“The Holy Inquisition” - By Darryl Eberhart

“The Holy Inquisition” (True History – Part VIII)
By Darryl Eberhart, Editor of ETI & TTT // Website: www.toughissues.org
A 4-page handout // All emphasis is mine unless otherwise stated. // August 31, 2009

DEFINITIONS (hopefully in alphabetical order):

“Eucharist” (Per Dave Hunt; “A Woman Rides the Beast”; 1994; Page 522): “A special form of bread (tiny wafer or host) and ordinary wine which is believed to be the literal Body and Blood of Jesus Christ by having been consecrated by a [Ed.: celibate Roman Catholic] priest and thus having been ‘transubstantiated’ through a special formula and power which [Ed.: Roman] Catholic priests alone possess. The offering of this miraculously constituted ‘Christ’ upon [Ed.: Roman] Catholic altars is the principal part of the ceremony or ritual known as the ‘Sacrifice’ of the Mass and is believed to be efficacious in the remission of sins.” [Ed.: Many Bible-believing Christians were burned at the stake for refusing to affirm the unscriptural Roman Catholic doctrine of “transubstantiation”!]

“Heretic” (Per Darryl Eberhart, Editor of ETI & TTT): “As concerns historical Roman Catholic use of this term: A ‘label’ applied by the Papacy to anyone who dared in the past, or who dares today, to question either (1) papal authority, or (2) any of the unscriptural doctrines based solely upon ‘tradition’ that have been promulgated by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, such as ‘transubstantiation’, ‘indulgences’, ‘papal infallibility’, ‘purgatory’, ‘worship of images’, ‘a celibate priesthood’, ‘auricular confession to a priest’, etc. In past centuries, Papal Rome has also applied the label of ‘heretic’ to those individuals possessing, printing, or distributing Bibles.”

“Inquisition” (Per Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language; Meaning #4): “In some [Ed.: Roman] Catholic countries, a court or tribunal established for the examination and punishment of ‘heretics’. This court was established in the 12^th century by ‘father’ Dominic, who was charged by Pope Innocent III with orders to excite [Roman] Catholic princes [Ed.: i.e., rulers] and people to extirpate [Ed.: i.e., destroy completely] ‘heretics’.”

Papal Rome’s so-called “Holy” Inquisition ran officially, according to some scholars, from 1203 A.D. to 1808 A.D., and was responsible for the murder of up to 50 million innocent people. Many of its victims were brutally tortured. Many of its victims (including a large number of women) were burned alive at the stake, often using green or wet wood to prolong the agony of the poor victims! Please carefully consider the following quotations:

“The desire for worldly power began to manifest itself in the [Ed.: early] Church, on a broad scale, in the 4^th century, when the [Ed.: Imperial] Roman Empire ceased its persecutions, and made [Ed.: the Roman Catholic version of] Christianity its State religion. The spirit of Imperial Rome passed into the Church [Ed.: i.e., Papal Rome]. The [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Church gradually developed itself into the pattern of the Empire it had conquered.

[Ed.: Imperial] Rome fell. But Rome came to life again, as a world power, in the name of the [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Church. The popes of Rome were the heirs and successors of the Caesars of Rome. The Vatican is [Ed.: located] where the Palace of the Caesars was. The [Ed.: Roman Catholic] popes have claimed all the authority the Caesars claimed, and more. The Papal Palace, throughout the centuries, has been among the most luxurious in all the world. Popes have lived in pomp and splendor unsurpassed by earthly kings. In no place on earth is there more ostentatious pageantry and show of magnificence than at the coronation of a pope.

…The horrors of the Inquisition, ordered and maintained by the popes, over a period of 500 years, in which unnumbered millions were tortured and burned, constitute the most brutal, beastly and devilish picture in all history.

…The city of Rome, first pagan, then papal, has been the dominating power of the world for two thousand years (200 B.C. to A.D. 1800).

…It is inconceivable that any ecclesiastical organization, in its mania for power, could have distorted and desecrated and corrupted, for its own exaltation, the beautiful and holy religion of Jesus [Christ].” – Henry H. Halley (“Halley’s Bible Handbook”)

“One thinks immediately of the Inquisitions (Roman, Medieval, and Spanish) which for centuries held Europe in their terrible grip. In his ‘History of the Inquisition’, Canon Llorente, who was the Secretary to the Inquisition in Madrid [Ed.: Spain] from 1790-92 and had access to the archives of all the tribunals, estimated that in Spain alone the number of condemned exceeded three million, with about 300,000 burned at the stake.” – Dave Hunt (“A Woman Rides the Beast”; 1994; Page 79)

“The Medieval Inquisition had flourished for centuries when Pope Paul III, in 1542, gave it permanent status as the first of Rome’s Sacred Congregations, the ‘Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Inquisition’. Known more recently as the ‘Holy Office’, its name was changed in 1967 to the ‘Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’ – quite appropriate inasmuch as the public burnings were known as autos-da-fe or acts of faith. The persecution, torture, and killing of [Ed.: so-called] heretics has never been repudiated by the Roman Catholic Church and has continued into modern times…” – Dave Hunt (“A Woman Rides the Beast”; 1994; Page 261)

“Roman Catholic apologists deceitfully try to absolve their Church of any responsibility in the actual burnings of [Ed.: so-called] heretics. They claim that the Inquisition was the work of the State.

…The penalties were [Ed.: indeed] executed by the civil authorities, but only as the secular arm of the [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Church…

…If the [Ed.: civil] authorities refused to execute the condemned [Ed.: i.e., those individuals condemned by the Roman Catholic Inquisition], they would themselves be brought before the [Ed.: Inquisitional] Tribunal and consigned to the flames. [Ed.: In other words, the “Church” compelled the “State” to execute the “heretics”!]

It was the [Ed.: Roman Catholic] popes themselves who invented the Inquisition and saw that it was carried out.” – Dave Hunt (“A Woman Rides the Beast”; 1994; Pages 244 and 245)

“The popes themselves were the authority behind the Inquisitions. They wielded the power of life and death even over emperors. Had any pope opposed the Inquisition, he could have stopped it during his papacy at least. …The Roman pontiffs, who originated and directed the Inquisitions, threatened excommunication against any who failed to carry out the inquisitors’ decrees.” – Dave Hunt (“A Woman Rides the Beast”; 1994; Page 247)

“When confronted with ‘heresy’, she [Ed.: i.e., the Roman Catholic Church] does not content herself with persuasion; arguments of an intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, [Ed.: and] to torture.” – H.M.A. Baudrillart (Rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris)

“The [Ed.: Roman] Catholic Church has the right and duty to kill heretics because it is by fire and sword that heresy can be extirpated [Ed.: i.e., exterminated].” – Jesuit Marianus de Luce (1901)

“Roman Catholicism was born in blood, has wallowed in blood, has quenched its thirst in blood, and it is in letters of blood that its true history is written.” – Baron DePonnat (French statesman; 1940)

“From the birth of Popery [Ed.: i.e., Papal Rome] in 600, to the present time [Ed.: then 1845], it has been estimated by careful and credible historians that more than FIFTY MILLIONS [Ed.: emphasis in original] of the human family have been slaughtered for ‘the crime’ of ‘heresy’ by popish [Ed.: i.e., Roman Catholic] persecutors – an average of more than forty thousand religious murders for every year of the existence of Popery.” – John Dowling (“The History of Romanism: From the Earliest Corruptions of Christianity to the Present Time”; 1845)

“History records the appalling story of suffering and martyrdom endured by untold millions across the centuries at the hand of the PAPAL MACHINE.” – Wilson Ewin (“You Can Lead Roman Catholics to Christ”; 1981; Page 33)

“[Ed.: The Inquisition’s] methods of terror and persecution have been used and abused up to the present day. These methods were not only new, but also so successful that they have been copied by totalitarian regimes ever since. The main features of these methods are:

Making the denunciation of fellow citizens an obligation that takes precedence over ties of family and kinship;
Extracting confessions by imprisonment and torture;
Making the naming of fellow conspirators an essential part of confessions;
Defining the retraction of extorted confessions as a ‘relapse’ and therefore a proof of guilt; and,
In some cases, separating the proof of ‘heresy’ or opposition from the execution of the penalty. The Inquisition handed over its convicted ‘heretics’ to the secular arm for punishment just as, hundreds of years later, during Stalin’s purges of the Communist party, party members were often deprived of their membership and then handed over to the NKVD for punishment.” – Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn (“The History and Sociology of GENOCIDE”; 1990; Pages 114 and 115)

“Disregarding the maxims and the spirit of the Gospel, the papal Church, arming herself with the power of the sword, vexed the [Ed.: true] Church of God and wasted it for centuries, a period most appropriately termed in history, the ‘dark ages’. The kings of the earth gave their power to the Beast.” – John Foxe (Elizabethan historian; 1516-1587; “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs”)

“THE INQUISITION: The Horror Begins – With each council the level of terror increased:

1184 – Synod of Verona: Burn heretics at the stake.

1215 – 4^th Lateran Council: Burn heretics and take their property. The ‘Inquisition’ is formed.

1220 – Inquisition is handed to the newly formed Dominican Order.

1229 – Synod of Toulouse makes the Inquisition a systematic process – [Accused are] guilty until proven innocent!

1252 – Pope Innocent IV: Torture is doctrinally acceptable to make an accused heretic ‘confess’.

1484 – Pope Innocent VIII publishes ‘Summus Desiderantes’ to support his inquisitors.

1486 – [Pope] Innocent VIII publishes ‘Malleus Maleficorum’ (Witch-Hammer), the systematic guide to detect, torture and execute a suspected ‘witch’. But the deck was stacked against you:

[1.] Almost never see your accuser.

[2.] Never know why or of what you are accused.

[3.] No lawyer. You have to prove your innocence.

[4.] You’re presumed guilty – period.

[5.] They promise anything, but kill you anyway!” – David W. Daniels (“Did the Catholic Church Give Us the Bible?”; 2005; Page 86)

“What history shows is that, for more than six centuries without a break, the papacy was the sworn enemy of elementary justice. Of eighty popes in a line from the thirteenth century on, not one of them disapproved of the theology and apparatus of Inquisition. On the contrary, one after another added his own cruel touches to the workings of this deadly machine.” – Peter De Rosa (Roman Catholic historian; “Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy”; 1988; Pages 175 and 176)

“The Inquisition is peculiarly the weapon and peculiarly the work of the popes. It stands out from all those things in which they cooperated, followed or assented as the distinctive feature of Papal Rome. It was set up, renewed, and perfected by a long series of acts emanating from the supreme authority of the [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Church. No other institution, no doctrine, no teaching, no ceremony is so distinctly the individual creation of the papacy, except the dispensing power [Ed.: i.e., the power to administer the Inquisition]. It is the principal thing with which the papacy is identified, and by which it must be judged. The principle of the Inquisition is the pope’s sovereign power over life and death. Whoever disobeys him [Ed.: i.e., the pope] should be tried, and tortured, and burnt. If that cannot be done, [Ed.: then] formalities may be dispensed with, and the culprit may be killed like an outlaw. That is to say, the principle of the Inquisition is murderous, and a man’s opinion of the papacy is regulated and determined by his opinion of religious assassination.” – John Acton (1843-1902; English Catholic historian)

“One of history’s most malevolent persons died on this day [Ed.: i.e., September 16] in 1498. Tomas de Torquemada, as Inquisitor General of Spain, ordered more than 10,000 people to be burned at the stake because they didn’t agree with his religious views. He used the Inquisition for religious and political reasons, believing punishment of [Ed.: so-called] ‘heretics’ and non-Christians – chiefly Jews and Muslims – was the only way to achieve political unity in Spain. Greatly feared and hated by millions, he persuaded [Ed.: Spanish King] Ferdinand and [Ed.: Spanish Queen] Isabella to rid Spain of Jews. More than a million families were driven from Spain during that time. The country never recovered from the resulting decline.” – Ron Hembree (“A Daily Joy”; Page 272)

Ed. Comment concerning the preceding quote: The Inquisition was not used only for “religious and political reasons” – it was used also to loot and plunder land and possessions of Bible-believing Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. Many Bible-believing Christians were accused of being “heretics” simply because they held the Holy Bible to be of higher authority than the Papacy, and because they would not submit to corrupt Papal authority. Bible-believing Christians were targeted for centuries as entire villages and regions (to include men, women, and children) were exterminated like rats. Papal armies exterminated an entire Christian population group – the Albigensian Christians – in South France. Indeed, torture, brutality, and mass murder were the “hallmarks” of the so-called “Holy” Inquisition.

“To wring out confessions from these poor creatures [Ed.: during the Inquisition], the Roman Catholic Church devised ingenious tortures so excruciating and barbarous that one is sickened by their recital.” – Dave Hunt (“A Woman Rides the Beast”; 1994; Page 80)

“The most ghastly abomination of all was the system of torture [Ed.: within the Inquisition]. The accounts of its cold-blooded operations make one shutter at the capacity of human beings for cruelty. And it was decreed and regulated by the popes who ‘claim’ to represent Christ on earth…” – Bishop William Shaw Kerr (Church historian)

“For rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation, Christians were burned at the stake by Roman Catholics by the hundreds of thousands. Church historian R. Tudor Jones writes that ‘the majority of the martyrs were ordinary people, including many women…’

John Foxe [Ed.: Elizabethan historian; 1516-1587] was an eyewitness and earnest historian of the fierce persecution in [Ed.: then-Roman Catholic] England in his day. His ‘Book of Martyrs’ gives detailed accounts of many public trials and executions of those whom the Roman Catholic Church judged to be ‘heretics’ worthy of death. His descriptions of Christians being burned at the stake tell of their inspiring bravery in the face of such a horrible death and of the determination of Roman Catholicism to exterminate everywhere true Christians who opposed her.

Similar records have come down of the massacres of Jews at the hands of the Roman Church.” – Dave Hunt (“A Cup of Trembling”; 1995; Page 160)

“It is so very hard today to imagine how anyone could watch and inflict systematic tortures [Ed.: as occurred during the so-called “Holy” Inquisition] designed to bring its victims the most severe and agonizing pain, to the very point of death, yet denying death, and then start the process all over again – even on an animal, much less another human being.” – John Daniel (“The Grand Design Exposed”; 1999; Page 13)

Ed.: During the “holy” Inquisition medical doctors were brought in to make sure that the victims did not die while under torture. Medical treatment was often provided to ensure that the victim revived sufficiently so he or she could be put through additional torture (supervised and conducted by the agents of the “Church”). The most horrible atrocities and barbaric acts were committed on human beings “in the name of Christ” by the Roman Catholic Church. What kind of organization uses “torture” on its enemies, and has, at times, even used the threat of torture to keep its own adherents “in line” – i.e., to prevent further defections from the ranks of the “faithful”? And does history repeat itself? Could a “Holy” Inquisition ever take place here in America? Religious genocide took place in Croatia in the 1940s, orchestrated by Roman Catholic clergymen. The result: up to 1 million innocent Serb Orthodox Christians were tortured and murdered by Roman Catholic Ustashi “killer units” led by Franciscan priests, monks, and friars!

“Through relentless torture, starvation, genocide, massacres, burning at the stake, against every conceivable fury of [Ed.: Papal] Rome, they [Ed.: i.e., the ‘seeds of protest’] could not be extinguished. History estimates that over one hundred million people lost their lives during that time of [Ed.: Papal] Roman tyranny. Is it any wonder that God graphically describes this onslaught of [Ed.: Papal] Rome as her being ‘drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus’ [Ed.: Revelation 17:6], and calls her the ‘Beast’?” – John Daniel (“The Grand Design Exposed”; 1999; Page 27)

“The kind of brutal government the papacy ran through the Dark Ages is the kind the devil and the papacy promote in the earth today. A satanic government has these characteristics:

[1.] It is controlled by a few; it is dictatorial.

[2.] It gives no freedom to the people.

[3.] It joins the church and the government together. [Ed.: This occurred throughout Europe during the official 605 years of the “Holy” Inquisition, and occurred as recently as 1941-45 (during World War II) in the Roman Catholic Fascist State of Croatia.]

[4.] It persecutes anyone who does not comply.” – Bill Hughes (“The Secret Terrorists”; 2002; Page 143)