Using Trump As a Platform to Glorify The Inquisition?
Trump Is So Demonized As The Inquisition, Says Brazilian Catholic Right-Winger
In
the actual world, U.S. President Donald Trump has nothing to do with the
Inquisition. But in the world of ideological fiction and religious fanaticism,
everything is possible.
Yet,
the Inquisition was not born as an effort to fight exclusively Islam. For
centuries, the Catholic Church and Catholic nations already applied the
Inquisition against Christians who followed Christ not according to the strict
commands from the Vatican.
The Inquisition fought any idea, and
people espousing them, against the Catholic monopoly. Not only Muslims, but
also Jews and Protestants were targeted.
Because Islam is violent, I have no
opposition to the Inquisition treating harshly Muslims. But innocent Jews and
Protestants were tortured, looted and slaughtered by the Inquisition, whose
mission was to destroy everything opposed to the Vatican.
Even so, Mateus de Castro makes the
case that just as Trump is demonized over his stance on Islam, so is the
Inquisition “demonized.” He even portrays the Inquisition as a “shield” against
Islam. This is a bizarre view. By
some mysterious reason, the growth of conservative feelings in Brazil is
producing bizarre results among Catholics.
Even though Brazil is the largest
Catholic nation in the world, the
conservative push has come from evangelicals, as recognized even by The Nation.
The most prominent conservative
victory was acquired by the impeachment of Marxist President Dilma Rousseff in
2016. The impeachment
proceedings were made possible thanks to an evangelical leader called Eduardo
Cunha, who had been blacklisted by Brazilian Marxists as their number 1 enemy.
The main Marxist movement in Brazil,
Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, was founded by a Catholic majority with the
assistance of many Catholic bishops.
Initially, the conservative Catholic
reaction in Brazil advocated pro-life ideas. But lately this reaction has
become more radical and strident pro-Inquisition stances are dominating the worldview
of many conservative Catholics. A simple Google search for “Inquisition” and “conservative”
in Portuguese (Inquisição conservador) delivers almost 300,000 hits!
These impressive numbers show that the advocacy of the Inquisition has become a
very prominent subject among conservative Catholics in Brazil. There are
thousands and thousands of Catholic-oriented websites and blogs in Portuguese exalting
the alleged virtues of the Inquisition. A real tsunami of pro-Inquisition obsession is taking over conservative Catholics.
Radical
Catholic right-wingers as Mateus de Castro are at ease to use any subject to
defend and excuse the Inquisition. So if Trump is demonized for banning Islamic
immigration, hey, the Inquisition is as “demonized” as Trump is!
Castro
uses as base to defend the Inquisition Henry Kamen, whom he alleges to be “the
biggest expert on the Spanish Inquisition in the 20th century.”
Revisionism
is a tool especially used by Marxists. The most prominent revisionism focuses
on the Holocaust. Typically, revisionists reduce the numbers of the Jewish
victims of the Holocaust and their sufferings.
The real greatest expert on the
Inquisition is the father of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He
wrote “The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain,” a book that
largely revolves about Spanish Catholics questioning, torturing, punishing and
burning Jews. His book is real history, not revision to please those who defend
the Inquisition.
Castro’s article was published in the
Brazilian right-wing website Senso Incomum (Uncommon Sense). It is really a
very uncommon or bad sense to push for the rehabilitation of the Inquisition as
an important component in conservatism. It makes no sense to put on the same
level conservatism and the revisionism of the Inquisition. It makes no sense for
a right-wing website as Senso Incomum to put Trump and the Inquisition on the
same level. But such bad sense is now trendy among Brazilian Catholic
right-wingers, who are engaged in the disgraceful, anti-Christian and anticonservative
mission of glorifying the Inquisition.
Castro
says that America faces today the same Islamic threat Europe faced 500 years
ago, and he almost said that the Inquisition is necessary today. Yet, other
Catholic right-wingers have been more straightforward about the “need” of the
Inquisition today. Catholic writer Theodore Shoebat has suggested that
the only way to exterminate the homosexual agenda is through a Catholic
“revival,” with an Inquisition that will enact the death penalty to homosexuals.
Such Catholic “revival,” with a misguided
conservatism, will not leave Protestants and Jews eventually untouched. In
fact, for several years Brazilian “conservative” Catholic writers have called
Protestants “heretic.” “Heretics” were the main victims of the Inquisition.
A
real Christian revival produces passion for Christ and repentance. In Brazil,
the Catholic right-wing “revival” is producing passion for the Inquisition and
no repentance. It is one of the most bizarre trends among Brazilian Catholics.
Christian
conservatism and the Inquisition advocacy is a huge contradiction. Even so,
Castro said as an excuse, “For this, we have to go through the thorny task of
revealing that Islamic theology is based on domination, not spontaneous
conversion.”
Yes, Islam is based on domination and
forced conversion. But the medieval Catholicism, praised by Castro, was equally
based on domination and forced conversion. Or you were Catholic or against
Catholicism. Only Catholics were protected. Jews and non-Catholic Christians
were in everlasting danger of falling prey to the Inquisition.
Just as in the case of abortion, when conservatives
consider the plight of victims; just as in the case of communism, when
conservatives consider the plight of victims, the case of the Inquisition deserves
the same treatment: the Jewish and Protestant victims in their plight, not
their oppressor, deserve attention and defense. To choose the Inquisition is
akin to choose communist killers and baby killers (abortion physicians) instead
of their victims.
To
use the conservative movement as a platform to sanitize the Inquisition is a
disservice to conservatism and Christianity. To say that the Inquisition has
been “demonized” is to make this killing machine a victim, when the actual
victims were Jews and Protestants.
To use the conservative movement as a
platform to promote the revisionism of the Inquisition, as Catholic
right-wingers in Brazil are doing frequently, will eventually destroy any
conservative hope for Catholics in Brazil.
To use the pro-life movement as a platform
to advocate the revisionism of the Inquisition, as Catholic right-wingers in
Brazil are doing frequently, will eventually harm the
pro-life cause among Catholics in Brazil.
To use Trump’s demonization as an example
of how the Inquisition is “demonized” only shows that the Brazilian
“conservative” Catholic movement is sick or even under demonic possession.
Only
a true Christian revival can deliver Catholics from the fake Catholic “revival”
that is sanitizing the Inquisition.
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1 comment :
Here is a good website exposing the claims of the Roman Catholic Church:
https://rationalchristiandiscernment.blogspot.com/
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