The setting is a restaurant overlooking the water in St. Augustine. A meal and good conversation. The lady does not practice her Catholic Faith anymore and is seeking validation of her poor view of The Catholic Church. Perhaps, even, she might be seeking to enlighten me on the evils of The Catholic Church.
She didn’t realize that God, “has a better idea”!
First she brought up “The Inquisition”.
She opened our conversation with; “How about the atrocities that were perpetrated by The Catholic Church during The Spanish Inquisition?”
I think that her question to me could be construed as; “How could I think that the Catholic Church was a loving, caring organization in light of the torture devices used in interrogations, such as the Iron Maiden, by The Inquisition?”.
I gave a brief but succinct answer that I knew a truly loving person could accept.
I answered:
1.) The Catholic Church bases all their teachings on two criteria.
A) Love of God
B) Love of self and love of neighbor.
2.) I said to her that she would agree with my next statement.
I told her that it is unfair to judge a civilization of a different time period by the standards of today. She looked thoughtful, for a moment, then agreed.
I then pointed out that there are writings from that time period; of people who, actually, petitioned the secular courts whom they were brought before for crimes, such as stealing, to allow them to be tried by The Inquisition, because, at the time, The Inquisition was known to be fair and lenient.
3.) I pointed out that there is much misinformation about The Inquisition. I told her that years ago one “anti-Catholic” author put the statistic in his book, about The Inquisition, that 95 Million people were killed. When, in reality, there were not 95 Million people in all of Spain at the time of The Spanish Inquisition. But, many authors who wrote after that book was published used this man’s mis-information without checking the validity of his statement.
For more on this subject:
The Inquisition - “This Rock” - http://www.catholic.com/library/inquisition.asp
“What’s So Great About Catholicism” - By. H.W. Crocker III - “Did this Inquisition of the 13th century strike fear into the people of western Europe? No. Its scope was limited; its trials and punishments more lenient to the accused than were those of its secular counterparts. Inquisitional punishment was often no more than the sort of penance—charity, pilgrimage, mortification—that one might be given by a priest in a confessional.” http://www.crisismagazine.com/november2002/feature6.htm
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