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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August 14th, 2007 at 7:35 p08
you said:
I told her that it is unfair to judge a civilization of a different time period by the standards of today. ……………………
that my friend is a copout when referring to people (priests, bish, card, pope etc.) acting in gods name and on his behalf. jesus lived over 2,000 years ago, and would not then, now or ever act in a manner such as ur church has, repeatedly over the last 2 millennium. how do u use that excuse of yours to explain or justify the child molestation by todays priests, bishops, cards etc.
As for the rest of your article i will not waste my time beyond saying that you can NOT prove nor can you disprove ANY of what has been written. The best you can do is a “he said she said” kind of thing where i throw writers at you who show you wrong and you throw writers at me who show me wrong, and in the end you will say yours are to be trusted because they are THE one and only universal chucrh, and i will point out that THAT IS the problem, kind of a fox watching the henhouse type of scenario. you will then call my naysayers “anti catlic” and therefore liars, and on and on we go.
A “draw” will be the only truth reached im afraid. As i’ve said countless times only if and when the world ends and gods comes, will we find out who is right and by then it will be too late. that is the reason for most peoples faith also im afraid. An insurance policy of sorts, figuring, better to believe and be wrong, than not to believe and be wrong.
August 14th, 2007 at 7:35 p08
An essay that tries to explain the flaw in your explanation to “Loving Lady”
http://allworldviews.blogspot.com/2007/08/new-is-nothing-to-be-feared.html