THE TORTURES OF THE CHURCH

THE TORTURES OF THE CHURCH

Torture was introduced by Pope Innocent IV in the bull Ad extirpanda of 1252, during the Inquisition, as a tool to be used during trials to extract a confession. Ordinary ecclesiastical torture avoided causing blood to leak and therefore usually took place with the twisting of the limbs or the stretching of the body until the limbs dislocated or the muscles of the limbs were torn; only in exceptional cases could the local bishop or Rome authorize more invasive torture or the systematic breaking of bones

The Church then applied the death penalty to anyone who had not publicly recanted after having confessed under torture or the penalty of life imprisonment with imprisonment in the cell of its fortress or a convent (sometimes with the door blocked up, sometimes instead the was accompanied by further deprivations or punishments, usually food restrictions), but sometimes also in a private home, although often a fine was sufficient for distinguished people. The most severe penalties (burning) were reserved for heretics who had propagated unorthodox doctrines, without publicly repenting and recanting (in which case they could incur lighter penalties from life imprisonment to a fine, leaving a lot of discretion to the judges, as was customary at that time).

It should be noted that witchcraft was persecuted both by ecclesiastical authorities (because it was considered a demonic manifestation) and by civil authorities, so much so that the greatest number of alleged witches were killed in Reformation Germany by civil authorities. The current position of the Catholic world and the problem of its illicitness is expressed in the thought of Pope Pius XII:

"The judicial investigation must exclude physical and mental torture and narco-analysis, first because they violate a natural right, even if the accused is truly guilty, and secondly because they too often give erroneous results."

The Holy Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal established in the Middle Ages which existed in different forms until the modern age and aimed at the prevention or repression of teachings and doctrines contrary to Catholic dogma and morality. The origins of the Inquisition or Holy Office are to be found in the spread of popular heresies that developed in Western Europe towards the middle of the 12th century and in the need for the church to harshly oppose them in order to eliminate them. The Cathars, Waldensians and Hussites provoked, starting from France and north-western Italy, the violent reaction of princes and popes who began persecutions in 1162.

The order of Dominican friars to which Pope Gregory stood out in this repressive work IX had entrusted the Tribunals of the Holy Inquisition in 1235. The Spanish Inquisition later became famous for its brutality and, starting from 1478, saw the terrifying activism of the Dominican Tomàs de Torquemada. In the name of the Lord, hundreds of thousands of innocent people lost their lives after suffering horrendous torture at the hands of ecclesiastical and secular institutions. Terror spread in the 1500s in the lands of the New World where the Spanish conquistadors exterminated entire civilizations.

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