I got a documentary from PBS from Netflix about the Secret Files of the Inquisition and watched it last night. I had never heard, not paying attention, obviously, that the Pope apologized for the Inquisition, Crusades and the Holocaust (some say that the apologies were weak). Here's from an article about his apology in 2000. I notice that the current pope, who was Joseph Ratzinger, was head in 2000 of the office that the Inquisition used to be.

My first question before watching the series was, why? Why at that point in time did the Pope offer an apology? And open up the archives of the inquisition?  First up, a post from Burning Bush that doubts the sincerity of the apology.

Now, at the end of his life and papacy, John Paul II is leaving a final legacy to the cause of ecclesiastical unity, by attempting to remove a stubborn barrier to the same -- Rome's vicious centuries-long persecution against all who refused to accept her authority and doctrines.
On March 7, the Vatican Press Office released a document entitled "Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past." On March 12, the Pope presided over a ceremony called "The Day of Pardon" in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Central to the Pope's apology was the sentence, "We are asking pardon for the divisions among Christians, for the use of violence that some have committed in the service of truth, and for attitudes of mistrust and hostility assumed toward followers of other religions." It is clear that whatever the Pope is referring to are actions taken in the service of truth. The method may have been wrong but the objective was not. No change here!
vague and meaningless
This may have the appearance of a genuine apology from Rome for some but it is not. In reality, it is a mere façade. There is nothing of real substance to these "apologies." Even by the Catholic Church's own standards for confession of sin, these apologies are without substance. The Catholic sacrament of Confession requires that the sins be stated specifically.
That there is no specificity whatsoever to the papal "apology" is even admitted in the document "Memory and Reconciliation." Note the following plain statement: "The purpose of the text is, therefore, not to examine particular historical cases but rather to clarify the presuppositions that ground repentance for past faults." The press even noted the generality of the Pope's words. The Associated Press report for March 13, entitled "Pope Seeks Pardon for Catholics," observed the lack of specificity, noting that the Pope "spoke mostly in general terms, not mentioning the Holocaust, the Inquisition or Crusades by name and listing few specific groups." Significantly, Roman Catholic commentators clearly show us the degree of sincerity there is in the Pope's words. A BBC report on the subject read as follows: "Father Bernardo Cervellera of the Catholic news agency Fides, told the BBC that the Pope would be distinguishing between the church and its flawed members. 'The Pope has done a very good job in convincing all the people in the Vatican and the church that to ask for forgiveness doesn't touch the holiness of the church,' Father Cervellera said."

The Pope has not confessed the heinous crimes committed by Popery during the 600-year 'Holy Inquisition" against those who simply believed and practised the Word of God, which was instigated formally by Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) and was conducted mercilessly by the popes who succeeded him, century after century, until finally Rome was no longer politically capable of sustaining it in the late 1700s. The Inquisition, set up in the name of Christ, resulted in the torment and murder of millions of Christ's own humble servants, whose only crime was a rejection of Catholic heresy and a commitment to follow the Bible as their sole authority for faith and practice. The Inquisition covered much of Europe and other parts of the world in a darkness of unspeakable fear which lasted for more than six centuries. The Inquisition was not a 'mistake'. It was the official policy of the Roman Catholic 'Church' for centuries. No Pope has ever admitted this. John Paul II has not confessed the Inquisition; he has not labelled his fellow popes the murderers they were.

Back in the late 1990's  a group of scholars, apparently not independent, but there to help the Pope, decided to asses the actual inquisition files.  (But only up until 1903, so doesn't cover the inquisition with regard to the Holocaust, for example.) This was right before, in 2000, the Pope went on a worldwide tour. It appears that after the Pope apologized again in 2004, the Vatican sought to say, basically, well, the inquisition wasn't as bad as people thought, and anyway, we have to look at what happened in a *historical context*. (I had some unexpected moments of hilarity last night watching the PBS series when the Vatican spokesman would say stuff like that.)

Interviewed in the documentary, The Secret Files of the Inquisition, Fr Di Noia says: "It was a mistake to torture people.

"However, torture was regarded as a perfectly justified, legitimate way of producing evidence and it was therefore legally justified."

From NYHumanist.

there is no admission that the Inquisition was in error, only that they were a little zealous! The Pope, for all the buildup of this "apology," never admits, as far as I can tell (please correct us dear readers, if we are wrong) to any wrong doing specifically on the part of Popes, the Roman Catholic Church, current Catholics, or Church doctrine!

So, were the files opened in hopes of doing a whitewash with some revisionism on what actually happened? Seems so.

Ginzburg adds, "The Inquisition remains shameful... The opening of the archives is deeply symbolic because it implies the idea of rejecting, turning the page of a long chapter in the church's history and trying to clean its image."

    Maybe so. But there are concerns that Mother Church may not be "telling all," a fear that compounds a problem for historians. Many of the files of the Inquisition office were seized by Napoleon's troops in 1810 and lost. And the 4,500 volumes that will be presented for examination at the Vatican do not cover the period after 1903. The Times described this collection as "off limits -- a can of worms that will stay unopened to avoid aggravating such disputes as abortion, clerical celibacy and papal infallibility that divide Catholics today."

    The Vatican has also had ample time to review and, if necessary, sanitize the Inquisition records. Ginzburg's original request to the pope was made in a 1979 letter. In 1991, the church began permitting a select group of scholars limited access to the records, and it was only in January of this year -- 19 years later -- that the archives were opened to "qualified researches" of any religious belief.

As the documentary points out, Napoleon got a lot of the inquisition files, but then, after he was defeated, the Vatican wanted them back.

Many documents from the Holy Office were lost when Napoleon's forces carted them off. When the French government, after his fall, wanted to give back the material in the early 1800s, "the cost of transport was enormous," Cifres said Wednesday. The order went out from Rome to burn many of the files.

But documents from famous trials like that of Galileo were saved, Cifres said, and much of the other material had been duplicated and held in local churches or institutions.

Galileo, the Italian astronomer, had been condemned by the Church for supporting Nicholas Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the Sun, and not vice versa as the Vatican then held. Pope John Paul II in 1992 declared the 17th-century denunciation of Galileo in error.

Along with the possibility of "sanitizing" records and omitting material which Church authorities may still wish to conceal, there is evidence that a campaign of "Catholic revisionism" may be getting underway to blunt the brutal truth of the three hundred-plus years of religious fanaticism and excess. A professor of church history, for instance, has described the Inquisition grilling sessions as "actually a very progressive tribunal (which) dispensed a very high level of law in 16th century." terms." That disingenuous claim confuses the formality of Inquisitorial procedures and courts with the fact that papal Inquisitors had near-total power over the fate of the accused. Suspects or witnesses who were thought to be lying, for instance, could be imprisoned. An ecclesiastical reign of terror which had begun with Pope Gregory IX in 1231 led to progressively more brutal abusers, and in 1252, Pope Innocent IV sanctioned the use of torture in order to extract confessions.

    Other claims, such as the figure that less than 2% of the Inquisition's known subjects were executed -- a figure reported in the Times coverage -- should be considered highly suspect, or considered in context. Low figures and elaborate procedures typified the Medieval inquisition, but not its counterpart in Spain. There, the Inquisition was established by papal fiat in 1478 at the request of the monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. Its primary target at first was the Marranos, Jews who had converted to Christianity, but later Muslims and Protestants fell under Inquisitorial scrutiny. Excesses from these persecutions sometimes drew condemnation from the papacy, but the Vatican refused to take any tangible steps to intervene.

Later, the Inquisition evolved into yet another form. In 1542, the Roman Congregation of the Inquisition (also known as the Holy Office) was established to combat the Protestant Reformation; victims suffered torture, garroting or incineration at the stake until 1727. The leader of this Inquisitorial office, Cardinal Gian Pietro Carafa -- ironically identified in some texts as a "reformer" -- rose to the papacy and became Pope Paul IV in 1555, and began the Index Prohibitorum or Index of Forbidden Books. That branch managed to survive until 1966, and decreed which books were to be burned for their heretical content. Catholics found to be in possession of those tomes were often excommunicated unless they possessed a special church exemption, presumably for research and study purposes.

Incidentally, in one of the series in the documentary, there was a part about Jews who were forced to convert, but then their conversion was questioned as to whether or not it was really *sincere*. Reminded me of some of the religious talk around Barack Obama, as in "Well, he's a Christian, but is he a REAL Christian? is he really sincere? He doesn't fit our brand of christendom". 

Unlike its earlier version, the Spanish Inquisition sought to punish Jews who had converted to Christianity but were not really "sincere" in their conversions.

There is a great deal of irony in this. First you tell people they have to convert or die, then, when they do convert, you decide to kill them anyway because their conversions are not "sincere." ..

Jewish converses would be arrested and accused of not being 1 Christians. They wouldn't even know who was accusing them; evidence would be presented against them in secret. Then they would be tortured until they confessed to being heretics. Then, once they confessed, they would be killed. The usual form was burning at the stake, though if they were willing to kiss the cross, they would be spared the horrible pain of burning and would be strangled instead.

The key point is that it really didn't matter if they repented - they died either way.

What if some people refused to confess even under torture? Or worse, what if some people admitted right away to practicing Judaism secretly, but even when tortured refused to concede the truth of Christianity? If they survived the horrendous tortures, they would be burned at the stake in a ceremony called auto-da-fe meaning "act of faith."

There's an interesting piece in the article, above, about Christopher Columbus, which speculates that Columbus may have been Jewish. His journey in 1492 was not financed by Isabella but instead by two Jewish financiers, and interestingly, the timing of it corresponded to an edict by Isabella that sought to kick all the Jews from Spain.

The six months between the issuing of the edict and the actual expulsion were catastrophic for the Jewish community. Having lived in Spain for centuries they were now being told that they all had leave! Where would they go? To add insult to injury, they had to liquidate all their assets but could not take most of their wealth with them. They were forced to sell a massive amount of real state, personal goods and other valuables at a fraction of their actual worth. In short, most of the Jews lost virtually everything.

Now, on what day was the Jewish community sent into exile? August 2, 1492. ...

The day after the expulsion, August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus left on his famed voyage of discovery. His diary begins:

"In the same month in which their Majesties issued the edit that all Jews should be driven out of the kingdom and its territories, in the same month, they gave me the order to undertake with sufficient men my expedition of discovery of the Indies."

P.S. I notice that PrairieFireJournal has a related post today about Catholic Church genocide.