CHARGES OF RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION.
I. The Spanish Inquisition.
But did not the Spanish Inquisition exercise enormous cruelties against
heretics and Jews? I am not the apologist of the Spanish Inquisition, and
I have no desire to palliate or excuse the excesses into which that
tribunal may at times have fallen. From my heart I abhor and denounce
every species of violence, and injustice, and persecution of which the
Spanish Inquisition may have been guilty. And in raising my voice against
coercion for conscience’ sake I am expressing not only my own sentiments,
but those of every Catholic Priest and layman in the land.
Our Catholic ancestors, for the last three hundred years, have suffered so
much for freedom of conscience that they would rise up in judgment against
us were we to become the advocates and defenders of religious persecution.
We would be a disgrace to our sires were we to trample on the principle of
liberty which they held dearer than life.
When I denounce the cruelties of the Inquisition I am not standing aloof
from the Church, but I am treading in her footprints. Bloodshed and
persecution form no part of the creed of the Catholic Church. So much does
she abhor the shedding of blood that a man becomes disqualified to serve
as a minister at her altars who, by act or counsel, voluntarily sheds the
blood of another. Before you can convict the Church of intolerance you
must first bring forward some authentic act of her Popes or Councils
sanctioning the policy of vengeance. In all my readings I have yet to find
one decree of hers advocating torture or death for conscience’ sake. She
is indeed intolerant of error; but her only weapons against error are
those pointed out by St. Paul to Timothy: “Preach the word; be instant in
season, out of season; reprove, entreat; rebuke with all patience and
doctrine.”(317)
But you will tell me: Were not the authors of the Inquisition children of
the Church, and did they not exercise their enormities in her name?
Granted. But I ask you: Is it just or fair to hold the Church responsible
for those acts of her children which she disowns? You do not denounce
liberty as mockery because many crimes are committed in her name; neither
do you hold a father accountable for the sins of his disobedient children.
We should also bear in mind that the Spaniards were not the only people
who have proscribed men for the exercise of their religious belief. If we
calmly study the history of other nations our enmity towards Spain will
considerably relax, and we shall have to reserve for her neighbors a
portion of our indignation. No impartial student of history will deny that
the leaders of the reformed religions, whenever they gained the
ascendency, exercised violence toward those who differed from them in
faith. I mention this not by way of recrimination, nor in palliation of
the proscriptions of the Spanish government; for one offence is not
justified by another. My object is merely to show that “they who live in
glass houses should not throw stones;” and that it is not honest to make
Spain the scapegoat, bearing alone on her shoulders the odium of religious
intolerance.
It should not be forgotten that John Calvin burned Michael Servetus at the
stake for heresy; that the arch-reformer not only avowed but also
justified the deed in his writings; and that he established in Geneva an
Inquisition for the punishment of refractory Christians.
It should also be remembered that Luther advocated the most merciless
doctrine towards the Jews. According to his apologist Seckendorf, the
German Reformer said that their synagogues ought to be destroyed, their
houses pulled down, their prayer-books, and even the books of the Old
Testament, to be taken from them. Their rabbis ought to be forbidden to
teach and be compelled to gain their livelihood by hard labor.
It should also be borne in mind that Henry VIII. and his successors for
many generations inflicted fines, imprisonment and death on thousands of
their subjects for denying the spiritual supremacy of the temporal
sovereign. This galling Inquisition lasted for nearly three hundred years,
and the severity of its decrees scarcely finds a parallel in the Spanish
Inquisition. Prescott avows that the administration of Elizabeth was “not
a whit less despotic and scarcely less sanguinary than”(318) that of
Isabella. The clergy of Ireland, under Cromwell, were ordered, under pain
of death, to quit their country, and theological students were obliged to
pursue their studies in foreign seminaries. Any Priest who dared to return
to his native country forfeited his life. Whoever harbored a Priest
suffered death, and they who knew his hiding-place and did not reveal it
to the Inquisitors had both their ears cut off.
At this very moment not only in England, but in Ireland, Scotland and
Holland, Protestants are worshiping in some of the churches erected by the
piety of our Catholic forefathers and wrested from them by violence.
Observe, also, that in all these instances the persecutions were inflicted
by the express authority of the _founders_ and _heads_ of Protestant
churches.
The Puritans of New England inflicted summary vengeance on those who were
rash enough to differ from them in religion. In Massachusetts “the Quakers
were whipped, branded, had their ears cut off, their tongues bored with
hot irons, and were banished upon pain of death in case of their return
and actually executed upon the gallows.”(319)
Who is ignorant of the number of innocent creatures that suffered death in
the same State on the ridiculous charge of witchcraft toward the end of
the seventeenth century? Well does it become their descendants to taunt
Catholics with the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition!
In the religious riots of Philadelphia in 1844 Catholic churches were
burned down in the name of Protestantism and private houses were sacked. I
was informed by an eyewitness that owners of houses were obliged to mark
on their doors these words, _This house belongs to Protestants_, in order
to save their property from the infuriated incendiaries. For these acts I
never heard of any retaliation on the part of Catholics, and I hope I
never shall, no matter how formidable may be their numbers and tempting
the provocation.
In spite of the boasted toleration of our times, it cannot be denied that
there still lurks a spirit of inquisition, which does not, indeed, vent
itself in physical violence, but is, nevertheless, most galling to its
victims. How many persons have I met in the course of my ministry who were
ostracized by their kindred and friends, driven from home, nay,
disinherited by their parents, for the sole crime of carrying out the very
shibboleth of Protestantism—the exercise of private judgment, and of
obeying the dictates of their conscience, by embracing the Catholic faith!
Is not this the most exquisite torture that can be inflicted on refined
natures?
Ah! there is an imprisonment more lonely than the dungeon; it is the
imprisonment of our most cherished thoughts in our own hearts, without a
member of the family with whom to communicate.
There is a sword more keen than the executioner’s knife; it is the
envenomed tongue of obloquy and abuse. There is a banishment less
tolerable than exile from one’s country; it is the excommunication from
the parental roof and from the affections of those we love.
Have I a right to hold the members of the Episcopal, Lutheran,
Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches responsible for these
proscriptive measures to which I have referred, most of which have been
authorized by their respective founders and leaders? God forbid! I know
full well that these acts of cruelty form no part of the creed of the
Protestant churches. I have been acquainted with Protestants from my
youth. They have been among my most intimate and cherished friends, and,
from my knowledge of them, I am convinced that they would discountenance
any physical violence which would be inflicted on their fellow-citizens on
account of their religious convictions. They would justly tell me that the
persecutions of former years of which I have spoken should be ascribed to
the peculiar and unhappy state of society in which their ancestors lived,
rather than to the inherent principles of their religion.
For precisely the same reasons, and for reasons still more forcible,
Protestants should not reproach the Catholic Church for the atrocities of
the Spanish Inquisition. The persecutions to which I have alluded were for
the most part perpetrated by the founders and heads of the Protestant
churches, while the rigors of the Spanish tribunal were inflicted by
laymen and subordinate ecclesiastics, either without the knowledge or in
spite of the protests of the Bishops of Rome.
Let us now present the Inquisition in its true light. In the first place,
the number of its victims has been wildly exaggerated, as even Prescott is
forced to admit. The popular historian of the Inquisition is Llorente,
from whom our American authors generally derive their information on this
subject. Now who was Llorente? He was a degraded Priest, who was dismissed
from the Board of Inquisitors, of which he had been Secretary. Actuated by
interest and revenge, he wrote his history at the instance of Joseph
Bonaparte, the new King of Spain, and, to please his royal master he did
all he could to blacken the character of that institution. His testimony,
therefore, should be received with great reserve. To give you one instance
of his unreliability, he quotes the historian Mariana as his authority for
saying that two thousand persons were put to death in one year in the
dioceses of Seville and Cadiz alone. By referring to the pages of Mariana
we find that author saying that two thousand were put to death _in all
Spain during the entire administration of Torquemada, which embraced a
period of fifteen years_.
Before beginning to examine the character of this tribunal it must be
clearly understood that the Spanish Inquisition was not a purely
ecclesiastical institution, but a mixed tribunal. It was conceived,
systematized, regulated in all its procedures and judgments, equipped with
officers and powers, and its executions, fines and confiscations were
carried out by the royal authority alone, and not by the Church.(320)
To understand the true character of the Spanish Inquisition, and the
motives which prompted King Ferdinand in establishing that tribunal, we
must take a glance at the internal condition of Spain at the close of the
fifteenth century. After a struggle of eight centuries the Spanish nation
succeeded in overthrowing the Moors, and in planting the national flag
over the entire country. At last the Cross conquered the Crescent, and
Christianity triumphed over Mahometanism. The empire was consolidated
under the joint reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.
But there still remained elements of discord in the nation. The population
was composed of three conflicting races—the Spaniards, Moors and Jews.
Perhaps the difficulties which beset our own Government in its efforts to
harmonize the white, the Indian and the colored population, will give us
some idea of the formidable obstacles with which the Spanish court had to
contend in its efforts to cement into one compact nation a conquering and
a conquered people of different race and religion.
The Jews and the Moors were disaffected toward the Spanish government not
only on political, but also on religious grounds. They were suspected, and
not unjustly, of desiring to transfer their allegiance from the King of
Spain to the King of Barbary or to the Grand Turk.
The Spanish Inquisition was accordingly erected by King Ferdinand, less
from motives of religious zeal than from those of human policy. It was
established, not so much with the view of preserving the Catholic faith,
as of perpetuating the integrity of his kingdom. The Moors and Jews were
looked upon not only as enemies of the altar, but chiefly as enemies of
the throne. Catholics were upheld not for their faith alone, but because
they united faith to loyalty. The baptized Moors and Israelites were
oppressed for their heresy because their heresy was allied to sedition.
It must be remembered that in those days heresy, especially if outspoken,
was regarded not only as an offence against religion, but also as a crime
against the state, and was punished accordingly. This condition of things
was not confined to Catholic Spain, but prevailed across the sea in
Protestant England. We find Henry VIII. and his successors pursuing the
same policy in Great Britain toward their Catholic subjects and punishing
Catholicism as a crime against the state, just as Islamism and Judaism
were proscribed in Spain.
It was, therefore, rather a royal and political than an ecclesiastical
institution. The King nominated the Inquisitors, who were equally composed
of lay and clerical officials. He dismissed them at will. From the King,
and not from the Pope, they derived their jurisdiction, and into the
King’s coffers, and not into the Pope’s, went all the emoluments accruing
from fines and confiscations. In a word, the authority of the Inquisition
began and ended with the crown.
In confirmation of these assertions I shall quote from Ranke, a German
Protestant historian, who cannot be suspected of partiality to the
Catholic Church. “In the first place,” says this author, “the Inquisitors
were royal officers. The Kings had the right of appointing and dismissing
them.... The courts of the Inquisition were subject, like other
magistracies, to royal visitors. ‘Do you not know,’ said the King (to
Ximenes), ‘that if this tribunal possesses jurisdiction, it is from the
King it derives it?’
“In the second place, all the profit of the confiscations by this court
accrued to the King. These were carried out in a very unsparing manner.
Though the _fueros_ (privileges) of Aragon forbade the King to confiscate
the property of his convicted subjects, he deemed himself exalted above
the law in matters pertaining to this court.... The proceeds of these
confiscations formed a sort of regular income for the royal exchequer. It
was even believed, and asserted from the beginning, that the Kings had
been moved to establish and countenance this tribunal more by their
hankering after the wealth it confiscated than by motives of piety.
“In the third place, it was the Inquisition, and the Inquisition alone,
that completely shut out all extraneous interference with the state. The
sovereign had now at his disposal a tribunal from which no grandee, no
Archbishop, could withdraw himself. As Charles knew no other means of
bringing certain punishment on the Bishops who had taken part in the
insurrection of the _Communidades_ (or communes who were struggling for
their rights and liberties), he chose to have them judged by the
Inquisition....
“It was in spirit and tendency a political institution. _The Pope had an
interest in thwarting it, and he did so_; but the King had an interest in
constantly upholding it.”(321)
That the Inquisition acted independently of the Holy See, and that even
the Catholic hierarchy fell under the ban of this royal tribunal, is also
apparent from the following fact: After the convening of the Council of
Trent, Bartholomew Caranza, Archbishop of Toledo, was arrested by the
Inquisition on a charge of heresy, and his release from prison could not
be obtained either by the interposition of Pius IV. or the remonstrance of
the Council.
It is true that Sixtus IV., yielding to the importunities of Queen
Isabella, consented to its establishment, being advised that it was
necessary for the preservation of order in the kingdom; but in 1481, the
year following its introduction, when the Jews complained to him of its
severity, the same Pontiff issued a Bull against the Inquisitors, as
Prescott informs us, in which “he rebuked their intemperate zeal and even
threatened them with deprivation.” He wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella that
“mercy towards the guilty was more pleasing to God than the severity which
they were using.”
When the Pope could not eradicate the evil he encouraged the sufferers to
flee to Rome, where they found an asylum, and where he took the fugitives
under his protection. In two years he received four hundred and fifty
refugees from Spain. Did the Pontiff send them back, or did he inflict
vengeance on them at home? Far from it; they were restored to all the
rights of citizens. How can we imagine that the Pope would encourage in
Spain the legalized murder of men whom he protected from violence in his
own city, where he might have crushed them with impunity? I can find no
authenticated instance of any Pope putting to death, in his own dominions,
a single individual for his religious belief.
Moreover, sometimes the Pope, when he could not reach the victims,
censured and excommunicated the Inquisitor, and protected the children of
those whose property was confiscated to the crown.
After a struggle he succeeded in preventing the Spanish government from
establishing its Inquisition in Naples or Milan, which then belonged to
Spain, so great was his abhorence of its cruelties.
To sum up: I have endeavored to show that the Church disavows all
responsibility for the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, because
oppression forms no part of her creed; that these atrocities have been
grossly exaggerated; that the Inquisition was a political tribunal; that
Catholic Prelates were amenable to its sentence as well as Moors and Jews,
and that the Popes denounced and labored hard to abolish its sanguinary
features.
And yet Rome has to bear all the odium of the Inquisition!
I heartily pray that religious intolerance may never take root in our
favored land. May the only king to force our conscience be the King of
kings; may the only prison erected among us for the sin of unbelief or
misbelief be the prison of a troubled conscience; and may our only motive
for embracing truth be not the fear of man, but the love of truth and of
God.
II. What About The Massacre Of St. Bartholomew?
I have no words strong enough to express my detestation of that inhuman
slaughter. It is true that the number of its victims has been grossly
exaggerated by partisan writers, but that is no extenuation of the crime
itself. I most emphatically assert that the Church had no act or part in
this atrocious butchery, except to deplore the event and weep over its
unhappy victims. Here are the facts briefly presented:
First—In the reign of Charles IX. of France the Huguenots were a
formidable power and a seditious element in that country. They were under
the leadership of Admiral Coligny, who was plotting the overthrow of the
ruling monarch. The French King, instigated by his mother, Catherine de
Medicis, and fearing the influence of Coligny, whom he regarded as an
aspirant to the throne, compassed his assassination, as well as that of
his followers in Paris, August 24th, 1572. This deed of violence was
followed by an indiscriminate massacre in the French capital and other
cities of France by an incendiary populace, who are easily aroused but not
easily appeased.
Second—Religion had nothing to do with the massacre. Coligny and his
fellow Huguenots were slain not on account of their creed, but exclusively
on account of their alleged treasonable designs. If they had nothing but
their Protestant faith to render them odious to King Charles, they would
never have been molested; for, neither did Charles nor his mother ever
manifest any special zeal for the Catholic Church nor any special aversion
to Protestantism, unless when it threatened the throne.
Third—Immediately after the massacre Charles despatched an envoy
extraordinary to each of the courts of Europe, conveying the startling
intelligence that the King and royal family had narrowly escaped from a
horrible conspiracy, and that its authors had been detected and summarily
punished. The envoys, in their narration, carefully suppressed any
allusion to the indiscriminate massacre which had taken place, but
announced the event in the following words: On that “memorable night, by
the destruction of a few seditious men, the King had been delivered from
immediate danger of death, and the realm from the perpetual terror of
civil war.”
Pope Gregory XIII., to whom also an envoy was sent, acting on this garbled
information, ordered a “Te Deum” to be sung, and a commemorative medal to
be struck in thanksgiving to God, not for the massacre, of which he was
utterly ignorant, but for the preservation of the French King from an
untimely and violent death, and of the French nation from the horrors of a
civil war.
Sismondi, a Protestant historian, tells us that the Pope’s nuncio in Paris
was purposely kept in ignorance of the designs of Charles; and Ranke, in
his _History of the Civil Wars_, informs us that Charles and his mother
suddenly left Paris in order to avoid an interview with the Pope’s legate,
who arrived soon after the massacre; their guilty conscience fearing, no
doubt, a rebuke from the messenger of the Vicar of Christ, from whom the
real facts were not long concealed.
Fourth—It is scarcely necessary to vindicate the innocence of the Bishops
and clergy of France in this transaction, as no author, how hostile soever
to the Church, has ever, to my knowledge, accused them of any complicity
in the heinous massacre.
On the contrary, they used their best efforts to arrest the progress of
the assailants, to prevent further bloodshed and to protect the lives of
the fugitives. More than three hundred Calvinists were sheltered from the
assassins by taking refuge in the house of the Archbishop of Lyons. The
Bishops of Lisieux, Bordeaux, Toulouse and of other cities offered similar
protection to those who sought safety in their homes.
Thus we see that the Church slept in tranquil ignorance of the stormy
scene until she was aroused to a knowledge of the tempest by the sudden
uproar it created. Like her Divine Spouse on the troubled waters, she
presents herself only to say to them: “Peace be still.”
III. Mary, Queen of England.
I am asked: _Must you not admit that Mary, Queen of England, persecuted
the Protestants of the British realm_? I ask this question in reply: _How
is it that Catholics are persistently reproached __ for the persecutions
under Mary’s reign, while scarcely a voice is raised in condemnation of
the legalized fines, confiscations and deaths inflicted on the Catholics
of Great Britain and Ireland for three hundred years—from the
establishment of the church of England, in 1534, to the time of the
Catholic emancipation?_ Elizabeth’s hands were steeped in the blood of
Catholics, Puritans and Anabaptists. Why are these cruelties suppressed or
glossed over, while those of Mary form the burden of every nursery tale?
Is it because persecution becomes justice when Catholics happen to be the
victims, or is it because they are expected, from long usage, to be
insensible to torture?
If we weigh in the scales of impartial justice the reigns of both sisters,
we shall be compelled to bring a far more severe verdict against
Elizabeth.
First—Mary reigned only five years and four months. Elizabeth’s reign
lasted forty-four years and four months. The younger sister, therefore,
swayed the sceptre of authority nearly nine times longer than the elder;
and the number of Catholics who suffered for their faith during the long
administration of Elizabeth may be safely said to exceed in the same
proportion the victims of Mary’s reign. Hallam asserts that “the rack
seldom stood idle in the tower for all the latter part of Elizabeth’s
reign;”(322) and its very first month was stained by an intolerant
statute.(323)
Second—The most unpardonable act of Mary’s life, in the judgment of her
critics, was the execution of Lady Jane Grey. But Lady Jane was guilty of
high treason, having usurped the throne of England, which she occupied for
nine days. Elizabeth put to death her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, after a
long imprisonment, on the unsustained charge of aspiring to the English
throne.
Third—Mary’s zeal was exercised in behalf of the religion of her
forefathers, and of the faith established in England for nearly a thousand
years.
Elizabeth’s zeal was employed in extending the new creed introduced by her
father in a moment of passion, and modified by herself. Surely, the
coercive enforcement of a new creed is more odious than the rigorous
maintenance of the time-honored faith of a nation.
Mary, therefore, insisted on perpetuating the established order of things;
Elizabeth on subverting it.
Fourth—The elder sister was propagating what she believed to be the
unchangeable and infallible doctrines of Jesus Christ; the younger sister
was propagating her own and her father’s novel and more or less uncertain
opinions.
Fifth—While Mary had no private or personal motives in oppressing
Protestants, Elizabeth’s hostility to the Catholic Church was intensified,
if not instigated, by her hatred of the Pope, who had declared her
illegitimate. Her legitimacy before the world depended on the success of
the new religion, which had legalized her father’s divorce from Catherine.
Sixth—Hence as Macaulay says, Mary was sincere in her religion; Elizabeth
was not. “Having no scruple about conforming to the Romish Church when
conformity was necessary to her own safety, retaining to the last moment
of her life a fondness for much of the doctrine and much of the ceremonial
of that Church, she yet subjected that Church to a persecution even more
odious than the persecution with which her sister had harassed the
Protestants. Mary ... did nothing for her religion which she was not
prepared to suffer for it. She had held it firmly under persecution. She
fully believed it to be essential to salvation. Elizabeth, in opinion, was
little more than half a Protestant. She had professed, when it suited her,
to be wholly a Catholic.... What can be said in defence of a ruler who is
at once indifferent and intolerant?”(324)
An intelligent gentleman in North Carolina once said to me tauntingly,
What do you think of bloody Mary? Did you ever hear, I replied, of her
sister’s cruelties to Catholics? He answered that he never read of that
_mild_ woman persecuting for conscience’ sake. I was amazed at his words,
until he acknowledged that his historical library was comprised in one
work—_D’ Aubigné’s History of the Reformation_. That _veracious_ author
has prudently suppressed, or delicately touched, Elizabeth’s peccadilloes
as not coming within the scope of his plan. How many are found, like our
North Carolina gentleman, who are familiar from their childhood with the
name of _Smithfield_, but who never once heard of _Tyburn_!