If someone went into the Vatican and killed just 124 priests, cardinals, and possibly a Pope that would be just a few deaths right?
Again that number is for only one guy and the total numbers are distorted to not included those that died when the Church turned them over to secular bodies for execution or those who dies awaiting "Trial".
That minimal number floated is several thousand (direct executions). And again if you find that number low, then 9/11 isn't a tragedy either to you.
I don't know what catholic.com is but I find it annoying that anyone that disagrees is called a "Fundamentalist" on there.
-Rudey
Quote:
Originally posted by RACooper
Unfortunately, there has been a lot of misinformation put out there about the Inquisition, mostly relating to anti-Catholic propaganda that was quite prevalent in the later 1800s – of course some might also be due to shoddy scholarship…but I'm more of the opinion that numbers have been inflated by our Protestant fundamentalist friends (including our "friends" at BJU)
The Church and the Inquisitors themselves kept meticulous records of the various Inquisitional Courts or campaigns – luckily this has allowed a valuable insight into both the practices and mindset of the inquisitors.
For example you can look into the career of various Inquisitors such as Bernard Gui’s Inquisition in the Languedoc region of France – rooting out Cathar-ism. During his campaign of 1308-1323 he “condemned” some 633 people… now by condemned in the eyes of the Church, and really just means sentenced under Cannon Law. When you start to look into the actual sentences, you find 268 sentenced to permanent imprisonment (in Monasteries or Convents), 3 denied burial rights (ie. dug up, and re-buried elsewhere), 1 given a one year prison terms, 1 ordered on Crusade, 17 order on Pilgrimage, 136 order to wear heavy Crosses as penance. If you look at those who died in custody or were actually burned at the stake then the numbers are also interesting: 107 Burned alive (of which 66 were posthumously burned), and another 17 would have been sentenced to imprisonment if the hadn’t died in custody. So the Inquisition was responsible for 124 deaths in the province of Languedoc over a period of 15 years, or a rate of less than 9 deaths a year – this during the last throes of the Cathar movement, and the height of the Church’s prosecution of the campaign against them.
ETA: Sorry forgot to include a source - J. Given in Portraits of Medieval and Reniassance Living (1996) and of course copies of Bernard Gui's writings... had a paper on him back in August...
|