Remember the excuses you made when you were caught doing something naughty as a child?
The Catholic Church stoops to the same childish level as it tries to excuse its cruel behaviour during the Inquisitions. According to the "Catholic Answers Staff" the apologist should:
- They were picking on me
- They deserved it
- I didn't know it was wrong
- A big boy made me do it
- All the other kids were doing it
- blah blah blah.
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The Catholic Church stoops to the same childish level as it tries to excuse its cruel behaviour during the Inquisitions. According to the "Catholic Answers Staff" the apologist should:
Point out that the Inquisition was intended not to convert people, but to find people who were outwardly claiming to be Christian but secretly practiced another religion ... The inquisition was thus an attempt to protect the purity of the Christian community.
Also point out that the Protestants had a counter-inquisition that killed Catholics ... In addition, Protestants were the big witch-burners. Witch burning never caught on in Catholic countries.When the Spanish Inquisition examined the cases of reported witches, it almost invariably concluded that the charges were false and the accused were not guilty. But tens of thousands of supposed witches were burned at the stake, hanged, or drowned in Protestant countries, including the American colonies.
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On another page at the same website the readers are told:
No account of foolishness, misguided zeal, or cruelty by Catholics can undo the divine foundation of the Church
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-inquisition
Let me translate that for you:
Rule 1: The Catholic church is never wrong.Rule 2: If the Catholic church is wrong, Rule 1 applies.
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But it's not just the glorified social workers on the "Answers Staff" who come out with such craziness. The Catholic Encyclopedia contains an article which says that the Inquisitors,
Far from being inhuman, they were, as a rule, men of spotless character and sometimes of truly admirable sanctity
[...]
When the Inquisitor arrived in a "heresy-ridden district"
(no preconceptions there, eh?)
[...]
The inhabitants were summoned to appear before the inquisitor. On those who confessed of their own accord a suitable penance (e.g. a pilgrimage) was imposed, but never a severe punishment like incarceration or surrender to the civil power ... If the accused at once made full and free confession, the affair was soon concluded, and not to the disadvantage of the accused.
[...]
Most of the punishments that were properly speaking inquisitional were not inhuman, either by their nature or by the manner of their infliction. Most frequently certain good works were ordered, e.g. the building of a church, the visitation of a church, a pilgrimage more or less distant, the offering of a candle or a chalice, participation in a crusade, and the like.
[...]
The hardest penalties were imprisonment in its various degrees, exclusion from the communion of the Church, and the usually consequent surrender to the civil power.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm
On two occasions (quoted above) the Catholic Encyclopedia mentions a punishment that included "surrender to the civil power." Do you know what that means? It means the accused were found guilty and handed over to the civilian authorities who carried out the death penalty imposed by the Inquisitors. It was a clever little ploy which allowed the Catholic Church to (dis)honestly claim that it never, ever, killed anyone during 600 years of Inquisitions!
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And you'll find more apologies at the Catholic Education Resource Center
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