A question about the roman catholic church?

Question

so was it the roman catholic church that was burning people on stakes and suppressing the jews and protestants during the spanish inquisition? wasn't it the pope that allowed this to happen?

Answer 1

yes the pope approved it

but the christians in europe also burned people

and the christians in salem

Answer 2

Yes, it was the Catholic Church that did that 600 hundred years ago. None of that could happen unless the Pope OK'd it. It was mostly Jews and Muslims as Protestants didn't exist until the 1500's. When Protestants were being attacked, it was countries that were doing that more than it was the Pope. For instance, Queen Mary, first daughter of Henry VIII, tried to get rid of Protestants. Then she, herself, was killed by Elizabeth I, who then went about murdering Catholics. The Pope had nothing to do with these attacks, which were later than the Inquisitions.

Answer 3

Modern historians have long known that the popular view of the Inquisition is a myth. The Inquisition was actually an attempt by the Catholic Church to stop unjust executions.

Heresy was a capital offense against the state. Rulers of the state, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did common people, who saw heretics as dangerous outsiders who would bring down divine wrath.

When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig. It was not easy to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. The lord needed some basic theological training, very few did. The sad result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent judge of the crime.

The Catholic Church's response to this problem was the Inquisition, an attempt to provide fair trials for accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges.

From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the king and therefore deserved death. From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the pope and bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them. So, while medieval secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls. The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community.

Most people tried for heresy by the Inquisition were either acquitted or had their sentences suspended. Those found guilty of grave error were allowed to confess their sin, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ. The underlying assumption of the Inquisition was that, like lost sheep, heretics had simply strayed.

If, however, an inquisitor determined that a particular sheep had purposely left the flock, there was nothing more that could be done. Unrepentant or obstinate heretics were excommunicated and given over to secular authorities. Despite popular myth, the Inquisition did not burn heretics. It was the secular authorities that held heresy to be a capital offense, not the Church. The simple fact is that the medieval Inquisition saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.

Where did this myth come from? After 1530, the Inquisition began to turn its attention to the new heresy of Lutheranism. It was the Protestant Reformation and the rivalries it spawned that would give birth to the myth. Innumerable books and pamphlets poured from the printing presses of Protestant countries at war with Spain accusing the Spanish Inquisition of inhuman depravity and horrible atrocities in the New World.

For more information, see:

The Real Inquisition, By Thomas F. Madden, National Review (2004) http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/ma...

Inquisition by Edward Peters (1988)

The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen (1997)

The Spanish Inquisition: Fact Versus Fiction, By Marvin R. O'Connell (1996): http://www.catholiceducation.org/article...

With love in Christ.  

Answer 4

The Inquisitor was given special powers.

For the most part, it was harmless enough, then someone started abusing it, of course.

Answer 5

"The number of people martyred by the Roman Catholic Church.......estimates range fro 50 to 120 million."

Answer 6

they just were following the instructions and the example of Jehovah in the OT.  

Answer 7

In 1252 Pope Innocent IV officially sanctioned torture as a way of extracting the “truth” from suspects. Prior to that time, this type of extreme punishment was foreign to church tradition and practice. During the Spanish Inquisition alone, some historians estimate that as many as 2,000 people were burned at the stake within one decade after the inquisition began.

The next major Inquisition period is known as the Spanish Inquisition. It was set up by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain in 1478 with the approval of Pope Sixtus IV. Unlike the previous inquisition, it was completely under royal authority and was staffed by secular clergy. It mainly focused on Jews who had professed to be converts to Roman Catholicism but who were suspected of having continued to practice Judaism. Later on, with the spread of Protestantism into Spain, the inquisition would also begin to persecute Protestants who broke away from the Roman Catholic Church. However, after the decline in religious disputes in the 17th century, the Spanish Inquisition essentially became more and more like a secret police that would investigate and retaliate against internal threats to the Spanish authorities. The Spanish Inquisition is probably the most infamous for its torture and the number of people executed as a result of it. One historian estimated that over the course of its history the Spanish Inquisition tried a total of 341,021 people, of whom at least 10% (31,912) were executed.

Answer 8

The first fact is, that the inquisitions did happen.

The second fact is, that there is enormous amounts of misinformation, exaggerations, and outright lies surrounding it.

There have actually been several different inquisitions. The first was established in 1184 in southern France as a response to the Catharist heresy. This was known as the Medieval Inquisition, and it was phased out as Catharism disappeared.

Quite separate was the Roman Inquisition, begun in 1542. It was the least active and most benign of the three variations.

Separate again was the infamous Spanish Inquisition, started in 1478, a state institution used to identify conversos—Jews and Moors (Muslims) who pretended to convert to Christianity for purposes of political or social advantage and secretly practiced their former religion. More importantly, its job was also to clear the good names of many people who were falsely accused of being heretics. It was the Spanish Inquisition that, at least in the popular imagination, had the worst record of fulfilling these duties.

The various inquisitions stretched through the better part of a millennia, and can collectively be called "the Inquisition."

The Church has nothing to fear from the truth. No account of foolishness, misguided zeal, or cruelty by Catholics can undo the divine foundation of the Church, though, admittedly, these things are stumbling blocks to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

What must be grasped is that the Church contains within itself all sorts of sinners and knaves, and some of them obtain positions of responsibility. Paul and Christ himself warned us that there would be a few ravenous wolves among Church leaders (Acts 20:29; Matt. 7:15).

No one knows exactly how many people perished through the various Inquisitions. We can determine for certain, though, one thing about numbers given by Fundamentalists: They are far too large. One book popular with Fundamentalists claims that 95 million people died under the Inquisition.

The figure is so grotesquely off that one immediately doubts the writer’s sanity, or at least his grasp of demographics. Not until modern times did the population of those countries where the Inquisitions existed approach 95 million.

In fact, recent studies indicate that at most there were only a few thousand capital sentences carried out for heresy in Spain, and these were over the course of several centuries.

http://www.catholic.com/library/Inquisit...

Answer 9

Actually the pope ordered it.

Answer 10

Yes it was.  

It persecuted Christians who would not accept their version of what people were commanded to believe, long before the Spanish inquisition. It was founded by the roman Emporor Constantine about 300 years after Jesus died.  And Constantine was the first head of that church.  For a while it did grant dispensation for people to carry on worshiping as Jesus commanded.  But not for long. Then the persecution started. In the historic sense it is not really all that long since they stopped persecuting those who kept to biblical principles.

Answer 11

And it is going to happen again! Notice verse 11.

Rev 6:9  And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

Rev 6:10  And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

Rev 6:11  And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should BE KILLED AS THEY WERE, should be fulfilled.

Answer 12

Absolutely Yes it was!

The Roman church is a bloody church and it takes great pains to prove to the world that she has changed . . .

Although she is not murdering the people of the Almighty any longer she is still bringing as many as she possibly can to Satan via Sun worship and Pagan rituals.

She is truly the earthly enemy to pray for.

Be Blessed:-)

Answer 13

If you would like more answers, consider asking around this site as well...

http://christianforums.com/forumdisplay....