The Inquisition

INTRO SKETCH Whipcrack* Joe: *whimper* Em: And how the hell do you flub the meaning of "gubernatorial"? It even sounds like governor, not "mayor" you dumb arse. Joe: Just an innocent brainfart! A semantic paraphasia if you will. I swear I even meant governor—AAAH Em: How many times do I have to electrocharge your eyelashes before you get your act together, Juhseppee? Joe: (in a calm, serious, slow voice). Emma, It’s Giuseppe. Em: Silence, Juhsepee!! And from now on, you shall address me as Mistress Moggie. Perhaps a higher voltage will penetrate that thick skull of yours. What do you have to say about that? ...........Buzzer noise................... Joe: *more woeful screams* Em: (mocks Joe’s screams). Jesus Joe, even your wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth are not good enough. You're failing this inquisition left, right, and centre. But (sighs) I suppose that was inevitable ever since you couldn't name the five bishoprics of the ancient Roman Catholic Church in our very first episode. And need I remind you of the vulture debacle when we were discussing the finer points of Parsi life? You must be purified for your fuck ups, my son.... .................20 seconds of horrible torture noises just to add to the humour...................... Joe: moans and groans for about 5 seconds......then says..............huh, actually, Mistress Moggie, that felt kinda good. *Smugly*........Oh, and I have one word for you.....”TRISMEGISTUS”. Em: Aw come on dude, you’re pushing me further than you normally do in our regular post episode torture session. You want more, seriously? OK, maybe THIS will remind you to get your facts right from now on, Parsi style. See that tower? Just climb up there, lie down and shut up. Joe: (happily and innocently) Wow, I like birds! Em: (sighs) No brain, no pain. (*vulture noises*)...I don't suppose you've ever taken a moment to sympathize with ol' Prometheus? Joe: No! No! Nice birdie....don’t....aaaaggghh! Em: Oh shit, are we still recording? ..........Skype hang up noise.......... DA NA NA NA, NA NAAAAAAA WAIT HOLD ON Joe: Haha this script is whack. How exactly is it you're torturing me after every show if there's a Tower of Silence nearby. Em: Well, suppose we meet halfway in India to record each episode. Joe: Wonderful. I also like how you accidentally recorded our torture session, and then included it into the episode anyway. Em: Now that's perfectly in character for me. Joe: You're right. Carry on. DA NA NA NA, NA NAAAAAAAAA, NA NA NA NAAAA, NA NAAAAAAAAA EPISODE PROPER hello my name is Joe hello my name is Emma AND WELCOME TO THE truculent podcast OF... the Second Law law law law LOOK IT UP. EPISODE NUMBERING EXPLICATION Since this episode will be exploring Catholic inquisitions throughout history, we have, just this once, reverted to the normal course of numbering our podcast, in order to prevent accusations of engaging in hated heterodoxy. Continuing in the vein of normal numbering before we spited the heart of our Lord and Savior (by being different in the slightest), this episode is Episode 6. Next episode we will resume our crazy nonsensical numbering system. Thank you. JIS OF THE WEEK http://jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Doctrines/heresy_guidelines.htm A Godly Attitude Toward Heresy IN THE BEFORE TIMES In early Christianity, the general response from Christian communities regarding heretics and apostates was simply excommunication. Torture and rounding up of suspects were never dreamed of--it was against the message of Christ, Prince of Peace, meek and mild. The writings of St. Optatus Mileve, who advocated corporeal punishment: "But, say you, the State cannot punish in the name of God. Yet was it not in the name of God that Moses and Phineas consigned to death the worshippers of the Golden Calf and who despised the true religion?" The sense throughout the first 10 centuries was that any dissent from a singular interpretation of theology presented a very real threat. The ideal of a single Christian Church was envisioned from the time of Constantine, who in 312 converted to Christianity and ended the state persecution of Christians. In 380, Emperor Theodosius went a step farther, outlawing pagan practices and declaring the Roman Empire to be fully Christian. This decision granted great power to Christianity, which from that point forward was known as the Roman Church, protected by the wealth and military might of empire. It also transformed the spiritual church into a temporal power. From the early 4th century onward, doctrine concerning the treatment of heretics was given not only executable power, but sanction under Roman law, where capital punishment was an accepted solution. The “just war” of the Christian, based partly in Judaic teachings, now merged with the might of Rome, and a new idea of a “Holy Rome”—blessed by Christianity—merged Church beliefs with the state’s policies on capital punishment. Nonbelievers and heretics were viewed with the same disdain as those who committed treason against the state; the Church and the state became one and the same, institutionalized and permanent.The Church evolved a new principle based on Rome’s state policies, declaring the mission of a holy war (bellum sacrum) and a just war (bellum justum). From that point onward, war itself became an accepted form of Christian faith. The Church increased its efforts to destroy heresy and even expanded the definition of heresy to include more than those whose beliefs were at odds with those of the Church. Over time, the Inquisition’s victims included people accused of witchcraft, alchemy, questionable scientific claims, non-acceptable art, and non–Christian belief. By the early 16th century, the Inquisition had grown into a highly organized institution with authority throughout Europe to exercise judicial powers with tragic results. Punishments varied over time based on the approach of individual inquisitors and guidelines from various popes. THE MEDIEVAL INQUISITION, AND THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE Late 12th to early 13th century Church had near total control over people's lives and over the Christian world, but education centers outside of the Church's dogmatic grasp were beginning to spring up in many places all over the continent. The free exchange of ideas is, naturally, antithetical to thought control. The Catholic Church had always dealt sternly with strands of Christianity that it considered heretical, but before the 12th century these tended to centre around individual preachers or small localised sects. By the 12th century, more organized groups such as the Waldensians and Cathars were beginning to appear in the towns and cities of newly urbanized areas, like western mediterranean France. Several groups were attempting to break away from the strict doctrine of Rome. Rome believed it was the only church vested with the authority to spread Christ's message as it was headed by the true vicar of Christ. "Catholic" means whole or entire ("One holy and apostolic church"). Deviation from the one doctrine, therefore, meant damnation for the heretic. All major medieval inquisitions were decentralized. Authority rested with local officials based on guidelines from the Holy See, but there was no central top-down authority running the inquisitions, as would be the case in post-medieval inquisitions. The first medieval inquisition, the episcopal inquisition, was established in the year 1184 by a papal bull of Pope Lucius III entitled Ad abolendam, "For the purpose of doing away with." It is called "episcopal" because it was administered by local bishops, which in Latin is episcopus. Pope Innocent III, one of the most powerful and influential popes of all time. He wanted all of Europe's princes to be his bitches, so he proclaimed blanket supremacy over the whole continent and bullied princes into obeying him through threat of interdicts, officially depriving them of certain church rites, among other political machinations. He believed the Muslim recapture of Jerusalem in 1187 was proof that the Christian princes were insufficiently devout, and reasserted the power of the Church over them, especially in the case of the "patrimonium" of the papacy, the section of central Italy that would later be known as the Papal State. He "asserted the absolute spiritual authority of his office." It's easy to see how this guy could kick off the first inquisition, and he hated heresy. Heresy = treason, since rulers took an oath to defend the Church, therefore any challenge to orthodoxy could be interpreted as a challenge to the stability of government. Back in the days of Innocent III, the judicial system was accusatorial. The trial took place in public, and if the accuser failed to prove his case, he was punished in the same manner the accused would have been. Not terribly efficient for culling heresy, obviously, not least because few were willing to risk it all and start a trial in such a system. In 1215, the 4th Lateran Council completely upended that system in favor of a set of legal guidelines that would accrue way more convictions. Now the only thing required to convict was probable cause. If the accused could be guilty, he or she was to be treated like he or she was in fact guilty. All an inquisitor had to do was build up a case against someone by collecting whispered opinions from his or her neighbors. The rationale? Any means of rooting out "the truth" of hidden heretics was acceptable, ofr it was for the good of the heretics' own souls. It was also vital to destroy heresy before it could spread. This was powerful incentive for otherwise sincere inquisitors to deliberately trick the accused with what amount to mind games; as an example of one such trick, the Inquisitor would hold a blank piece of paper in his lap and constantly look down at it while he took notes of what the accused was saying, leading the accused to believe the paper was a deposition against him. This quickly created horrible webs of strife and paranoia wherever the Inquisition came a-knocking. The Inquisitor would roll on up into the village and declare a 40-dat grace period in which to turn themselves in or tattle. Inquisitors needed incriminating testimony from two witnesses before they could move forward. The inquisitors did make an attempt to weed out lies; the accused would be asked to list off enemies, and if one of the enemies was listed as a witness, the inquisitor was supposed to disregard that testimony. On the other hand, heretics who turned themselves in couldn't come clean unless they divulged the names of other heretics. The conviction rate was something on the order of 90%; there couldn't possibly be that much heresy. Obviously the system was rigged to generate tons of confessions, as religious people have always held something of a fascination and an overactive imagination regarding the threat level of their bugbear.
 * vulture shrieks*

In addition to the Fourth Crusade (which was meant to recapture the Holy Land but hilariously diverted to Constantinople for a prince in exchange for men, money, weapons and more ships--even though the Pope explicitly forbade the Crusaders from attacking a city full of even schismatic Christians), Innocent III launched the Albigensian Crusade, a 20 year round up of Cathars. The Cathars (or Albigenses) were a dualistic sect of Christianity which had taken up much of what's today southern France and northern Italy, a region called Occitania at the time (known as Languedoc today). They hated the Catholic Church as worldly and as monopolizers of the relationship between man and the gospels (for a village's Catholic priest would essentially hold the village's spiritual lives in his hands, not to mention the parishioners couldn't understand the Latin he was spewing). Indeed, disappointment and disillusionment with a church that levied taxes and issued commands with no real give or take was quite easy. Cathars, much like Manicheans, believed the world of matter to be manifestly wicked, the domain of the evil god Rex Mundi. As such they strove for the spiritual--the higher order of Cathars, the black-robed wandering Perfecti, eschewed sex and eating meat. They were revered by their followers, the Credentes, as "trans-material" angels. Some interpreted their main goal as redeeming matter by spiritualizing it, which is redolent of alchemical thought. Perfecti (alternatively called "Good Men" or "Good Christians") were drawn from all walks of life and counted aristocrats, merchants and peasants among their number. Women could also become Perfects. Cathars believed the Resurrection of the bible meant reincarnation or metempsychosis, which is why they're sometimes called the Buddhists of the West. The Catholic Church, alarmed by the spread of Cathar teachings, perceived the movement as a well-organised opponent on a scale that had not been seen since the days of Arianism and Marcionism. When Innocent III's diplomatic attempts to roll back Catharism met with little success and after the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau was murdered, Innocent III declared a crusade against Languedoc, offering the lands of the Cathar heretics to any French nobleman willing to take up arms. The violence led to France's acquisition of lands with closer linguistic, cultural, and political ties to Catalonia. Perfects often took great personal risks to visit the dying and faced certain death if caught. During the time of the Cathar suppression when the Church sent a Crusade to destroy them, many Perfects led a hidden and itinerant existence - moving from village to village under cover of darkness, spending the days in barns or woods. Many were burned alive at the stake by the Catholic Church. Administrators and Inquisitors were all answerable directly to the Pope - which essentially made him directly responsible for their actions. Since rather unstable fanatics jumped at the chance to root out heretics, the first batch of inquisitors were, to put it mildly, murderously insane. We speak of course of Konrad von Marburg, a German inquisitor who was not the nicest. In 1227, Pope Gregory IX (Innocent III's nephew) commissioned Konrad to eliminate heresy throughout the whole of Germany, granting him permission to ignore standard church procedure for the investigation of heresy. According to many sources, news that Konrad was to pass through an area almost invariably caused widespread panic. He convinced Gregory IX that he'd uncovered a secret German sect called Luciferians (a pure fiction invented to impress the Pope). He even accused a count of taking part in Satanic orgies. On the way to protest a reversal of his own pronouncement by an assembly ob bishops, Konrad was killed by a bunch of knights. Pope Gregory the IX inherited the Cathar resistance, and, frustrated with the local bishop's lack of zeal in prosecuting heretics, he turned to the Dominicans, the new order of itinerant friars who were trained in theology and accustomed to preaching against heresy; A papal bull conferred on the Dominicans the task of eradicating heresy. DOMINI CANES Gregory IX believed the problem of heresy needed serious attention and was not content with leaving it to the bishops, who might have been lax, but extended central control in this essential area as well. In 1231, he established the Papal Inquisition to deal with it, although he did not approve the use of torture as a tool of investigation or for penance. In 1252, Pope Innocent IV gave Inquisitors the right to torture the accused to extract confessions, through a papal bull called Ad Extirpanda. The bull was issued in the wake of the murder of the papal inquisitor of Lombardy, St. Peter of Verona, who was killed by a conspiracy of Cathar sympathizers in 1252. The bull argued that as heretics are "murderers of souls as well as robbers of God’s sacraments and of the Christian faith ...", they are "to be coerced—as are thieves and bandits—into confessing their errors and accusing others, although one must stop short of danger to life or limb." An inquisitor was supposed to be certain of the accused's guilt before he gave the torturers the okay. The bull conceded to the State a portion of the property to be confiscated from convicted heretics. The State in return assumed the burden of carrying out the penalty. Back to loony inquisitors, the Cathar-to-Catholic convert inquisitor Robert le Bourge burned 183 Cathars at the stake in a single week (he was later imprisoned for being fucking loco). In the early 14th century, Bernard Gui sniffed out and convicted 900 plus Cathars. In the 13th and 14th centuries, a series of manuals was written by experienced inquisitors to guide newcomers. The most famous of these is Practica inquisitionis heretice pravitatis (The Conduct of Inquiry Concerning Heretical Depravity) by Gui. Another example was the case of the province of Venice, which was handed to the Franciscan inquisitors, who quickly became notorious for their frauds against the Church, by enriching themselves with confiscated property from the heretics and the selling of absolutions. Because of their corruption, they were eventually forced by the Pope to suspend their activities in 1302. Being an inquisitor was, for the most part, a pretty damn sweet gig. You essentially got to keep all of the accused's stuff. Some heretics were convicted posthumously, and so even the stuff that was bequeathed to his or her Catholic descendants would get janked. You can imagine how both the massive scale seizure of property and the wiping out of whole populations could cripple economies. People convicted of heresy during the time of the Inquisition were turned over to the secular arm (nobles and city leaders) for punishment, since the clergy were not allowed to kill directly. Most were not executed, and torture wasn't really a thing at this point. In fact, torture was pretty much a fixture of the secular "justice" system before it was aped by the Inquisition. Torture was never allowed to draw blood, and was not used to punish, but to draw confessions. In a way, there was an earnestness to the Inquisition. In response to the problem of growing heresy, there could have been any number of more calculated tactics. For example, playing different heretic movements off each other, or negotiating secret compromises. But the Church had always been single-minded when it came to upholding points of doctrine. In any case, the Albigensian Crusade utterly exterminated the Cathars. It was a total success for the Catholic Church. The last of the "heretics of the south" was recorded to have been killed in 1326. THE SPANISH INQUISITION Late 15th century Iberia was characterized by convivenza between Muslims, Jews and Christians after the reconquest of Moorish Iberia by Catholics in the 13th century. However, Christian anti-Semitism was about as horrible as you'd expect, with periodic upsurges of attacks on scapegoated Jews by angry mobs after earthquakes or other catastrophes. Furthermore, it was a long running strain in Christian thought that held that the Jews would have to be expelled completely, to make possible a totally Christian Spain. Convivenza had always been a harmonious relationship... between unequals. One of the consequences of these pogroms was the mass conversion of Jews. Forced baptism was contrary to the law of the Catholic Church, and theoretically anybody who had been forcibly baptized could legally return to Judaism; this however was very narrowly interpreted. Legal definitions of the time theoretically acknowledged that a forced baptism was not a valid sacrament, but confined this to cases where it was literally administered by physical force: a person who had consented to baptism under threat of death or serious injury was still regarded as a voluntary convert, and accordingly forbidden to revert to Judaism. The story of the Spanish Inquisition begins with monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand. Princess of Castile Isabella was so devout she was called Isabella la Catolica. Ferdinand of Aragon was a political schemer. When they married, it would lead to the eventual union of Castile and Aragon, strengthening their power and the stability of the region. Isabella and Ferdinand, the power couple of their day, dream of one state under one church, and of the reconquest of the Muslim state of Granada in the south. Conversos (or "Marranos") Jewish converts to Christianity starting from the mass conversion after the slaughter in 1391, they were legally distinct from Old Christians, and resented in their day. After the public violence, many of the converted "felt it safer to remain in their new religion." Thus after 1391 a new social group appeared and were referred to as conversos or New Christians. Many conversos, now freed from the antisemitic restrictions imposed on Jewish employment, attained important positions in 15th century Spain, including positions in the government and in the Church. Conversos - not without opposition - managed to attain high positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, at times becoming severe detractors of Judaism. Some even received titles of nobility, and as a result, during the following century some works attempted to demonstrate that virtually all of the nobles of Spain were descended from Israelites. Throughout the fifteenth century there were many bloody riots. For example, tensions arose in Córdoba between Christians and conversos, where they formed two hostile parties. On March 14, 1473, during a dedication procession, a girl accidentally threw dirty water from the window of the house of one of the wealthiest conversos (the customary way to dispose of it.) The water splashed on an image of the Virgin being carried in procession in honor of a new society (from which conversos had been excluded by Bishop D. Pedro.) Thousands immediately joined in a fierce shout for revenge. The mob went after conversos, denouncing them as heretics, killing them, and burning their houses. Why so much rage against conversos? They would practice old Jewish traditions in secret after they converted--cultural stuff, like using non-Christian names with each other, or birth and marriage rites. But these were often perceived as woeful backsliding into infidels, or even sometimes as outright sabotage against the faith. Marrano acquired connotations of "filthy-dirty" (sucio) and "unscrupulous" (sin escrúpulos) during the time of the Spanish Inquisition, when the term was used to impugn the character of the recalcitrant crypto-Jew. Naturally there was also plain old racism. Both Christians and Jews called them tornadizo (renegade). James I, Alfonso X and John I passed laws forbidding the use of this epithet. This was part of a larger pattern of royal protection, as laws were promulgated to protect their property, forbid attempts to reconvert them, and regulate the behavior of the conversos themselves, preventing their cohabitation or even dining with Jews, lest they convert back. The conversos did not enjoy legal equality. Alfonso VII prohibited the "recently converted" from holding office in Toledo, where there were constant anti-converso riots. They had both supporters and bitter opponents within the Christian secular and religious leadership. Conversos could be found in various roles within the Iberian kingdoms, from bishop to royal mistress, showing a degree of general acceptance, yet they became targets of occasional pogroms during times of extreme social tension Torquemada condemned the conversos' observance of Jewish heritage and culture ("Judaizing"), and his buddy Isabella agreed. Pope Sixtus IV created the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, but the monarchs monopolized the procedure. It was THEIR inquisition. Definitely motivated Ferdinand, there was all that wealth of the conversos to take! The elite of Zaragosa, capitol of Aragon, were mostly conversos. They tried everything to stop the Inquisition--legal arguments, appeals to Rome, petitions to the Catholic monarchs--but as you can imagine, Ferdinand was rather passive about their plight. The murder of Inquisidor Pedro Arbués in Zaragoza on September 15, 1485, caused public opinion to turn against the conversos and in favour of the Inquisition. In Aragón, the Inquisitorial courts were focused specifically on members of the powerful converso minority, ending their influence in the Aragonese administration. There are numerous records of the opinion of ordinary Spaniards of the time that "the Inquisition was devised simply to rob people. "They were burnt only for the money they had,’ a resident of Cuenca averred. "They burn only the well-off," said another. In 1504 an accused stated, "only the rich were burnt." …In 1484…Catalina de Zamora was accused of asserting that "this Inquisition that the fathers are carrying out is as much for taking property from the conversos as for defending the faith. "It is the goods that are the heretics." This saying passed into common usage in Spain. The conversos of Seville and other cities of Castile, bitterly opposed the Spanish Inquisition. They rendered considerable service to the king, and held high legal, financial, and military positions. The government issued an edict directing traditional Jews to live within a ghetto and be separated from conversos. Evidence that was used to identify a crypto-Jew included the absence of chimney smoke on Saturdays (a sign the family might secretly be honoring the Sabbath) or the buying of many vegetables before Passover or the purchase of meat from a converted butcher.Crypto-Jews were allowed to confess and do penance, although those who relapsed were burned at the stake. 1491, Holy Child of La Guardia. It was a common belief that Jews would kidnap and crucify children on Good Friday. The cult of the Holy Infant is still celebrated in La Guardia.[3] Significantly, he became known in the legend as Christopher (Cristóbal) meaning Christ-bearer. During the sixteenth century there arose a legend according to which the death of the Holy Child was similar to that of Jesus Christ, even emphasising similarities between the topography of the Toledan town where the events allegedly occurred (La Guardia) and of Jerusalem where Jesus died. The legend constructed on these successive contributions relates that some converts, after attending an Auto de Fe in Toledo, planned revenge on the inquisitors by arts of sorcery. For the spell they needed a consecrated Host and the heart of an innocent child. Alonso Franco and Juan Franco kidnapped the boy next to la Puerta del Perdón (the door of Forgiveness) in Toledo Cathedral and took him to La Guardia. There on Good Friday they held a mock trial. The boy, in the legend is sometimes called Juan and at others, Cristóbal and is said to be the son of Alonso de Pasamonte and Juana la Guindero (even though no body was ever found). He was alleged to have been scourged, crowned with thorns and crucified at the mock trial, in imitation of Jesus Christ. The heart, needed for the spell, was torn out. At the exact time of the child's death, his mother, who was blind, miraculously regained her sight. After burying the body, the murderers stole a consecrated Host. Benito García set out for Zamora, carrying the Host and the heart to seek the help of other co-religionists to perform his spell, but was stopped in Ávila because of the brilliant light that issued from the consecrated Host the convert had hidden between the pages of a prayer-book. Thanks to his confession, the other participants in the crime were discovered. After the alleged death of the Holy Child, several miraculous healings were attributed to him.[11] The consecrated Host is kept in the Dominican monastery of St. Thomas in Ávila.[11] The heart was said to have miraculously disappeared, like the child's body, and it was believed that like Jesus Christ he had been resurrected. Moriscos Crypto-Muslims. Officially, all Muslims in the Crown of Castile had been forcibly converted to Christianity in 1502. Muslims in the Crown of Aragon were obliged to convert by Charles I's decree of 1526, as most had been forcibly baptized during the Revolt of the Brotherhoods (1519–1523) and these baptisms were declared to be valid. Fears ran high among the population that the Moriscos were traitorous, especially in Granada. The coast was regularly raided by Barbary pirates backed by Spain's enemy the Ottoman Empire, and the Moriscos were suspected of aiding them. Alumbrados The alumbrados held that the human soul can reach such a degree of perfection that it can even in the present life contemplate the essence of God and comprehend the mystery of the Trinity. All external worship, they declared, is superfluous, the reception of the sacraments useless, and sin impossible in this state of complete union with God. Persons in this state of impeccability could indulge their sexual desires and commit other sinful acts freely without staining their souls. it is a mortal sin to read a book to console one's soul (No. 31), which the Inquisition's theologians described as "crazy, erroneous, and even heretical"; and that one sinned mortally every time one loved a son, daughter, or other person, and did not love that person through God (No. 36), which the theologians said was "erroneous and false, and against the common teaching of the saints". One alumbrado, seeing a girl cross the street, said that "she had sinned, because in that action she had fulfilled her will" (No. 40). The theologians commented: "The foundation of this proposition is heretical, because it seems to state that all action that proceeds from our will is sin." Henry Charles Lea, in his A History of the Inquisition in Spain, mentions, among the more extravagant alumbrados, a priest from Seville named Fernando Méndez, who had acquired a special reputation for sanctity: "he taught his disciples to invoke his intercession, as though he were already a saint in heaven; fragments of his garments were treasured as relics; he gathered a congregation of beatas and, after mass in his oratory, they would strip off their garments and dance with indecent vigor — drunk with the love of God — and, on some of his female penitents, he would impose the penance of lifting their skirts and exposing themselves before him."[5] Méndez died before the Inquisition could bring him to trial. You can't Torquemada anything For his role in the Spanish Inquisition, Torquemada's name has become a byword for fanaticism in the service of the Catholic religion. However, Torquemada was something of an early penal reformer. He cleaned up the Inquisition's prisons and ordered that the prisoners be properly fed and clothed. In time the number of common criminals petitioning to have their cases transferred to the Inquisitional courts became an administrative burden. However there's no question he was extreme. Just look at his total hatred for Jews. Torquemada employed an ideology based on the limpieza, a purity-of-blood doctrine which states that having even one Jewish ancestor stigmatizes a person and makes him liable to persecution. Torquemada's cardinal uncle was a converso. He was definitely the driving force behind the Alhambra Decree. When the monarchs seem to waver on the proposition of expelling all Jews, contemplating getting paid tribute in gold instead, Torquemada supposedly laid 30 pieces of silver before them and said "that's what it took for Judas to betray Christ." In 1832, Torquemada's tomb was ransacked, his bones stolen and burnt to ashes. 1492, Reconquest of Granada complete. Torquemada proposed the expulsion of all Jews (the Alhambra Decree). In 1499, the Expulsion Order extends for the unconverted Muslims. Moriscos. In 1609 they are considered beyond conversion and are simply expelled. THE HIGH COURT MAY WELL SENTENCE YOU TO TAWCHA! Torture was used to interrogate the accused, and applied mainly against those suspected of Judaism and Protestantism. It was always a means to obtain a confession, not a punishment itself. Despite the reputation of the Inquisition and its use of torture, modern scholars have determined that torture was used in only two percent of the cases, for no more than 15 minutes, and in only less than one percent of the cases was it used a second time, never more than that. After torture had ended, the subject often freely confessed to the offenses (strange that). Confessions acquired by means of torture were considered valid, and not simply extracted due to duress. The maximum number of times the accused could be cosigned to a 15-minute torture session was three times, but the accused were not privy to such information. The crucifix in the inquisitor's chamber was veiled, because T_T JESUS SHOULDN'T HAVE TO WATCH. The methods used most were garrucha, toca and the potro. Garrucha (or Strappado): In this method, the victim has his or her arms tied behind their back; a large rope is then tied to the wrists and passed over a pulley, beam or a hook on the roof. The torturer pulls on this rope until the victim is hanging from the arms. Since the hands are tied behind the victim's back, this will cause a very intense pain and possible dislocation of the arms. The technique typically causes brachial plexus injury, leading to paralysis or loss of sensation in the arms. In another more painful variation, a series of drops is added, meaning that the victim is allowed to drop until his or her fall is suddenly checked by the rope. In addition to the damage caused by the suspension, the painful jerk would cause major stress to the extended and vulnerable arms, leading to broken shoulders. In the third variant, the victim's hands are tied to the front. The victim is also hung from the hands, but the ankles are tied and a heavy weight is attached to them. This variant was known as "squassation" (awesome word). Toca: The toca, also called interrogatorio mejorado del agua, consisted of puttingg a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to swallow water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning (hmmm....sounds familiar). This was basically the same prinicple as waterboarding (which we all know is not actually torture). It has been claimed that this form of torture had religious significance in its relationship to baptism and being "reborn". Potro (the rack): This was the most frequently used kind of torture. It consisted of a rectangular, usually wooden frame, with a roller at one, or both, ends, having at one end a fixed bar to which the legs were fastened, and at the other a movable bar to which the hands were tied. The victim's ankles are fastened to one roller, and the wrists are chained to the other. As the interrogation progresses, the tension on the chains is gradually increased, stretching out the limbs and body and inducing excruciating pain. This could be continued until the sufferer's joints were dislocated and eventually separated. Additionally, if muscle fibers are stretched excessively, they lose their ability to contract, rendering them useless. Another consequence of being stretched too far on the rack is the loud popping noises made by snapping cartilage, ligaments, or bones. Sometimes prisoners were forced to watch someone else being subjected to the rack in order to make them confess out of fear. The person on the rack was sometimes tortured in other ways, including burning the flanks with hot torches or candles or using pincers made with specially roughened grips to tear out the nails of the fingers and toes. Nice. Penalty of becoming a galley slave on a ship, brainchild of Ferdinand. Practically nothing worse. THE ACT OF FAITH An auto-da-fé (also auto da fé and auto de fe) was the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Inquisition had decided their punishment, followed by the execution of the sentences imposed. It was almost identical with the sermo generalis of the medieval inquisition. The first great auto-da-fés were celebrated when Thomas de Torquemada, was at the head of the Spanish inquisitio. The auto-da-fé involved a Catholic Mass; prayer; a public procession of those found guilty; and a reading of their sentences. The ritual took place in public squares or esplanades and lasted several hours with ecclesiastical and civil authorities in attendance. 40-day grace period. If they were approached and charged they were then presumed guilty, and since the suspects were not allowed to look at the evidence against them, they could only assume the worst. The auto-da-fé was not an impromptu event, but preparations began a month in advance and only occurred when the inquisition authorities believed there were enough prisoners in a given community or city. Bordering the city's plaza, an all-night vigil would be held with prayers, ending in Mass at daybreak and a breakfast feast prepared for all who joined in. The ceremony comprised a procession in which the members of the Holy Office, the condemned persons and the penitents took part; a solemn mass; an oath of obedience to the inquisition, taken by the king and all the lay functionaries; a sermon by the Grand Inquisitor; and the reading of the sentences, either of condemnation or acquittal, delivered by the Holy Office. The auto-da-fé was also a form of penitence for the public viewers, because they too were engaging in a process of reconciliation and by being involved were given the chance to confront their sins and be forgiven by the Church. The prisoners bore elaborate visual symbols on their garments and bodies made of yellow sackcloth (these were called sanbenito). They served to identify the specific acts of treason of the accused, whose identities were kept secret until the very last moment. Participants heads shaved (including women), men's beards plucked off In addition, most of the time the prisoners had no idea what the outcome of their trial was going to be. The handing over of impenitent persons, and those who had relapsed, to the secular power, and their punishment, did not usually take place on the occasion of an auto-da-fé, properly so called. Sometimes those who were condemned to the flames were burned on the night following the ceremony. EXPORTING THE SPANISH INQUISITION The Inquisition was not limited to Europe, as Spaniards brought it to the Americas and used it to punish the native inhabitants. Through the 1500s, 879 heresy trials were recorded in Mexico alone. Thus, other than people, the Inquisition was one of Europe's first exports to the Americas. Church leaders supported the suppression, enslavement and murder of native inhabitants - a 1493 papal Bull justfied declaring war on all non-Christian natives in the Americas. According to Liebman, as early as 1508, bishops in Havana and Puerto Rico informed Madrid that the New World was being filled with hebreo cristianos (Hebrew Christians), nuevo cristianos (New Christians), conversos (converts), Moriscos (Moors), and other heretics, in spite of several decrees barring their entry. Silvio Zavala wrote: "The Holy Office in Spanish America persecuted the apostates, Moriscos, Jews, Protestants and, in general, heretics. It manifested in America the same intransigency that had characterized the religious life of the Peninsula since the beginning of the modern period." Due to the shortage of secular clergy in the New World, the pope issued the Bull Omnimoda in 1522, and granted special permission to the prelates of the monastic orders in the New World to perform, in the absence of bishops in the vicinity, all Episcopal functions except ordination. Torquemada's organizational and administrative abilities, and his zeal for the preservation of the faith set the course of the Spanish Inquisition for the 341 years of its existence. THE PORTUGUESE INQUISITION The expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492 created a mass exodus to other countries, notably Portugal. King João (John) II expelled Jews from Portugal in 1496, four years after Spain their Alhambra decree, and in 1497, he decreed the forced conversion of any remaining Jews. The Portuguese Cristãos novos did not live under suspicion as they did in Spain, and were allowed to retain a separate culture and identity. However, many Cristãos novos were massacred in Lisbon in 1506. Although the monarchy forbade discrimination against this group, incidents recurred. In 1531, the Cristãos novos community was blamed for a severe earthquake in Lisbon, renewing new calls for steps against the community by either the monarchy or the Church. The Portuguese Inquisition was formally established in Portugal in 1536 at the request of the King of Portugal to Pope Paul III. However, many place the actual beginning of the Portuguese Inquisition during the year of 1497, when the authorities expelled many Jews from Portugal and forcibly converted others to Catholicism. In Portugal, the first Grand Inquisitor was Cardinal Henry, the king's brother (who would later himself become King). The Portuguese Inquisition, much like the Spanish Inquisition, exported investigations to many of its colonies, including Brazil, Cape Verde, and Goa in the Indian colony. In 1674 Portuguese Jesuit named Antonio Vieira who felt compassion towards the New Christians drew up a 200-page report on the Inquisition's cruelty, at the Pope's request for a thorough investigation. He urged João IV not only to abolish confiscation but to remove the distinctions between them and the Old Christians. Vieira made enemies who denounced him and he was cited to answer points smacking of heresy in his sermons, conversations and writings. As he refused to submit, the Inquisitors kept him in prison for two years, and finally imposed a sentence which prohibited him from teaching, writing or preaching. Ultimately Vieira returned to Portugal with a papal bull exempting him from the jurisdiction of the grand inquisitor. In 1773 and 1774 Pombaline Reforms (a series of reforms with the goal of making Portugal an economically self-sufficient and commercially strong nation) abolished autos-da-fé and ended the blood cleansing statutes and their discrimination against New Christians, the Jews that had converted to Christianity, and their descendants in order to escape the Portuguese Inquisition. THE GOA INQUISITION Some say Goa had the worst Inquisition, as testified by the Frenchman François Pyrard de Laval, who lived in Goa from June 1608 until January 1610, in whose book “Voyages....”, states that the inquisition of Goa was more severe than that of Portugal because very frequently it burnt Jews, whom the Portuguese called “new Christians”. Historian Alfredo de Mello describes the performers of Goan inquisition as, “nefarious, fiendish, lustful, corrupt religious orders which pounced on Goa for the purpose of destroying paganism (ie Hinduism) and introducing the true religion of Christ.” Those Portuguese are an enthusiastic and thorough people who just want to share the love. In the 15th century, the Portuguese explored the sea route to India and Pope Nicholas V enacted the Papal bull Romanus Pontifex. This granted the patronage of the propagation of the Christian faith in Asia to the Portuguese and rewarded them with a trade monopoly for newly discovered areas. It was believed that many newly converted Indians were opportunistic Rice Christians, who still practised their old religion. A Rice Christian was someone who formally declared himself/herself a Christian for material benefits rather than for religious reasons (such as getting rice or other material rewards from missionaries). This was seen as a threat to the purity of Christian belief. St. Francis Xavier, in a 1545 letter to John III of Portugal, requested an Inquisition to be installed in Goa. St Francis Xavier never got to see the Goa inquisition though, as it began 8 years after his death. The Inquisition was established in Goa in India in 1560 to punish relapsed New Christians – Jews and Muslims who converted to Catholicism, as well as their descendants – who were now suspected of practicing their ancestral religion in secret. The first inquisitors, Aleixo Dias Falcão and Francisco Marques, established themselves in the palace once occupied by Goa's Sultan. The inquisitor's first act was to forbid any open practice of the Hindu faith on pain of death. Sephardic Jews living in Goa, many of whom had fled the Spanish Inquisition, were also persecuted. In Goa, the Inquisition also turned its attention to Crypto-Hindus. Those who refused to give up their ancient Hindu practices (even if they had converted to Catholicism) were declared apostates and heretics and condemned to death. Such circumstances forced many to leave Goa. In addition, the Inquisition prosecuted non-converts who broke prohibitions against the observance of Hindu or Muslim rites or interfered with Portuguese attempts to convert non-Christians to Catholicism. Also against Portuguese settlers from Europe (mostly New Christians and Jewish but also Old Christians) as an instrument of social control, in addition to easy confiscation of victims' property to enrich the Inquisitors. In the laws and prohibitions of the inquisition in 1736, over 42 Hindu practices were prohibited, including the wearing of the Brahminical shendi (ponytail), wearing of caste thread, greeting people with Namaste, wearing sandals, removing of the slippers while entering the church and growing of the sacred basil or Tulsi plant in front of the house, in order to ward off the evil eye. Methods such as repressive laws, demolition of temples and mosques, destruction of holy books, fines and the forcible conversion of orphans were used.

THE ROMAN INQUISITION AND THE WAR OF IDEAS 16th century, the Protestant Reformation. Inquisition is part of the Counter-Reformation. 1542: Scandalously, the third Vicar General of the Capuchin Order, Bernardino Ochino, left the Catholic faith in 1543 after fleeing to Switzerland, where he was welcomed by John Calvin, and became a Calvinist pastor and married. Republic of Venice, challenger to hegemony of Rome due to its autonomy. Its in charge of its own episcopal nominations, usually in the hands of the ruling Venetian patriate. Open exchange of goods and ideas, diverse society, city of commerce Unorthodox ideas of new print media and independent thought bring the wrath of Inquisition. Roman Inquisition focuses on books and universities. Pope Leo X, born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, was the Pope from 1513 to his death in 1521. He was the last non-priest (only a deacon) to be elected Pope. He was known for granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica, a huge and costly endeavor. Under him Lutheranism spread like wildfire in Germany and Scandinavia, and even though he excommunicated Luther, that wouldn't suffice for the extremely zealous Bishop Giovanni Pietro Carafa, and he was down for some silencing heretics. Carafa was disgusted by Leo X's personal liberality. Leo's lively interest in art and literature, to say nothing of his alleged nepotism, his political ambitions and necessities, and his immoderate personal luxury, precipitated a financial crisis from which he never emerged. He sold cardinals' hats. He sold membership in the "Knights of Peter". He borrowed large sums from bankers, curials, princes and Jews. All his revenue vanished as quickly as it was received. The pope resorted to pawning palace furniture, table plate, jewels, even statues of the apostles. Several banking firms and many individual creditors were ruined by the death of Leo. Leo showed special favours to the Jews and permitted them to erect a Hebrew printing-press at Rome. You can imagine how this thrilled Carafa. When he became pope, Leo X is reported to have said to his brother Giuliano: "Since God has given us the Papacy, let us enjoy it." The Pope's loved culture and the humanistic interests. He traveled around Rome like a pimp at the head of a lavish parade featuring panthers, jesters, and Hanno, a white elephant. Carafa's order, the Theatines, took an oath of extreme poverty and to fight Luther and his heterodoxy. Cardinal Carafa had a hand in convincing Pope Paul III to engage in Inquisition in Rome and Italy. Then he himself became Pope Paul IV. He used the Holy Office to suppress the Spirituali, a Catholic group that was deemed heretical. Among his first acts as Pope was to cut off Michelangelo's pension, and he ordered the nudes of The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel be painted more modestly (a request that Michelangelo promptly ignored). He also alienated Protestants in England and rejected the claim of Elizabeth I of England to the Crown. In 1555 he issued a canon (papal law), Cum Nimis Absurdum, by which the Roman Ghetto was created. Jews were then forced to live in seclusion in a specified area of the rione Sant'Angelo, locked in at night, and he decreed that Jews should wear a distinctive sign, yellow hats for men and veils or shawls for women. Jewish ghettos existed in Europe for the next 315 years. All Talmuds must be burned. In 1557, no other Hebrew books allowed. Rabbinical interpretations contradicted Christian theology. "As it is completely absurd and improper in the utmost that the Jews, who through their own fault were condemned by God to eternal servitude, can under the pretext that pious Christians must accept them and sustain their habitation, are so ungrateful to Christians, as, instead of thanks for gracious treatment, they return contumely, and among themselves, instead of the slavery, which they deserve..." The Jews were also forced to labor at the restoration of the walls of Rome without any compensation. Also, on one occasion the pope had secretly given orders to one of his nephews to burn the Jewish quarter during the night. People of Rome celebrate the demise of Pope Paul IV and freed prisoners. They decapitated his statue and dedicated to him the following pasquinata:

Carafa in odio al diavolo e al cielo è qui sepolto col putrido cadavere; lo spirto Erebo ha accolto. Odiò la pace in terra, la prece ci contese, ruinò la chiesa e il popolo, uomini e cielo offese; infido amico, supplice ver l'oste a lui nefasta. Di più vuoi tu saperne? Fu papa e tanto basta

Carafa hated by the devil and the sky is buried here with his rotting corpse, Erebus has taken the spirit; he hated peace on earth, our faith he contested. he ruined the church and the people, men and sky offended; treacherous friend, suppliant with the army which was fatal to him. You want to know more? Pope was him and that is enough. The Roman Inquisition introduced a few legal innovations, prisoners could retain an attorney and could summon friendly witnesses. 300 years before public defender. Secular judicial system used more lethal torture and were quicker to condemn Index Librorum Prohibitorum Banned book list (not abolished until 1966, includes vernacular bibles), Index Libroroum Prohibitorum had literally thousands of books, and had more bark than bite since booksellers would often simply feign ignorance and no one really cared to consult the index, but the list did eventually have a massive impact on free inquiry. Brief return to Spain Late 1557: Two different groups of wealthy Protestant converts are arrested in Seville and Valedovid. Horrific to the Inquisitorial administration and to royal government, since some of the suspects are highly placed in governmental bureaucracy. Spain's king, Charles V, has spent the last 30 years battling Protestantism in Germany, and has ordered a merciliess crackdown. Paul IV's papal bull to execute first time offenders, even those who have repented. (1559-1562) Anti-Protestant fever sweeps Spain's cities, and even English soldiers are burned--even three babies are burned along with their mothers. Protestantism burned out of existence. Inquisitor General revamps autos da fe, and they become true spectacles. Throughout the centuries even foreign dignitaries, sailors, and merchants are not safe GIORDANO BRUNO Giordano Bruno (1548 – February 17, 1600), born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings.[1] He was burned at the stake by civil authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy for his pantheism and turned him over to the state, which at that time considered heresy illegal. After his death he gained considerable fame; in the 19th and early 20th centuries, commentators focusing on his astronomical beliefs regarded him as a martyr for free thought and modern scientific ideas. Bruno's infinite universe was filled with a substance—a "pure air," aether, or spiritus -- that offered no resistance to the heavenly bodies which, in Bruno's view, rather than being fixed, moved under their own impetus (momentum). Most dramatically, he completely abandoned the idea of a hierarchical universe. The Earth was just one more heavenly body, as was the Sun. God had no particular relation to one part of the infinite universe more than any other. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1908) asserts that "Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skillful magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc. Bruno was a believer in polygenism, that each race had been created separately, he believed in CoAdamism; that there were more than one Adam, and that there were also an infinite number of Gardens of Eden:In 1591 Bruno argued that because no one could imagine that the Jews and the Ethiopians had the same ancestry that God must have either created separate Adams or that Africans were the descendants of pre-Adamite races GALILEO In 1610, Galileo published his Sidereus Nuncius SIDEEREEYOOS NUNSEEYUS (Starry Messenger), describing the surprising observations that he had made with the new telescope. These and other discoveries raised interest in new ideas such as the heliocentric theory of Copernicus. This was the theory that the Earth and planets revolve around a stationary Sun at the center of the solar system Many scientists attacked the theory because it disagreed with several passages of Scripture. Galileo's involvement in The Inquisition began on February 19, 1616, when the Inquisition asked a commission of theologians, known as qualifiers, about the propositions of the heliocentric view of the universe. Historians have offered different accounts of why the matter was referred to the qualifiers at this time. Beretta points out that the Inquisition had taken a deposition from Gianozzi Attavanti in November, 1615, and that Attavanti confirmed that Galileo had advocated the Copernican doctrines of a stationary Sun and a mobile Earth, and as a consequence the Tribunal of the Inquisition would have eventually needed to determine the theological status of those doctrines. It is however possible that the actual referral may have been precipitated by Galileo's aggressive campaign to prevent the condemnation of Copernicanism. Galileo's part in the controversies over theology, astronomy, and philosophy culminated in his trial and sentencing by the Roman Inquisition in 1633 on a grave suspicion of heresy. Interestingly, Supporting Copernican theory was not considered a heresy until Galileo's trial. 19th CENTURY While the Roman Inquisition was originally designed to combat the spread of Protestantism in Italy, the institution outlived its original purpose, and the system of tribunals lasted until the mid 18th century, when the Italian states began to suppress the local inquisitions, effectively eliminating the power of the church to prosecute heretical crimes Papal states, opposed to Italian nationalism Bologna, Jews live there illegally 1858, Bologna is a hotbed of political dissent, into Italian nationalism and against Papal states Napoleon was against the Inquisition 1796, Napoleon swept through northern Italy and brings the spirit of dissent and enlightenment, immediately issuing an edict that abolishes ghettoizing Jews. Jews create a special prayer in Napoleon's honor. Napoleon believed the papal states and the inquisition embodied medieval nonsense, and he was in favor of a modern state. When Napoleon installed his brother as king of Spain, he wasted no time in abolishing the Inquisition. 1809, Napoleon abolishes Pope's political authority, and sends Vatican archives to Paris to peruse them for damning material and humiliate the church and to convince the conquered people to turn away from the corruption of the Church--especially the Galileo story. After Napoleon's defeat in 1814, his enlightened egalitarian codes are retracted in many countries. The new King of Spain declares that all who helped the French will be punished, and all heretics will have their tongues seared with red hot irons. The Inquisition returns with a vengeance. The temporal power was abolished by Napoleon Bonaparte, who dissolved the Papal States and incorporated Rome and Latium into his French Empire. The temporal power was restored by the Great Powers at the 1815 Congress of Vienna. The Napoleonic civil laws were abolished, and most civil servants were removed from office. Popular opposition to the reconstituted corrupt clerical government led to numerous revolts, which were suppressed by the intervention of the Austrian army. More than two thirds of the Inquisition files in Paris are too expensive to be shipped back, so they're sold on the cheap to fishmongers and cardboard makers as disposable paper. Some French bankers get their hands on juicy stuff and blackmail the church for exorbitant prices. The Mortara Case The abduction of Edgardo Mortara by the Papal police starts the chain of events that finally brings the Inquisition to an end. The Holy Office had heard that little Edgardo had been baptized at some point. In the Papal States it was against the law for non-Catholics to raise Catholic children. The church was giving dowry money to needy good Christian girls, and an illiterate Catholic servant girl of the Mortaras capitalized. House of the Catachumens, which Jews were compelled to support through taxes, and which more or less forcibly converted tons of Jews. Originally it was designed as a retreat and prison for recalcitrant neophytes during the process of transition. Later, when the revenues for the catechumens had fallen to a very low point, conversion by means of the compulsory attendance of Jews three times a year at Christmas sermons against Judaism was begun. Momolo Mortara's visit with his son is twisted by Catholic newspapers into a propaganda piece--A MIRACULOUS CONVERSION! The boy is said to have declared: "The Pope is my father." Church authorities told the Mortaras that they could have Edgardo back if they would convert to Catholicism, but they refused. Edgardo becomes the darling of the Pope. The case becomes a flash point for unification forces as well, who hold the abduction up as an example of why the Pope shouldn't have temporal power such as a private army etc. The incident soon received extensive publicity both in Italy and internationally. In the Kingdom of Sardinia, the largest independent state in Italy and the centre of the liberal nationalist movement for Italian unification, both the government and the press used the case to reinforce their claims that the Papal States were ruled by medieval obscurantists and should be liberated from Papal rule. Protests were lodged by both Jewish organizations and prominent political and intellectual figures in Britain, the United States, Germany, Austria, and France. Soon the governments of these countries added to calls for Edgardo to be returned to his parents. The French Emperor Napoleon III, whose troops garrisoned Rome to protect the Pope against the Italian anti-clerical unificationists, also protested. When a delegation of prominent Jews saw the Pope in 1859, he told them, "I couldn't care less what the world thinks."[4] At another meeting, he brought Edgardo with him to show that the boy was happy in his care. In 1865 he said: "I had the right and the duty to do what I did for this boy, and if I had to, I would do it again."[5][6] In a speech in 1871 defending his decision against his detractors, Pius said: "Of these dogs, there are too many of them at present in Rome, and we hear them howling in the streets, and they are disturbing us in all places."[7][8] The Mortara case served to harden the already prevalent opinion among liberals and nationalists in both Italy and abroad that the rule of the Pope over a large area of central Italy was an anachronism and an affront to human rights in an "enlightened" age of liberalism and rationalism.[citation needed] It helped persuade opinion in both Britain and France to allow Piedmont to go to war with the Papal States in 1859 and annex most of the Pope's territories, effectively leaving him with only the city of Rome.[citation needed] When the French garrison was withdrawn in 1870, and the Italian army assaulted the city, Rome too was annexed by the new, unified, liberal Kingdom of Italy. ne of the great ironies of this story: Pope Pius IX was dependent on loans from the de Rothschild bank to keep the papal states afloat. Even though his own financier told the pope that abducting Edgardo was a miscarriage of justice, he refused to budge. Pope: "I too am his Father." The forces of the Risorgimento force the Austrian army back and the Papal states become vulnerable to attack. Pope loses everything. "I paid a high price to bring you to Christ, Edgardo." Pope confined to 100 acre ghetto in the Vatican for the next 59 years. Edgardo became a Catholic priest of the Augustinian Order, taking the holy name Pius or Pio, and he became a successful missionary to Jews. In 1912, in his testimony in favour of the beatification of Pope Pius IX, Edgardo himself noted that the laws of the Papal States did not allow Catholics to work in the homes of Jewish families (one reason being to prevent this very situation from happening).[3] That law was widely disregarded due to the ability of Catholic servants to work on the Jewish Shabbat (see shabbos goy). The Jewish orphans controversy is a legal dispute that occurred after the Second World War when the Holy See under Pope Pius XII issued instructions that Catholic institutions and families should keep baptized Jewish children in their ranks after they had been rescued from a likely deportation to Auschwitz. MODERN ERA The historical extremes of past Inquisitions were gradually replaced with a more legalistic and administrative version of Inquisition, including attempts to regulate science, the arts, and the clergy through various forms of pressure and censorship. The modern Church continues to hold on to the remains of this system; however, it has returned largely to the original ideas about punishment and today relies on the threat of excommunication as the most appropriate but extreme response to disobedience. Additional threats, such as loss of retirement security for aging clergy or isolation from their congregation, keep most in line with Church doctrine. However, the investigative and legal arms of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith exert great influence today. The word "inquisition" was dropped when the Roman Curia (the central governing body of the Church) was reorganized in 1908, when the name of the Holy Office of the Inquisition was changed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Vatican refused to recognize the legitimacy of Italy as a country until 1929. Pope Benedict XVI was Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Torture was not finally removed as a legal option for church officials until 1917 when the Codex Juris Canonici was put into effect. In 1998, the Vatican opened the Archive of the Holy Office of the Inquisition... on a limited basis.