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June 15, 2004
Inquisition
No link as yet, this is from the Vatican News Service morning email:
VATICAN CITY, JUN 15, 2004 (VIS) - This morning in the Holy See Press Office, Cardinals Roger Etchegaray, former president of the Central Committee of the Grand Jubilee of the Year 2000, Jean-Louis Tauran, archivist and librarian of Holy Roman Church and George Cottier, O.P., pro-theologian of the Pontifical Household, presented a volume entitled "The Inquisition" which contains the acts of the International Symposium that took place in the Vatican October 29-31, 1998, organized by the Historical-Theological Commission of the Committee of the Jubilee Year. Professor Agostino Borromeo, responsible for the volume, also spoke during the conference.
Cardinal Etchegaray read a message that the Pope wrote to him affirming that the celebration of the symposium responds to a desire expressed in the Apostolic Letter "Tertio Millennio Adveniente" (1994): "As the second millennium of Christianity comes to an end, it is appropriate therefore that the Church assumes a greater awareness of the sins of its sons and daughters when recalling the circumstances in which, throughout history, they deviated from the spirit of Christ and His Gospel, offering to the world the spectacle of ways of thinking and acting that were true forms of 'counter-witness and scandal', instead of witness to a life inspired by the values of faith."
"In public opinion," writes the Pope, "the image of the Inquisition represents in some way the symbol of this counter-witness and scandal. In what measure is this image faithful to reality? Before asking for forgiveness, it is necessary to know exactly what are the facts and to recognize the shortcomings with respect to the evangelical needs in appropriate cases. This is why the Committee referred to historians whose scientific competence is universally recognized."
John Paul II recalls that on March 12, 2000, a Day of Forgiveness was celebrated and forgiveness was asked "for the errors committed in the service of the truth when unethical methods were used." This petition for forgiveness "is also valid for the drama related to the Inquisition as well as the wounds that are its consequence. ... This volume," he concludes, "is written in the spirit of this petition for forgiveness."
Cardinal Cottier indicated that the fact that the volume has been published so late is not due "to opposition to its publication. I would like to make that clear. The delay is due to a series of health problems."
Referring to the symposium, in which thirty speakers and experts from Italy, France, Portugal, Malta, England, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Czech Republic, the United States and Canada participated, Prof. Borromeo said they discussed "the events that led to the Inquisition in the 13th century, the activity in the main places in which heresy flourished (especially France and Italy) and its procedures. When dealing with the modern history of this institution," added Borromeo, "the reports were divided into two categories. One was predominantly geographic (Spain and Portugal with their respective imperial colonies; Italy, with special reference to the Congregation of the Holy Office, the Netherlands and England). The other was mainly thematic: (the repression of the heresies with Jewish and Islamic tendencies, Protestantism and witchcraft were discussed, as well as the battle against circulating prohibited literary and scientific books and Bibles in the vernacular and the historical context in which the abolition of courts took place)."
The acts of the symposium, said Borromeo, "are a point of reference for studies on the Inquisition; in the first place, for the scientific rigor of the reports, exempt from controversy or an apologetic nature which is typical of recent historiography; in the second place, for the richness of the information laid out which allows us to look at many places so widespread among non-specialists (the use of torture and the death penalty were not as frequent as once believed); in the third place, due to the amplitude of the volume, it is a reason to hope that intellectual debate on the theme is sparked and that there is stimulus for new research."
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Comments
blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, dribble dribble dribble . . .
Why not point out how the Inquisition was a step FORWARD for due process . . . why not point out that at that time heresy was a crime of the state and that the Inquisition allowed the Church to move forward Church/State seperation issues . . . Look at the Protestants after realizing what a mess they created . . . they teamed with the state and you had less due process and the decision rested totally with the state in their inquisitions.
I am tired of all this hand wringing.
ok, now all you can blast me.
Posted by: Paladin of Faith & Reason at Jun 15, 2004 9:23:00 AM
Conclusion of the report:
Nobody expects the Inquisition.
(rimshot)
Posted by: craig at Jun 15, 2004 9:31:43 AM
Well said Paladin!
Cottier, btw has an interesting interview in the latest 30 Days.
Posted by: al at Jun 15, 2004 9:37:07 AM
Paladin, well said.
There's an interesting interview with Cottier in the latest 30 Days.
Posted by: al at Jun 15, 2004 9:41:03 AM
Here's a link to that Cottier interview:
http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=3545
Posted by: David at Jun 15, 2004 9:54:54 AM
And where can one buy this interesting report?
Paladin, please get your history from historians--which is what this symposium did--and not from polemicists. Do you think the trial of Joan of Arc, the transcipts of which have long been available, was a triumph of due process? Would you rather be tried under English common law which presumes innocence or under Roman law which presumes guilt? Also keep in mind that there were four different versions of the Inquisition, each with a different pattern of activity.
Posted by: Sandra Miesel at Jun 15, 2004 11:55:59 AM
... and *why* was heresy a crime against the state? Did the church, its popes, or its intellectuals have anything at all to do with that fact (yes, I'm aware they didn't originate the idea, but brain-hatching doesn't exhaust responsibility)?
Look at this Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Inquisition and see how many moral evasions, self-contradictions, blame-shiftings, tu quoques, contextualizations and Pilatesque hand-washings you can count.
Posted by: Victor Morton at Jun 15, 2004 12:09:47 PM
Yeah, Victor, kind of like the "moral evasions, self-contradictions, blame-shiftings, tu quoques, contextualizations and Pilatesque hand-washings" of the torture defenders here in St. Blogs.
Posted by: David at Jun 15, 2004 1:01:38 PM
David:
All I'm saying is that the Church mandated torture and arguments to the contrary are evasions, etc. What need that imply about the morality of torture? Where's the contradiction?
Posted by: Victor Morton at Jun 15, 2004 1:30:32 PM
David, the torture "defenders" on the Internet don't also profess a charism of infallibility on matters of morals. The Church does, so either her actions then were grossly immoral violations of her own teachings, or she has reversed them lately; which is it?
Posted by: craig at Jun 15, 2004 1:42:44 PM
Well, I'd hoped it would imply that since it's wrong for we Catholics to hem and haw about torture and abuse during the Inquisitions, it's equally wrong for we Americans to hem and haw about torture and abuse during our War on Terror.
Posted by: David at Jun 15, 2004 1:43:50 PM
craig,
Infallibility, as I understand it, does not extend to each and every action undertaken by Popes or bishops.
This article from the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia might be helpful:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm#IV
There's also this from the Catechism:
"891 "The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful - who confirms his brethren in the faith he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals. . . . The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium," above all in an Ecumenical Council.418 When the Church through its supreme Magisterium proposes a doctrine "for belief as being divinely revealed,"419 and as the teaching of Christ, the definitions "must be adhered to with the obedience of faith."420 This infallibility extends as far as the deposit of divine Revelation itself.421
892 Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way, to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a "definitive manner," they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals. To this ordinary teaching the faithful "are to adhere to it with religious assent"422 which, though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it."
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a9p4.htm
Posted by: David at Jun 15, 2004 2:21:26 PM
Without citation to Ad Exstirpanda, you can't say in what sense the Church "mandated" torture.
And as to heresy being a civil crime, why is that problematic. If there is a confessional state, which we know from Dignitatis Humanae and the previous context provided by the documents of the Church, then it can proscribe heresy provided it has a compelling govt. interest.
In the case of the Albigensians, that would be the social upheaval which was part and parcel of the "dissenters" ambitions.
Posted by: al at Jun 15, 2004 2:24:44 PM
David, I know what infallibility is; what I was remarking upon was the tendency of some here to say that torture is objectively evil always and everywhere, except for when the Church did it, or approved it, or tolerated it, which was OK because she had good reasons.
Posted by: craig at Jun 15, 2004 2:33:27 PM
Al:
Two cites from that Catholic Encyclopedia article I linked to above:
"Curiously enough torture was not regarded as a mode of punishment, but purely as a means of eliciting the truth. It was not of ecclesiastical origin, and was long prohibited in the ecclesiastical courts. Nor was it originally an important factor in the inquisitional procedure, being unauthorized until twenty years after the Inquisition had begun. It was first authorized by Innocent IV in his Bull "Ad exstirpanda" of 15 May, 1252, which was confirmed by Alexander IV on 30 November, 1259, and by Clement IV on 3 November, 1265. The limit placed upon torture was citra membri diminutionem et mortis periculum -- i.e, it was not to cause the loss of life or limb or imperil life."
AND
In the Bull "Ad exstirpanda" (1252) Innocent IV says:
When those adjudged guilty of heresy have been given up to the civil power by the bishop or his representative, or the Inquisition, the podestà or chief magistrate of the city shall take them at once, and shall, within five days at the most, execute the laws made against them.
Moreover, he directs that this Bull and the corresponding regulations of Frederick II be entered in every city among the municipal statutes under pain of excommunication, which was also visited on those who failed to execute both the papal and the imperial decrees. Nor could any doubt remain as to what civil regulations were meant, for the passages which ordered the burning of impenitent heretics were inserted in the papal decretals from the imperial constitutions "Commissis nobis" and "Inconsutibilem tunicam". The aforesaid Bull "Ad exstirpanda" remained thenceforth a fundamental document of the Inquisition, renewed or reinforced by several popes, Alexander IV (1254-61), Clement IV (1265-68), Nicholas IV (1288-02), Boniface VIII (1294-1303), and others. The civil authorities, therefore, were enjoined by the popes, under pain of excommunication to execute the legal sentences that condemned impenitent heretics to the stake. It is to he noted that excommunication itself was no trifle, for, if the person excommunicated did not free himself from excommunication within a year, he was held by the legislation of that period to be a heretic, and incurred all the penalties that affected heresy.
Posted by: Victor Morton at Jun 15, 2004 3:58:33 PM
What gets overlooked in these discussions is the situation where the Church was also the civil power. The unspeakable tortures inflicted by the witch-bishops of the Rhineland weren't limited by any restaints.
England never had an Inquisition although the Lancastrians burnt a few Lollards under secular law. Torture could not be used except in cases of treason which unfortunately was held to include religious deviation, under both Catholic and Protestant regimes.
Posted by: Sandra Miesel at Jun 15, 2004 4:14:06 PM
Our ancestors' curiously near-universal acceptance of torture is something that has always puzzled and horrified me. But a few flippant comments by Nancy Mitford in one of her histories once gave me pause.
What she said in effect was that people in other ages felt differently about such things than we (some of us) do because their experience of pain was so different. "Doctors applied their brutal remedies...on fully conscious patients." The remedy for breast cancer was - cauterization...
Think about it. Life still carries many physical pains for us now - but what about life down through the centuries in which there might be no anesthesia except alcohol, if you were lucky?
We are so used to being comfortable that physical pain shocks us more than anything else. I don't think our forebears saw it in the same light. While I don't like this, I no longer see it as a mark of their utter corruption.
But that's their special pleading. WE can't make use of it. We haven't, as it were, earned it.
Posted by: alias clio at Jun 15, 2004 7:17:24 PM
Tonights's AP coverage of the story carries the headline: "Vatican: Inquisition Not So Widespread"
My favorite quote, from Agostino Borromeo, a professor at Rome's Sapienza University.
"I don't want to say that the Inquisition was an ethical institution..."
Thanks, professor.
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VATICAN_INQUISITION?SITE=APWEB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
P.S. Regarding torture, note that the U.S. Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment. At least some of our ancestors, who knew war more closely than most of us, lso aknew enough about torture to outlaw it.
Posted by: George at Jun 15, 2004 8:55:49 PM
Victor,
Those quotes do not describe the way in which the church "mandated" torture.
The civil penalties for heresy, as I've said above, are clearly ethically defensible.
Only a sentimentalist reading of DH construes an absolute immunity from civil prosecution for religious "sins".
Posted by: al at Jun 16, 2004 8:22:32 AM
Al:
The first quote says the Church used torture in its own Inquisition. The second one said the Church required that civil authorities both use torture (the Frederick II code) and execute heretics, upon pain of excommunication against the civil authorities.
I guess I don't understand your question or what else you think "mandating torture" could mean.
I cited these passages, not for the purposes of debating the morality of a clerical state (clearly, in a clerical state, heresy has to be a crime). But rather I was pointing out that the Church itself (not individual Catholics, as in, e.g. the Holocaust) specifically endorsed, ordered and practiced torture for several hundred years. Contrary to the wishes of some historical revisionists.
Posted by: Victor Morton at Jun 16, 2004 12:54:42 PM
Al:
The first quote says the Church used torture in its own Inquisition. The second one said the Church required that civil authorities both use torture (the Frederick II code) and execute heretics, upon pain of excommunication against the civil authorities.
I guess I don't understand your question or what else you think "mandating torture" could mean.
I cited these passages, not for the purposes of debating the morality of a clerical state (clearly, in a clerical state, heresy has to be a crime). But rather I was pointing out that the Church itself (not individual Catholics, as in, e.g. the Holocaust) specifically endorsed, ordered and practiced torture for several hundred years. Contrary to the wishes of some historical revisionists.
Posted by: Victor Morton at Jun 16, 2004 12:57:34 PM
Torture?
I'm going to assume that what some are doing here is attempting to give some moral equivilence to the 300+ years (give or take) of the inquisition with the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq. If I'm wrong or mischaracterising what I read then I apologize
On the one hand we have Saint Joan, surrendered to the enemy by the French (still such a noble people) and burned for heresy by civil authorities under the moral guidance of chruchmen. On the other you have enemy soldiers, criminals, and terrorists being threatened by mean dogs, and being physically and sexually intimidated, as well as, heaven forbid, sleep deprived (!) in order to gather military intelligence in a war zone.
To compare the two is fatuous at best. Have I missed that comparision in a press release from USCCB? Perhaps they will release it at their next meeting.
Posted by: Al T at Jun 16, 2004 3:25:01 PM
Torture?
I'm going to assume that what some are doing here is attempting to give some moral equivilence to the 300+ years (give or take) of the inquisition with the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq. If I'm wrong or mischaracterising what I read then I apologize.
On the one hand we have Saint Joan, surrendered to the enemy by the French (still such a noble people) after saving their miserable butts, and burned for heresy by English civil authorities under the moral guidance of chruchmen. On the other you have enemy soldiers, criminals, and terrorists being threatened by mean dogs, being physically and sexually intimidated and embarrased, as well as, heaven forbid, sleep deprived (!) in order to gather military intelligence in a war zone.
To compare the two is fatuous at best. Have I missed that comparision in a press release from USCCB? Perhaps they will release it at their next meeting.
Posted by: Al T at Jun 16, 2004 3:31:07 PM
Al T,
Comparison doesn't imply equivalence.
And let's not underestimate the potency of sleep deprivation. It can be used as a tool of torture.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3376951.stm
Posted by: David at Jun 17, 2004 9:50:46 AM
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/schulz200406170846.asp
Please read the above article, then lets talk about sleep deprivation being a tool of torture.
If you cannot see the absurdity of even comparing AbuGarib to the inquisition, well then perhaps we should look at AG then and now. Hence the link above. NOTE: Dont read if you find it difficult to deal with written discriptions of physical brutality.
Posted by: Al T at Jun 17, 2004 1:07:16 PM
I hope you're not trying to imply that being sleep-deprived for days on end isn't torture, simply because it isn't as painful as having one's hand chopped off. That's a remarkably bad argument.
Posted by: David at Jun 17, 2004 1:56:32 PM
I hope in turn that you're not trying to imply that sleep deprivation, as an undoubtably uncomfortable, valid interrogation technique, is as torturous as having one's hand chopped off. Or having one's tongue removed with a razor blade. Or watching one's wife and daughter being gang-raped.
Posted by: Al T at Jun 17, 2004 2:58:55 PM
Ah, so kinds of torture can be compared without implying their equivalence. One kind is worse (a term of comparison) than another. Thanks for implicitly granting my point.
The kind of sleep deprivation that's effective for information extraction is (1) tortuous in itself and (2) probably requires other kinds of torture or threats of torture in order to work.
John Paul II, in the encyclical [a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor_en.html"]Veritatis Splendor[/a], says:
"80. Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature "incapable of being ordered" to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church's moral tradition, have been termed "intrinsically evil" (intrinsece malum): they are such always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances. Consequently, without in the least denying the influence on morality exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions, the Church teaches that "there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object".131 The Second Vatican Council itself, in discussing the respect due to the human person, gives a number of examples of such acts: "Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide; whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat labourers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons: all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honour due to the Creator"." (my emphasis)
We cannot do evil that good may come about.
Posted by: David at Jun 17, 2004 3:19:52 PM
Here's that Veritatis Splendor link.
Posted by: David at Jun 17, 2004 3:21:57 PM
