Monday, February 01, 2016

The Horrors of the Inquisition and Its Modern Advocates


The Horrors of the Inquisition and Its Modern Advocates

By Julio Severo
As perfidious as to commit a crime is to excuse, understate or deny it.
On October 2015 Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho said in his Brazilian Twitter, “A entidade chamada Inquisição é uma invenção ficcional de protestantes.” Translation: “The entity called the Inquisition was a fictional invention of Protestants.” His original statement is here.
Other pro-Inquisition statements by him are exposed here.
If everything Olavo says about the Inquisition is correct, then Protestants are liars, because they have been saying about the horrors of the Inquisition for five centuries.
If everything Olavo says about the Inquisition is correct, then Jews are liars, because they have been saying about the horrors of the Inquisition for more than five centuries.
If everything Olavo says about the Inquisition is correct, then Pope John Paul II is a liar, because he compared the Inquisition to communism and Nazism. In fact, he asked forgiveness for the Inquisition’s crimes.
Speaking to cardinals on the Inquisition in 1994, the pope said that confessing institutional sin would be a prominent part of the Jubilee year 2000. “How can we be silent about so many kinds of violence perpetrated in the name of the faith?” he asked, specifically mentioning “religious wars, courts of the Inquisition, and other violations of the rights of the human person.” He compared them to “the crimes of Hitler’s Nazism and Marxist Stalinism.”
In the pope’s place, Olavo and a few radical Catholics promoting a historical revisionist view of the Inquisition would require Protestants, Jews and Pope John Paul II to ask forgiveness for their “fictional inventions” against the Inquisition.
Communism and Islam, which committed and commit major crimes against humankind, thrive on historical revisionism. How can a Brazilian movement that calls itself conservative have this kind of dishonest existence?
The right path for Catholic conservatism in Brazil is to recognize the Inquisition’s horrors and to confess institutional sin, as Pope John Paul II did. Such an admission would prevent pro-family and pro-life Catholic unity with evangelicals and Orthodoxies from breaking down because of an irrational and deranged adherence to an institution that did everything the devil loves (to kill, steal and destroy) and did nothing the Lord Jesus commanded (to love sinners and preach the Gospel).
The wrong and wicked path is to imitate communists and Islamists and advocate historical revisionism. Such revisionism has nothing to do with authentic conservatism. To excuse or understate the Inquisition’s horrors has nothing to do with real Christianity and it represents an attack on Jews and Protestants. It also represents an attack on a Catholic Church that since Pope John Paul II has distanced itself from the Inquisition and sought a platform to defend life and family, not torture, killings and human rights violations.
How can a Brazilian “conservative” movement that calls itself pro-life stand strong against the horrors of the abortion industry and communism when it denies, excuses or understates the Inquisition’s horrors and makes liars of its Jewish and Protestant victims?
What kind of Brazilian “conservative” movement is this, where a man calling himself its head does nothing more than claim “the Inquisition was a fictional invention” and revile evangelical and catholic conservatives disagreeing with his personal views?
Portuguese version of this article: Os horrores da Inquisição e seus modernos defensores
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