Can a Pro-Life Activist Defend The Inquisition?
By Julio
Severo
The answer to
the title of this article is: Of course not! I, for example, have never
defended any kind of Inquisition, and if I ever do it, obviously I will have to
abandon the pro-life fight, because it makes no sense selectively to condemn a
genocide and support another.
The defense of
the Inquisition, for any Christian who considers himself pro-life, is so
shameful that the only option left to its defenders is to deflect the debate to
other details that flee from the essential question.
Three hundred
years ago, Jonathan Swift, in his “Gulliver’s Travels,” used the example of a
cow, and how a malicious neighbor might, with the help of a dishonest lawyer,
say that the animal belonged to him, not to Gulliver. The method is simple:
instead of focusing on the central topic of who the cow really belongs to, the
lawyer will make the judge digress into details consuming time and energy: the
cow’s age, the nature of its pasture is, its size is, etc.
In the end,
victory comes by fatigue and a heap of digressions.
There have been
a number of digressions in response to my Portuguese article “A inquisição, o papa e o suspiro de alguns católicos
conservadores” (The
Inquisition, the Pope and the Yearn of Some Conservative Catholics).
The major
digression in the issue of the Inquisition and a pro-life identity came with
this comment:
In the subject of the history of the Inquisition,
Julio is completely illiterate. The Protestant Reformation, in England, killed
in a few months more people than the Inquisition did in four centuries.
Obviously, this
comment did not respond to the main question in my article: How can those who defend the Inquisition
fight against abortion?
Or, to be more
precise: How do they want to fight
the culture of death of socialism, homosexuality and feminism when they feel
comfortable with the culture of torture and death of the Inquisition?
I do not mention
the identity of the comment author in order to make it clear that I am
attacking stances and ideas, not people. Moreover, the author is a man I
respect, in spite of differences. I respect greatly his wife too, a very
considerate woman. Yet, for literary convenience, I will call him in this text
just Jack Man.
Sometimes, it is
preferable not to mention real names to avoid embarrassment and personal
attacks. In the case of his comment, Jack Man did not show this consideration,
and many of his followers have interpreted his comment as a carte blanche to
post aggressive messages both in my Facebook and in other forums, not sparing
expletives and names such as “antichrist.” Some said, “The master has spoken,
so shut up!” At least, the axes,
sickles and hammers were only in very heavy and ugly words. (I’m already
accustomed to this, coming from the Protestant Left, whose more frequent
weapons are expletives.)
It is in a
moment such as this that I give thanks to God that there is no more the
Inquisition, because if there were, this rabid pro-Inquisition mob would come
up to me with real axes, sickles and hammers to lynch me much before the
tribunal of the holy office were able to pick me, judge me and condemn me to
death by burning.
One of the
strong Catholic reactions to my questioning if the pro-life identity can join
the defense of the Inquisition was:
Seeing Julio Severo defaming and denigrating the
Inquisition, I notice that he is an ignorant or acts in bad faith. If he is
ignorant, he may still learn. If he acts in bad faith, he deserves to be
execrated. Anyway, what he said does not offend me. I think that what is much
more serious is that those who have an
obligation to defend the Inquisition are shamed of it.
If they want to
accuse me of “defaming” and “denigrating” communism and its atrocities, I
humbly accept this “shame” — which for me is a great joy.
If they want to
accuse me of “defaming” and “denigrating” Nazism and its crime of the
Holocaust, I humbly accept this “shame” — which for me is a great joy.
In a similar
way, if they want to accuse me of “defaming” and “denigrating” the Inquisition,
I humbly accept this “shame” — which for me is a great joy.
They can also
add that I “defame” and “denigrate” the International Planned Parenthood
Federation (IPPF). This is the largest organization of contraception, abortion
and sex education in the world. Its founder, Margaret Sanger, came from an
Irish Catholic family, and before the rise of the Soviet Union, she already
preached feminism, socialism, abortion and anarchy. Her strongest opponent was evangelical Anthony
Comstock.
There is a
parallel between the Inquisition and IPPF. Both have varied torture tools.
While the Catholic Inquisition tortured and killed presumably only adults, IPPF
uses medical instruments to torture and kill babies: saline injection, partial
abortion, dismemberment and decapitation.
Tony Man (not
his real name, because he is a friend of Jack Man and wants to remain unnamed),
calls IPPF “Planned Parenthood Inquisition.” He has this to ask to those who
love and defend the Inquisition: They want babies Protestants to be aborted or
merely tortured and killed after birth?
Following the
excellent reasoning of Tony Man, I wonder: What about if IPPF had Vatican
approval, as the Inquisition had, then it could kill only Protestant babies and
other “heretical” babies?
For Tony Man and
for me, it is very simple: if you can excuse or defend the Catholic
Inquisition, what prevents you from condoning or defending the IPPF
Inquisition?
The pro-abortion
guy can coolly upbraid you: “Your Catholic Church had the Inquisition and we
have IPPF. Leave us with our genocide and you stay with yours.” But, on both
sides, there is denial, although on the Catholic side the pope has already
asked for forgiveness. So the insistence of defending the Inquisition only
exposes its defenders to ridicule.
The only
difference between the Inquisition and IPPF is that one has a Catholic title
and the other does not. Is this then the reason that those who defend the
Inquisition condemn IPPF? But what moral ethics have the Inquisition
defenders to attack IPPF?
The fact that
there are Catholics today defending the Inquisition indicates only a reality:
apostasy.
Tony Man brought
to my knowledge that Malachi Martin, the well-known late Catholic theologian,
was an adviser to two popes. Martin said in mid-1990s:
* The smoke of Satan is in the Vatican.
* The Catholic Church has come under the control
of Satan.
* That the situation is irreversible.
* That both Pope Paul VI (in the mid-1970s!) and
later John Paul II said that it cannot be reversed or even halted by anything man
can do.
* That the only way to understand the Third
Secret of Fatima, which Malachi Martin was allowed to read (most Catholics
trust and revere that apparition) is to accept that the Vatican, the Roman
Catholic hierarchy and almost all the Catholic laity in the world, are
apostate.
* That Catholicism as we know it, as a religious
institution, is spiritually dead and that this is God's will!
These comments
by the late Rev. Malachi Martin, gathered by Tony Man through a Martin’s sermon, might explain perfectly why some Catholics who
attack a genocide (abortion) are comfortable with another (the Inquisition).
According to Tony
Man, looking carefully at the Protestant churches and their institutions in the
Western countries, Rev. Martin also said that all of them are apostate. The
exception is Protestant churches in the poorest nations of Africa, Asia and
Latin America.
It is healthy to
face reality, as Martin did. As an evangelical, I often go in the opposite
direction of other Protestants, who see Vatican as the Great Babylon described
in Revelation 17. Rev. David Wilkerson, an Assembly of God minister and the
author of the best-selling “The Cross and the Switchblade,” said that Babylon
the Great is America. I agree with him.
Encyclopedia
Britannica, in its 11th edition which I used as the source for the
Inquisition in my Portuguese article, is rejected by pro-Inquisition
Catholics, because they prefer their own baseless books to an encyclopedia of
one hundred years considered by pro-family groups as more reliable than modern
encyclopedias. Even so, the pro-Inquisition Catholics close themselves in their
denial, even after the pope had already asked for forgiveness. Encyclopedia
Britannica also correctly describes the Holocaust. Do we have to accept the
Nazi version only because the side guilty of crimes does not accept the
official version?
Catholic denial,
with its pro-Inquisition supporters, is no different from other historical
denials, including Nazi and communist.
Is there a
revolutionary mindset operating in these affinities? Deniers should answer it.
If I were an
evangelical denier, I never would denounce what America, formerly a Protestant
power, has been doing to impose abortion and the gay agenda on the world. In
addition, I have also denounced the major role of America in the strengthening
and funding of the persecution of Christians around the world. It is a sad
reality, but truth is truth and it cannot be concealed. To deny, hide, varnish
and cripple information about persecution of Christians is a practice of
revisionists and other revolutionary mindset agents.
In the Catholic
case, Pope John Paul II has already asked for forgiveness. Why then insist on
denials and defense of religious genocide?
It makes no
sense Catholics attacking a genocide (abortion) and being comfortable with
another (the Inquisition).
Leone Lins, a
Brazilian who read my original Portuguese article, understood this point. She
said, “Until now, I don’t understand the
fuss about this article. As I see it, Julio Severo says that those who defend
the atrocities perpetrated by the Catholic Inquisition over the centuries have
no moral ethics to say that they are against communist genocides. I agree with
him.”
In the subject of the history of The Inquisition,
Julio is completely illiterate. The Protestant Reformation, in England, killed
in a few months more people than The Inquisition did in four centuries.
I will not try
to respond to this comment which fled from the vital subject, because Jack Man
judged me “completely illiterate.” The answer then comes from my friend Michael
Carl, an Anglican Episcopal priest and WND journalist. His response to me was as follows:
Your Catholic critic is confusing the English
Reformation with the English Civil War, much of which was between the
Protestant Roundheads (Parliamentarians) and the mostly Catholic Cavaliers who
supported the king, mostly Catholic because the kings were the Scottish
Catholic Stuarts.
There were more Anglicans killed during the brief
reign of Catholic Mary Tudor, after the death of the puny Edward. This is the
one nicknamed “Bloody Mary” (which is the origin of the cocktail of the same
name) because she had Lady Jane Gray and other Protestant Anglicans executed.
There were also
other deviations from the central topic. Some Catholics have tried to refute my
Portuguese “A inquisição, o papa e o suspiro de alguns católicos
conservadores” by appealing
to a supposed “Protestant Inquisition.” Such “Protestant Inquisition” exists
only in Catholic books. Searching Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911 edition, I have
found nothing on “Protestant Inquisition.” But I have found abundant material
on the “Catholic Inquisition.” Anyway, even if there were a “Protestant
Inquisition,” never in my blog or in my Facebook I have praised or suggested
such Inquisition against Catholics.
This article was
written in response to some Catholics who have for a long time, under my
silence and the silence of many other evangelicals, been praising the
Inquisition and, worse, implying that we, evangelicals, deserve it. Do these Catholics
want to praise the Inquisition? They are free to do so. They want to say it
publicly (as a Mídia Sem Máscara columnist did) that evangelicals are modern
“Cathars,” who were considered by the Catholic Inquisition as worthy of torture
and death? They are free to do so.
However, they
can never say they are fighting the culture of death, because within the
culture of death is not only communism. It is also, whether they accept or not,
the Inquisition. Do they want to defend life? They cannot then defend the
Inquisition. It is not impossible to do so. I have Catholic friends who do not
defend the Inquisition. By defending the Inquisition, there is nothing that
separates them from defenders of IPPF, the Holocaust and communism. What unites
them — the slaughter of the innocents — is stronger than what divides them.
There is no
difference between defending IPPF and the Holocaust and defending the
Inquisition. But there is a vast difference between fighting against abortion
and defending the Inquisition.
Having
reaffirmed the main point of my anti-Inquisition and antiabortion stance, let
me explain that the Catholic Church does not save. The Evangelical Church also
does not save. Who saves? Only Jesus Christ.
But according to
Tony Man, Jack Man thinks that the only salvation for Latin America is the
Catholic Church. So his involvement in pro-life coalitions with Protestants has
only one objective: to help the Catholic Church in a supreme role of spiritual
and social salvation for all.
Unfortunately
for Jack Man, the Catholic Church in Brazil and other Latin American nations is
deeply involved in the Marxist Liberation Theology. Especially in Brazil, the
largest Catholic nation in the world, no church has been so involved in the
establishment of socialism than the Catholic Church has, because of massive
apostasy through the Liberation Theology. So it has no salvation, even for
itself, and you do not need to be a Malachi Martin to see it.
It is no wonder:
any church, Catholic or Protestant, which thinks that it can bring salvation to
this world, will commit atrocities. The Inquisition and pervasive socialism in
Brazil are just two examples.
Don Hank has
said, “This article points to an important reason why that is happening: sheer
blind fanaticism. Any Catholic in this day and age who defends the
Inquisition is helping to tear down what is left of the Church. I would also wonder if such a person is not a bit mentally unbalanced. I personally
am thankful to God that I do not need a fallible human to intercede
for me in the place of my personal Savior Jesus Christ.”
To save people,
not apostate Catholic or Protestant institutions, God is pouring out His Spirit
in these last days.
“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that
I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream
dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour
out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17-18 ESV)
With this
Spirit, Jesus’ followers will be able to be victorious over the homosexualist,
pro-abortion, socialist Beast, its image, and the number of its name (see
Revelation 15:2).
Reviewed by Don Hank.
Portuguese
version of this article: Um
ativista pró-vida pode defender a Inquisição?
Source: Julio Severo in English: www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com
Recommended Reading:
Anthony Comstock: the first pro-life activist in the
modern history
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