The Boston Chapter of St. Dominic had a guest speaker, today. I went because the speaker was my very first spiritual director, Fr. John Vidmar, O.P. He presented his new book, The Crusades and the Inquisition.
Of course, I also went to learn. All I know about the Inquisition is that the Dominicans ran a cruel torture chamber. Well, Fr. Vidmar tied the Inquisition to the Crusades just as the Nuremberg Trials followed World War II. Inquisitions follow wars. Vidmar further explains:
But the Inquisition tried to do both more and less than the violence it sought to replace: more in the sense that it introduced a legal process by which a wide range of heresies would be addressed, and less in that it narrowed its energies to theological issues. It did not always succeed in these two aims, and it could be used (either by politicians or churchmen) to spread its theological reach too far--such as when Ignatius Loyola and Teresa of Avila were both threatened by ecclesiastical censure--or to blur the lines between theological error and political opposition, as when John of Arc was accused of witchcraft.
Despite the abuses, which are fully treated in this book later on, the institution of the Inquisition can be seen as a replacement for the military action it followed. That it succeeded in this and was a noble and civilizing force in pursuing truth, and was not a prostitution of Church power and an obvious attempt to silence dissent, or something in between, ... pp. 53-4
Recent research has reversed many misconceptions regarding the Crusades and the Inquisitions. The book is an honest and fair attempt, at the truth.
Of course, I also went to learn. All I know about the Inquisition is that the Dominicans ran a cruel torture chamber. Well, Fr. Vidmar tied the Inquisition to the Crusades just as the Nuremberg Trials followed World War II. Inquisitions follow wars. Vidmar further explains:
But the Inquisition tried to do both more and less than the violence it sought to replace: more in the sense that it introduced a legal process by which a wide range of heresies would be addressed, and less in that it narrowed its energies to theological issues. It did not always succeed in these two aims, and it could be used (either by politicians or churchmen) to spread its theological reach too far--such as when Ignatius Loyola and Teresa of Avila were both threatened by ecclesiastical censure--or to blur the lines between theological error and political opposition, as when John of Arc was accused of witchcraft.
Despite the abuses, which are fully treated in this book later on, the institution of the Inquisition can be seen as a replacement for the military action it followed. That it succeeded in this and was a noble and civilizing force in pursuing truth, and was not a prostitution of Church power and an obvious attempt to silence dissent, or something in between, ... pp. 53-4
Recent research has reversed many misconceptions regarding the Crusades and the Inquisitions. The book is an honest and fair attempt, at the truth.
