By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 53
Second objection: Were the penalties of the Inquisition too harsh? The answer is simple: If we wish to judge — by modern standards — the penalties inflicted by the Inquisition on heretics and enemies of Church and state, yes, they were undoubtedly severe. Penalties in our time are, more often than not, so lenient that they do not deter crimes, as the ever-growing prison population proves ad nauseam. And yet, the penalties were no means harsh in the terms of the standards of the time.
Was the death sentence applied? Yes, it was. However, unlike the practice of the civil courts, the Inquisition often admitted appeals against the sentence, while most civil courts allowed no appeal against sentences for certain crimes.
Truth is that relatively few encounters with the Inquisition ended at the stake. This was a fate reserved for the relapsed, the impenitent, and those convicted of attempting to overturn certain central doctrines of the Church and threaten the stability of the state.
But even in these cases lesser forms of punishment often prevailed. The lesser punishments were generally medicinal and spiritual: public abjurations of error, penances, work in a charitable institution, a cycle of prayers and devotions, a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela or to the Holy Land. The goal was the conversion of the heretic, not his destruction.
But who were the ones who were burned alive? That’s the question most often asked. If we leave aside the exaggerations of the anti-Catholic historians, it was only those unrepentant to the end who were burned alive. The most common execution of dangerous heretics was carried out by hanging or beheading, long before the burning at the stake. But those overcritical historians systematically ignore the care taken by the Church regarding conditions in Inquisition prisons.
I insist on reminding readers that the activity of the heretics was also criminal: When Christianity became the religion of the Empire, and still more when the peoples of Northern Europe became Christian nations, the close alliance of Church and state made unity of faith essential not only to the ecclesiastical organization, but also to civil society.
This was an important reality in those times: Heresy was a crime which secular rulers were bound in duty to punish. It was regarded as worse than any other crime, even that of high treason. For society in those times, allowing heresy to flourish, was the equivalent of allowing anarchy.
Third objection: The Catholic Inquisition was unique in history, as Protestants always respected the right of other people to interpret the Bible as they felt the Holy Spirit inspired them.
Reply: This is absolutely untrue, to put it mildly. First of all, Protestants punished their opponents exactly as Catholics dealt with theirs, but at times more cruelly, especially with sessions of prolonged torture on the rack.
But do not think that those killed by the Protestant Inquisition were only Roman Catholics. Not at all! For instance, some Protestants regularly put Unitarian heretics to death for their heresy of disagreeing with the Protestant interpretation of the Bible! Those who preached the Bible alone with no Church Magisterium made themselves their own magisterium and punished others who had their own interpretation of the Bible. Consistency was definitely in short supply in those days.
For example, Calvin had Michael Servetus burned at the stake in 1553; King James I, an Anglican, had two Unitarian heretics burned at the stake in 1612; in Scotland, the Presbyterians hanged Unitarians until as late as 1696.
I stress this point: The Protestant Inquisition was unjust not only by the excessive cruelty of its methods, but especially because it was contradictory: The Protestants preached the Bible alone, but it should only be interpreted as they did. They did not recognize the Magisterium of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, but imposed a “magisterium” of their own; yes, the severity of Protestants was indefensible, on their own grounds, since they maintained the liberty of private judgment and, therefore, admitted that their victims might be right and they themselves wrong.
The Catholic Church never admitted the Bible alone, and was therefore consistent with her doctrine that she alone possesses divine truth. Therefore, the heretic working among Catholics is necessarily a source of moral or spiritual infection, a slayer of souls, and is, ultimately, more dangerous than the thief or the murderer.
It is easy for supposedly “charitable” people today — even inside the Catholic Church — to criticize the “severity” of the Inquisition in its attempts to eliminate error and evil from the midst of God’s people. As in every human undertaking, there were abuses in the Inquisition. At times a penalty was more severe than the criminal deserved. There was a specific instance when a totally innocent person was burned at the stake — St. Joan of Arc, the glorious patroness of France! But abuses were rare, as the historical record proves. And yet, the abuse does not destroy the use — the Church was always at work to prevent abuses and exercise justice.
But are our own times truly better? What will future generations think of the abortion industry, murdering millions of preborn people every year? Just because it is “legal”? And the forced sterilization of handicapped people; the involuntary euthanasia of people deemed “useless” (well documented in several countries, but never are the guilty doctors prosecuted).
Also: the destruction of children’s innocence through exposure to obscenity; the glorification of base immorality and gratuitous violence under the name of “entertainment”; the idolization of “stars” who lead lives of sheer depravity; the widespread sale of mind-destroying drugs; the plague of divorce and the attendant abandonment of children; the degradation of motherhood and family; the relegation of many old people to a life of loneliness and isolation; the bombing of entire cities in wars.
Not to mention countless other modern evils unimagined by past generations.
Add to this the crisis of faith inside the Church herself, where we find heresy and teachings dissenting from Gospel teaching spread everywhere by laity, priests, bishops, and even cardinals! And this smoke of Satan goes on with impunity in so many places.
Today’s critics of the Inquisition are, more often than not, like the Pharisees of old: Do as I say, not as I do. And Jesus called them hypocrites, whitewashed sepulchers, and a race of vipers! Oh, yes, in comparison with today’s evils, the Inquisition was very moderate and lenient indeed!
Last but not least, even if we suppose that the Inquisition was horribly severe according to the anti-Catholic accusations, in the final analysis it does not touch the Church’s infallibility in her teaching Magisterium. It would only condemn the behavior of some of her members. It also proves that the misbehavior of some Catholics does not affect the vitality and growth of the Church in number and virtue, and the many saints prove this at length. The Parable of the Dragnet shows that in the Kingdom of God (the net) there are both good and bad fish.
David committed adultery and murder, and yet he is called a “man after God’s own heart” in the Bible. His religion remained untouched. Even among the apostles you find wrongdoing: The man in charge of the purse sold Jesus out; the first Pope denied Jesus three times; and the other ten ran away like chickens when the going got tough. What a sorry lot Jesus chose to work with Him! And yet they were the Apostolic College, the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ.
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(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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