most of the facts right, and each made progress in basic research, so proper credit should not be denied them. The problem is that they did not weigh facts well, because they harbored fierce animosity toward the Church—animosity that had little to do with the Inquisition itself.

The contrary problem has not been unknown. A few Catholic writers, particularly those less interested in digging for truth than in diffusing a criticism of the Church, have glossed over incontrovertible facts and tried to whitewash the Inquisition. This is as much a disservice to the truth as an exaggeration of the Inquisition’s bad points. These well-intentioned, but misguided, apologists are, in one respect, much like Lea, Coulton, and contemporary Fundamentalist writers. They fear, while the others hope, that the facts about the Inquisition might prove the illegitimacy of the Catholic Church. 

Don’t Fear the Facts

But the facts fail to do that. The Church has nothing to fear from the truth. No account of foolishness, misguided zeal, or cruelty by Catholics can undo the divine foundation of the Church, though, admittedly, these things are stumbling blocks to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

What must be g.asped is that the Church contains within itself all sorts of sinners and knaves, and some of them obtain positions of responsibility. Paul and Christ himself warned us that there would be a few ravenous wolves among Church leaders (Acts 20:29; Matt. 7:15).

Fundamentalists suffer from the mistaken notion that the Church includes only the elect. For them, sinners are outside the doors. Locate sinners, and you locate another place where the Church is not.

Thinking that Fundamentalists might have a point in their attacks on the Inquisition, Catholics tend to be defensive. This is the wrong attitude; rather, we should learn what really happened, understand events in light of the times, and then explain to anti-Catholics why the sorry tale does not prove what they think it proves.

If you think that the infamous Inquisition is exclusively Catholic -The Inquisition Myth

"The history of the inquisitions that existed, and 'The Inquisition', which did not. The Inquisition Myth became a handy club with which to abuse Catholicism and Catholic history."

Catholics and Protestants form inquisitions

Source: Catholic American Thinker

By Vic Biorseth

Reformers on the continent and in England and Ireland formed their own ruthless inquisitions against Catholics and against other sects of Protestantism. Luther and Calvin preached the right of the state to protect Protestant society by purging it of false religion. Many were banished, and many were executed for “heresy.” Conservative estimates put Catholic executions in England and Ireland alone in the multiple thousands, and many more fled; the crime they were accused of was refusing to convert to Protestantism.

So we see that if the inquisition myth (or truth) provides evidence that a given confession is not or no longer of God, a charge often made against the Catholic Church, then that charge applies equally to Protestantism. The truth of a religious confession must be proved on other grounds.

Catholic Inquisitions have a much longer heritage, going back to well before the Reformation. The root of the inquisitions, which was the imperative to oppose heresy in the community, is as old as the Church itself, and, as we have seen in the above Scripture quotations, was even exercised in the time of Christ and His Apostles, before much New Testament Scripture was even written, let alone recognized as being Scripture. The Christian position toward heresy was softening from the Old Testament penalties, as shown in 1 Tim. 1:20 and in Titus 3:10, toward excommunication or banishment from the community rather than torture and death. Although punishment for heresy was always hotly contested within the Church, with high ranking Churchmen on both sides of the argument, the prevailing official position of the Church solidified into non lethal punishments early on.

The Apostles were convinced of the need for them to protect and transmit an absolutely undefiled Deposit of Faith produced by Divine Revelation, and that any teaching at odds with that Deposit, even if it came from their own mouths, or from the mouths of Angels, was to be opposed as heresy. But, in 1 Tim. 1:20 and Titus 3:10, they did not call for the Old Testament punishments of scourging and death. For the first three centuries of the Church, it was a moot point anyway, since the Church was persecuted, largely underground, and had no real authority or enforcement capability.

Terttulian said that the natural law instructed man to follow the voice of individual conscience in the practice of religion, since the acceptance of religion was strictly a matter of free will and not of compulsion. Already, Christian dissidents had suffered torture, burning and death based on the Old Testament laws, but the larger Church, in its worldly imperfection, was turning from it. Origen wrote of the need to distinguish between the law which the Jews received from Moses and the law given to Christians by Jesus Christ. The former was binding on the Jews, and the latter on Christians, including the Jewish Christians, such as the original Apostles themselves. Jewish Christians who were fully Christian could no longer conform to all of the Mosaic law and thus they could no longer burn, stone or otherwise kill violators of it. And if Jewish Christians could not impose the severest penalties on Jewish violators, it made no real sense for any Christians to impose such severe penalties on Christian violators.

That the Church, with the bishop of Rome in the lead, chose the milder punishments for heresy is a simple matter of historical fact. That is not to say, however, that there were not many renowned Catholic bishops who disagreed and called for the death penalty for heresy, with the penalty to be imposed by civil authority.... read more here!

Distorted History by Muslims: 1001Islamic Inventionss??? And how Muslims destroyed classical civilization!

Why We Are Afraid, A 1400 Year Secret, by Dr Bill Warner




Islamic Inventions were Roman, Greek and Persian.

Uploaded by Ralph Ellis

According to conventional wisdom Islam was a civilized and enlightened creed during the Dark Ages, while the Christian world was wallowing in depravity and ignorance. Islam was, therefore, the guardian and savior of all ancient science, knowledge and wisdom. But that is not true in the slightest. Islam took over many highly educated and highly advanced regions of the Byzantine Empire, at the point of the sword, and forced whole populations to convert to Islam. There were many sects in those times, just like the Alawi, Alevi, Ahmadiyya, Su, Druze and Ishmailis of the modern era, who adopted a cloak of Islam to avoid persecution and death. Those who refused to change their beliefs were forced to live as dhimmis - they were effectively reduced to serfdom in their own lands. The Jewish, Christian and Sabaean dhimmis of the East did the work and paid the taxes, while their Muslim overlords ran the administration and army, and lived in comparative luxury. This is how dhimmi unbelievers have to live in a Muslim controlled society, as the long-suffering Christians of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey fully understand. Christians don’t bother complaining that their Muslim neighbour has wronged them, because the social and legal system will not help them in the slightest. Even in supposedly modern and Westernised Turkey, a friend of many years whispered that he was not really Muslim but had to say that he was to keep his job. He made me swear not to tell anyone, that his family had been secret Christians for generations. (Read more here)

Spanish Inquisition was 99% Myth. (BBC)

Ano kaya ang magiging reaksyon ng mga Manalistas (Iglesia Ni Cristo® members) sa video na ito?

FAQ about the Catholic Church: The ONE Church

Why do Catholics believe that their Church is the one true Church of Jesus Christ? Wouldn't it be more reasonable to believe that Christ's true Church is a spiritual union of all Christian denominations?

Catholics believe that theirs is the one true Church of Jesus Christ, firstly, because theirs is the only Christian Church that goes back in history to the time of Christ; secondly, because theirs is the only Christian Church which possesses the invincible unity, the intrinsic holiness, the continual universality and the indisputable apostolicity which Christ said would distinguish His true Church; and thirdly, because the Apostles and primitive Church Fathers, who certainly were members of Christ's true Church, all professed membership in this same Catholic Church (See Apostles' Creed and the Primitive Christian letters). Wrote Ignatius of Antioch, illustrious Church Father of the first century: ``Where the Bishop is, there let the multitude of believers be; even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church.'' Our Lord said: ``There shall be one fold and one shepherd, yet it is well known that the various Christian denominations cannot agree on what Christ actually taught. Since Christ roundly condemned interdenominationalism (``And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.'' Mark 3:25), Catholics cannot believe that He would ever sanction it in His Church.

Why do Catholics refuse to concede that their church became doctrinally corrupt in the Middle Ages, necessitating the Protestant Reformation?

Catholics refuse to concede such a thing out of faith in Jesus Christ. Christ solemnly pledged that the gates of Hell would never prevail against His Church (Matt. 16:18), and He solemnly promised that after His Ascension into Heaven He would send His Church ``another Paraclete . . . the spirit of truth,'' to dwell with it forever (John 14:16-17), and He inspired the Apostle Paul to describe His Church as ``the pillar and ground of the truth.'' (I Tim. 3:15). If the Catholic Church (which Protestants admit was the true Church of Jesus Christ before Luther's revolt) became doctrinally corrupt as alleged, it would mean that the gates of Hell had prevailed against it--it would mean that Christ had deceived His followers. Believing Christ to be the very essence of truth and integrity, Catholics cannot in conscience believe that He could be guilty of such deception. Another thing: Catholics cannot see how the division of Christianity into hundreds of rival camps and doctrinal variations can be called a ``reformation'' of the Christian Church. In the Catholic mind, hundreds of conflicting interpretations of Christ's teachings do not add up to a true interpretation of Christ's teachings.

If the Catholic Church never fell into error, how explain the worldly Popes, the bloody Inquisitions, the selling of indulgences and the invention of new doctrines? A careful, objective investigation of Catholic history will disclose these facts: The so-called worldly popes of the Middle Ages--three in number--were certainly guilty of extravagant pomposity, nepotism and other indiscretions and sins which were not in keeping with the dignity of their high church office--but they certainly were not guilty of licentious conduct while in office, nor were they guilty of altering any part of the Church's Christ-given deposit of faith. The so-called bloody Inquisitions, which were initiated by the civil governments of France and Spain for the purpose of ferreting out Moslems and Jews who were causing social havoc by posing as faithful Catholic citizens--even as priests and bishops--were indeed approved by the Church. (Non-Catholics who admitted they were non-Catholics were left alone by the Inquisition.) And the vast majority of those questioned by the Inquisition (including St. Teresa of Avila) were completely cleared. Nevertheless, the popes roundly condemned the proceedings when they saw justice giving way to cruel abuses, and it was this insistent condemnation by the popes which finally put an end to the Inquisitions.

The so-called selling of indulgences positively did not involve any ``selling''--it involved the granting of the spiritual favor of an indulgence (which is the remission of the debt of temporal punishment for already-forgiven sins) in return for the giving of alms to the Church for the building of Christendom's greatest house of prayer--St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. One must understand with regard to indulgences that there are always two acts to be fulfilled by the one gaining the in-dulgence: 1) doing the deed (e.g., alms-giving) and 2) saying of some prescribed prayers with proper spiritual dispositions. In the case in point, the first act for gaining the indulgence was ``giving alms.'' If the almsgiver thereafter failed to say the requisite prayers, he would not receive the indulgence because he had failed to fulfill both required acts. The indulgences therefore were not ``sold''; the very giving of money was itself the first of two requisite acts for gaining the indulgence in question.

The so-called invention of new doctrines, which refers to the Church's proclamation of new dogmas, is the most baseless and ridiculous charge of all--for those ``new'' dogmas of the Church were actually old doctrines dating back to the beginning of Christianity. In proclaiming them to be dogmas, the Church merely emphasized their importance to the Faith and affirmed that they are, in truth, part and parcel of divine revelation. The Catholic Church followed the same procedure when, in the fourth century, she proclaimed the New Testament to be divinely revealed. Hence it is obvious that the Catholic Church did not fall into error during the Middle Ages as some people allege, for if she had, she could not have produced those hundreds of medieval saints--saints the calibre of St. Francis, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, St. Clare, St. Anthony, St. John of the Cross, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Elizabeth and St. Vincent Ferrer (who performed an estimated 40,000 miracles).

Read More HERE