What are the Catholics excuse for the Inquisitions?

Answer 1

They have none but will make up every lame excuse and use whatever device they can think of like circular reasoning to fit their construct of reality

Answer 2

I need not make any exucses for the Inquisition because I am not the least bit responsible for them as I was not alive at the time.

Nothing can be gained by bothering the Catholics of today over events that happened centuries ago.

I am afraid, no matter how offended you are about the Inquisitions, you're just going to have to get over it. Quit living in the past and join the 21st century.

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/madden200406181026.asp
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/articles/history/world/wh0026.html

With love in Christ.

Answer 4

The inquisition was the investigation into the reasons why some people who then claimed to be Catholic, were not living the way Catholics were expected to live.

When it turned out that it was really a bunch of Jews that were claiming to be Catholic, yet still practicing as Jews, thereby causing public scandal, things began to get a lot more interesting.

For the rest, see Fr.'s link.

Answer 5

Not all Catholics support or supported the inquisitions. I have seen a formal apology by a Cardinal of the Catholic church for the inquisitions.

Note; I am not a Catholic.

Cordially,
John
http://www.GodSci.org

Answer 6

They don't need an excuse. No one living today took part in the Inquisition. Why would one person need to answer for the crimes of another?

Answer 7

Pope John Paul II appologized, and explained it was sinful.

"It can hardly have escaped the notice of persons interested in religion and public life that there has been a good deal of public sorrow expressed lately concerning errors or misdeeds committed by representatives or members of the Catholic Church at various times in history. in a new book titled When a Pope Asks Forgiveness, Luigi Accattoli counted no less than ninety-four instances where John Paul II himself had, acknowledged the mistakes and sins of Christians in connection with, among other things, the Crusades, the Inquisition, persecution of the Jews, religious wars, in re Galileo, and the treatment of women."

Answer 8

Just following the infallible orders of the non-profit European Pope to kill all non-Catholics.

Answer 9

That's how catholics were back then. If you mention the word "sex" or even thinking about it, they labeled you a sinner.
Of course in their ignorance they forgot to realize they're just as guilty. They are human after all.

Answer 10

There is no excuse, as such is completely contrary to the means of the New Testament church (Jn. 18:36 2Cor. 6:1-10; 10:1-4; Eph. 6:12), which never physically shed anyone's blood, or used coercion. Things like the Crusades and Inquisitions required enforced ignorance of the Bible, not faithfulness to the commands and example of Christ.

The reason for such is that papacy much flows out of the Roman empire in which the Romans church found herself, and whose carnal means she took upon (thus the Inquisitions), and it is ultimately by autocratic, circular reasoning that she defends herself (according to our interpretation, only our interpretation can be correct). Rome extrapolates a perpetuated Petrine papacy out of Mt. 16:13-19 (even though it's latest Catechism allows the Rock to be Christ, which it is), yet in contrast to other major doctrines, no where do we find any explicit support for such an interpretation, nor any true inference that would establish such.

A thorough search of the rest of the New Testament yields not even one single command for all the churches to submit to Peter as supreme pope, nor one example of him reigning as such (James gives the final decision in Acts 15), nor does
Peter, "an apostle" and "a servant", refer to himself as such. And most critically, nowhere is there any provision set down for a successor to Peter. Instead, God is still building His church using men who like Peter, effectually confess faith in the Rock, even Christ, and upon such truth is the church grounded.

Meanwhile, Scripture itself teaches that the Bible is the ultimate authority (Sola Scriptura"), not the church (Sola Ecclecia), which owes it's existence to the Word of God. The Bible only commends one class of revelation as wholly breathed, that being Scripture, which alone is commended as the authority for doctrine, "for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2Tim. 3:16). Making any other authority equal to it is in essence adding to the closed canon of Scripture, and those who do shall end up suffering the punishment foretold therein (Rev. 22:18, 19).

Finally, the ultimate error of Rome is that of fostering dependence upon her supposed powers, as well as one's own merits, for salvation, rather than coming before God as a sinner, destitute of any merit whereby we may escape Hell and gain Heaven, and thus cast all our faith upon Christ and His blood for justification and regeneration (Rm. 3:9 - 5:8; Eph. 1:13; Titus 3:5).

And having turned from sin to Him, be baptized under water (Acts 8:37) and walk in newness of life (Rm. 6). And so glorify God alone!!

See http://www.christiantruth.com/
http://www.aomin.org/Roman.html
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/2594/
http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/papalpresumption.html