Torture In The Name Of Christ

Torture In The Name Of Christ

What makes a religious person cruel?

TOMÁS DE TORQUEMADA had good religious genes. Born in Spain in 1420, he was the nephew of a prominent cardinal. After entering a Dominican monastery, Torquemada was made prior of another monastery and subsequently was appointed confessor to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella, best known for sponsoring Christopher Columbus.

In 1163 Pope Alexander IV had encouraged princes and bishops to imprison heretics and confiscate their property. It was Pope Gregory IX who, beginning in 1231, set up a special church tribunal, called the Inquisition, for combating heresy.

No nation during this period was more interested in keeping the Catholic faith pure than Spain. Prodded by Queen Isabella, Pope Sixtus IV authorized the Spanish Inquisition in 1478. In 1483 Torquemada was appointed the Spanish grand inquisitor. He set up tribunals with such effectiveness that they lasted for three centuries. Torquemada became the most powerful person in Spain after the king and queen. In 1487 persecution was leveled against the Spanish Muslims, called Moors, and Jewish and Muslim converts to Christianity who were suspected of duplicity. The conversion of the Muslims and the Jews to Christianity had been forced in almost all cases.

The Inquisition in Spain began by offering heretics the Edict of Grace, a period of thirty to forty days in which heretics could identify themselves and, on their confession, be assured of a pardon. The catch was that those who confessed their heresies, called penitentes, were forced to take a vow to reveal other heretics.

The grounds for arrest was accusation by another or even mere rumor. A person was assumed to be guilty until proven innocent. Once arrested, prisoners were placed in a secret prison and allowed no contact with the outside world. They could not know their accusers’ or witnesses’ names, nor were they given access to documents relating to the case. Witnesses for the accused could be only orthodox Catholics, and no relative up to the fourth generation was allowed to testify. The charges could be for the slightest deviation from Catholic practice—even saying that the Virgin Mary herself and not her images effected cures.

Even when there was sufficient testimony from others to convict the accused, the victims were still tortured to extract a confession and to gain names of additional heretics.

The two primary tortures were water torture and the garruche. In the first, prisoners were tied to a rack, their jaws held open, linen cloth forced down their throat, and then up to eight quarts of water slowly poured down their throat. In the garruche weights were attached to the feet and the person was suspended so that only the toes touched the ground.

From the beginning the primary means of execution was burning. The tribunal established at Ciudad Real in 1483 burned 52 heretics in two years. When the Inquisition moved to Toledo in 1485, 750 penitentes were marched into the cathedral to be told that one-fifth of their property had been confiscated. Next the tribunal went to Avila, where 75 were burned at the stake and 26 corpses were exhumed and burned. And so it went.

King Ferdinand was the greatest supporter of Torquemada. It was with great delight that he witnessed many of the burnings, seeing each as an advancement of his Catholic faith.

In 1492 the conquest of the Muslim Moors in Spain became almost complete with the fall of Granada. Six months later King Ferdinand ordered all Jews to leave Spain, but nearly half remained as forced converts.

By the time of Torquemada’s death on September 16, 1498, two thousand heretics had been executed under his authority. The great irony is that Torquemada died hiding the fact that he himself had Jewish blood.

Reflection

The Spanish Inquisition was one of the cruelest institutions in human history. It tortured and murdered in the name of Jesus. How do you explain that? What does it teach about human nature? about religious commitment? What can you personally learn from these sordid events?

The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?

Jeremiah 17:9