Inquisition and the pope

The reputation of the Catholic Church has been stained by grievous episodes in its history. One of these was the Inquisition, a time when perceived dissent from Church teaching and discipline gave cause for torture and even death.

Pope John Paul II has apologised more than once for the excesses of the Inquisition, when Church authorities used “methods that had nothing to do with the Gospel” in dealing with perceived apostates. He didn’t spell these methods out, but he meant horrors such as torture, forced conversions, summary trials and executions (especially burnings at the stake).

It may seem extraordinary that the pope should see a need to issue a collective mea culpa for events that predate him and his audience by several centuries. It is right, however, that he should do so.

The apologies cover actions performed on behalf of the perpetual Church and are extended for “the wounds to the [collective] memory that followed.” The pope has acknowledged that in the past the Church has been responsible for what he calls “errors committed in the service of truth”. These words are significant, genuine mitigation notwithstanding.

The new volume of findings of a six-year study of the Inquisition, released in June, places the nature of these ecclesiastic tribunals in its context.

The scholars found that the Inquisition was not equally brutal everywhere, nor was it always a Church matter. The notorious Spanish Inquisition, for example, was a political means of control for the king (nevertheless, its chief executive was a priest, the infamous Fr Thomas de Torquemada).

The scholars also reiterate the role of British Protestant propaganda, which exaggerated the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition for political purposes.

The scholars are right when they argue that the Inquisition should be seen within the context of its time, when life was more brutal than it is today. However, by referring to the “collective memory”, the pope recognises that the Inquisition remains a convenient stick with which to beat the Catholic Church.

The pope is atoning not only for the violent actions of the time (Protestant witchhunts were equally if not more brutal and prevalent). He acknowledges a failure in the Church to submit to the timeless values of the Gospel.

It is important that false perceptions about the Inquisition be corrected. But doing so does not absolve the Church, in whose name it was committed. By issuing his apologies, Pope John Paul has signalled that the Church has a responsibility not only to conform to the prevailing ethics of its time, but to be ahead of it in living the Gospel.

This lesson applies even today. Too often, many Catholics fail the lesson by sitting in judgment over others. They may not advocate the punitive methods of Torquemada and his ilk, yet they exercise an analogous blindness to Christian values. This expresses itself even in relations between fellow Catholics, when so-called “dissidents” are overzealously admonished to join Protestant churches, and traditionalists are often marginalised.

There are times when Catholics among themselves are not only unable to exercise Christ’s commandment, but violate it in his name.

It is this for which Pope John Paul is apologising.