Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Olavo de Carvalho and the Inquisition


Olavo de Carvalho and the Inquisition

By Julio Severo
The Inquisition is a myth and legend, insists Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho, who said today,
“Without the black legend of the Inquisition, Protestant churches would never have achieved the success they did. Who does not want to run from the bloody hands of torturers to the arms of Our Lord? A legend is an integral component of Protestant prestige and, if the legend falls, Protestant prestige falls with it. This is the reason that so many people cling to it not just without evidence, but against all evidence.”
Carvalho has many other pro-Inquisition comments and further criticism against U.S. Protestants for their allegedly unfair anti-Inquisition “propaganda.” All of his comments and criticism are published only in Portuguese, of course. To Protestants, he said today,
“Do not try to clean yourselves in another’s filth. Illuminatis and communists received the myth of the Inquisition ready-made from Protestants’ hands and they only passed it on.”
In other comment published today, he compared the “war-like propaganda” of Protestants against the Inquisition to the communist “cultural revolution” waged against the military government in Brazil. So, in his view, Protestants and communists are working hand in hand.
While everyone is focused on the Islamic terrorist attack on a homosexual nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Carvalho is creating, with several pro-Inquisition comments today, an unnecessary and senseless diversion and division between Protestants and Catholics by setting himself up as a fighter against the Protestant “legend” of the Inquisition.
Carvalho often mentions revisionist writers, including Edward Peters, as his main reference when attacking this “legend.” I wonder if to talk about the Holocaust that Nazis committed against the Jews he refers to a revisionist author, who likewise maintains that the Holocaust was a myth and a legend…

Jews Also Were Victims

Why his insistence on portraying U.S. Protestants as malignant propagandists, similar to communists, exclusively for the sake of the Inquisition? Why not include the Jews too?
In 2013, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Pope Francis at the Vatican, and gave the leader of the Catholic Church “The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain,” a book that largely revolves about Spanish Catholics questioning, torturing, and punishing the Jews, exposing how thousands of them were expelled from Spain or burned at the stake.
The Jewish Journal said that “The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain,” a scholarly magnum opus and in-depth tome on the Spanish Inquisition, describes how the Catholic Church persecuted, and often executed, masses of Jews.
Business Insider noted that “it is important to think of the context of the book, which is written by Netanyahu’s father Ben-Zion Netanyahu, a well-regarded historian who worked at both Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Cornell University.”
CBS News said, “Netanyahu’s father, Ben-Zion Netanyahu, was an Israeli historian… best known in academic circles for his research into the Catholic Church’s medieval inquisition against the Jews of Spain.”

A Catholic Historian Exposes the Inquisition’s Reality

Renowned Catholic historian Paul Johnson, in his book “A History Of Christianity” (published in the United Kingdom in 1976), said of the Inquisition:
“Convictions of thought-crimes being difficult to secure, the Inquisition used procedures banned in other courts… The names of hostile witnesses were withheld, anonymous informers were used, the accusations of personal enemies were allowed, the accused were denied the right of defence, or of defending counsel; and there was no appeal. The object, quite simply, was to produce convictions at any cost; only thus, it was thought, could heresy be quenched.”
“Many countries would not admit the Inquisition at all… There was the destruction of records.”
“In Spain, the Catholic crown, through its instrument the Inquisition, exterminated Protestantism in the 1550s.”
“The Inquisition was a popular instrument, directed against Jews…”
“The Inquisition was set up in Rome, under the fanatical Neapolitan papalist Cardinal Caraffa (later Pope Paul iv), whose watchwords were: ‘No man is to abase himself by showing toleration towards any sort of heretic, least of all a Calvinist’; and ‘Even if my own father were a heretic, I would gather the wood to burn him.’”
“The Inquisition… proved durable, largely because it was self-financing from the confiscated property of the condemned. The fact that it needed the money for its operations meant that it had to secure convictions. Hence the use of torture.”
“The Inquisition finally ran out of money in the late eighteenth century, and from that point it became moribund, though it was not effectively abolished until 1834. The last official Spanish execution for heresy was in 1826, when a schoolmaster was hanged for substituting ‘Praise be to God’ in place of ‘Ave Maria’ in school prayers.”
“[Protestant states] might have state religions but they tended to be more tolerant. They rarely persecuted systematically. They had no equivalent to the Inquisition. They were not clericalist. They permitted books to circulate more freely. They did not burden commerce with canon law. They accepted ‘private’ religion, and placed marriage and the family at the centre of it. They were thus more congenial to the capitalist community. As a result, Protestant societies appeared far more successful than Catholic ones as the capitalist system developed.”
Would Carvalho care that the source of this material is Catholic?
In a public video (https://youtu.be/Cpq8eaAy7JY), which I have posted on my Brazilian Facebook, Carvalho stated that all the torture tools of the Inquisition in the museums around the world were fabricated.

In the video, he explains about anti-Catholic, especially anti-Inquisition, portrayals in the movie industry and that even though most movie producers are Jews, their anti-Catholic and anti-Inquisition “bias” is inspired by Protestants — as if Jews had never had their own history and had never been tortured and murdered by the Inquisition.

At Least, the FBI Does Not Torture

If Carvalho loves to downplay the Inquisition and its persecution, why did he bother about the FBI “persecuting” him? A WND report of 2011 said, “FBI suspected of intimidation tactic” against Olavo de Carvalho.
At least, the FBI did not threaten to torture him or burn him at the stake. Yet, Carvalho’s fear was baseless: the FBI officially said that it had done nothing against him.

Did the Inquisition Not Torture?

Carvalho has downplayed the horrors of the Inquisition in the following public comment:
“Even in the popular image of the Inquisition fires, lies are predominant. Everybody believe that condemned individuals ‘died burned,’ amid horrible suffering. The flames were high, more than 16 feet high, to hinder suffering. The condemned individuals (less than ten a year in two dozen nations) died suffocated in a few minutes, before the flames could touch them.”
He also said:
“The myth of the Inquisition has been the most extensive and lasting campaign of slander and defamation in history to this day, with multi-million dollar funding, and it seems this campaign will have no end. Those who created it were not Illuminatis or communists. It was created by Protestants, who keep promoting it even today, and the irradiant center is U.S. churches.”
He has said that Protestantism was the first (Marxist-oriented) revolutionary movement in history. (Of course, in this perspective, the Inquisition is completely justified against these “Marxist” pioneers!)
His insistent reference to the Inquisition as a “myth” and a “legend,” portraying U.S. Protestants as malignant propagandists, seems calculated to sow chaos in the conservative relationship between Catholics and Protestants in Brazil. Freemasons and other occultists also use chaos to impose their order later.
Even though the most prominent members of his institute — the Inter-American Institute — are Protestant and he is dependent on them for the promotion of his name in the U.S., he has publicly called Luther and Calvin two “sons of bitches.”
Because of my opposition to the Inquisition and his public advocacy of its revisionism, he has publicly called me dirtier names than this.
Sadly, all of his pro-Inquisition stances and name-calling against Luther and me are available only in Portuguese.
Whatever the case may be, a man who extols the virtues of the Inquisition’s killing machine should never fear the FBI. At least, he would be spared torture and death.

A Nebulous Esoteric History

Unsuspecting Catholic readers could misunderstand Carvalho as a Catholic, but before choosing to present himself as a conservative philosopher who predicts political trends and events, he was a famous astrologer (and founder and director of the first Brazilian school of astrologers) who predicted political trends and events.
Carvalho has a nebulous esoteric history, in particular following the “conservatism” of the Traditionalist or Perennial Philosophy of René Guénon, an Islamic sorcerer who used to predict political trends and events. The first translation into Portuguese of a Guénon book was made by Carvalho.
Two weeks ago, Reinaldo Azevedo, who, like Carvalho, considers himself a Catholic, has in a Veja report exposed Carvalho’s past as a professor of astrology and an adherent of the Islamic mysticism of René Guénon. Azevedo is a columnist of Veja magazine (the Brazilian counterpart of Time magazine). He exposed Carvalho particularly because of his insistence on attacking Brazilian leaders who helped in the massive campaigns to impeach Brazilian Marxist President Dilma Rousseff.
I disagree with the Catholic spiritual worldview, but here a nominal Catholic is criticizing another nominal Catholic with a prominent occultist background.

The Hypocrisy of Brazilian Activists

A common feature in Brazilian activists is hypocrisy. During the military rule in Brazil, leftist activists, who complained against capitalism, chose exile in England, Sweden and even the United States, the most capitalist nation in the world. Thus these anticapitalists chose to live in the most capitalist nations in the world.
Carvalho frequently complains about Protestantism (not just liberal Protestantism, but Protestantism on the whole, especially U.S. Protestantism), but he chose exile in the largest Protestant nation in the world. Why does a man who complains about Protestantism choose to escape from the largest Catholic nation in the world and live in the most Protestant nation in the world?

The Inter-American Institute and Its Potty-Mouthed Director

In fact, why would he choose to found, with the help of U.S. Protestants, the Inter-American Institute, composed of an approximately 50/50 mix of Protestants and Catholics? A member of his institute, who shall remain unnamed, said to me that to excuse the Inquisition and its torture and murder of Jews and Protestants is the same thing as excusing Planned Parenthood and its torture and murder of unborn babies.
How will these members learn of his ideas if he expresses publicly his nonsense only in Portuguese, a language they do not speak?
He usually uses profanity and curse word to criticize socialists and conservatives. He has excused his dirty and foul language by saying:
“In the U.S., only the Left uses profanity and curse words. This is enough to explain why conservatives, even when they are majority, are always at a disadvantage.”
“In Hollywood movies, two out of three words are “fuck.” This is what is isolating and weakening conservatives.”
“Lenin already knew that, in politics, he who reviles more always runs ahead.”
For Carvalho, U.S. conservatives are losing the cultural war because they refuse foul language!
He excuses his foul mouth as a “strategy” because, according to him, Vladimir Lenin used it successfully to spread Soviet Marxism, and he hopes to achieve the same success by employing the same dirty tricks and language to spread his “conservatism.” Between following Lenin and U.S. conservatives, he prefers the former. In fact, foul-mouthed “conservatism” is his hallmark in Brazil.
But his “strategy,” allegedly a weapon against socialists, is also used to attack Brazilian conservatives that he feels threaten his views. When I, a conservative evangelical, disagreed with him about the Catholic Inquisition, which he says did not torture Jews and Protestants for the “crime” of different views, his potty mouth did not spare me any public abuse, insult and revilement.

Anti-Marxist Stridency: a Cover?

He has other inconsistencies. For example, his virulently anti-Russian stances sharply contrast with his opportunistic endorsement of the Republican presidential candidate pro-Putin Trump. It is opportunistic because usually he implacably accuses pro-Russia conservatives of “KGB agents.” His speech is very similar to neocon speeches. I have exposed this inconsistency in my article “Is Trump a KGB Agent?
If his “philosophical” stridency were reserved only to Russians, he would never compare U.S. Protestants against the Inquisition to communists.
Is all of this stridency aimed at defending Catholicism or using it? Last month, Carvalho said that the only serious effort to understand the communist strategy in Latin America was the Ibn Khaldun Study Group, in the honor of an Arab Muslim. This secretive group was created by Carvalho in 2003. Has an anti-Marxist strategy that at the same time pays homage to Muslims a Catholic appearance?
I wonder what he is going to do after he and his Inter-American Institute “save” Brazil from Marxism and U.S. Protestants and their anti-Inquisition “propaganda.” Will he lead Catholics to the “conservatism” of the Traditionalist or Perennial Philosophy of René Guénon? Will he found a new Islamic study group to fight Marxism?
Occultist Guénon was anti-Marxist. By the way, Adolf Hitler, who was an occultist masked as a Catholic, was also stridently against the Soviet Marxism. He was seen as a “prophet” and “savior,” but his anti-Marxism did not save Germany.
Carvalho has been seen as a “prophet” and “savior” by his Brazilian adherents, but will his anti-Marxism save Brazil?
Portuguese version of this article: Olavo de Carvalho e a Inquisição
Recommended Reading on Olavo de Carvalho:

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