The Inquisition

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described it best ("The Junk Science of George W. Bush"):

[A]s Jesuit schoolboys studying world history we learned that Copernicus and Galileo self-censored for many decades their proofs that the earth revolved around the sun and that a less restrained heliocentrist, Giordano Bruno, was burned alive in 1600 for the crime of sound science. With the encouragement of our professor, Father Joyce, we marveled at the capacity of human leaders to corrupt noble institutions. Lust for power had caused the Catholic hierarchy to subvert the church's most central purpose--the search for existential truths.

Today, flat-earthers within the Bush Administration--aided by right-wing allies who have produced assorted hired guns and conservative think tanks to further their goals--are engaged in a campaign to suppress science that is arguably unmatched in the Western world since the Inquisition. Sometimes, rather than suppress good science, they simply order up their own. Meanwhile, the Bush White House is purging, censoring and blacklisting scientists and engineers whose work threatens the profits of the Administration's corporate paymasters or challenges the ideological underpinnings of their radical anti-environmental agenda. Indeed, so extreme is this campaign that more than sixty scientists, including Nobel laureates and medical experts, released a statement on February 18 that accuses the Bush Administration of deliberately distorting scientific fact "for partisan political ends."

In order to understand what is going on, we need to have an idea of what the Middle Ages Inquisition involved.

According to Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, "The Inquisition was a permanent institution in the Catholic Church charged with the eradication of heresies." In the early centuries of the Christian Church there were many different sects that called themselves Christian. After Emperor Constantine I (272-337 CE) made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire, the Roman Church consolidated its authority by trying to bring the various sects into the fold. Resistance often led to persecution. Heresies (from Greek haeresis, sect, school of belief) were a problem for the Church from the beginning. In the subsequent centuries there were the Arians and Manicheans; in the Middle Ages there were the Cathari and Waldenses; and in the Renaissance there were the Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Rosicrucians. Efforts to suppress heresies were initially ad hoc. But in the Middle Ages a permanent structure came into being to deal with the problem. Beginning in the 12th century, Church Councils required secular rulers to prosecute heretics. Pope Paul III established, in 1542, a permanent congregation staffed with cardinals and other officials, whose task it was to maintain and defend the integrity of the faith and to examine and proscribe errors and false doctrines. They extended their authority beyond matters of faith and into the physical realm, giving their assessment of the propositions that the Sun is immobile and at the center of the universe and that the Earth moves around it, judging both to be "foolish and absurd in philosophy," and the first to be "formally heretical" and the second "at least erroneous in faith" in theology. This assessment led to Copernicus's De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium to be placed on the Index of Forbidden Books, until revised and Galileo Galilei to be admonished about his Copernicanism. It was this same body in 1633 that tried Galileo.

Galileo and the other scientists of his time had no desire to oppose God or oppose faith in God. Their scientific genius was concentrated on observing the physical world -- God's creation if you will -- and making conclusions about the physical world based on these data or observations ("Galileo and The Inquisition"). The problem was with the Church moving beyond the spiritual realm and into the physical realm, forcing religious dogma on peoples' view of the physical world.

Arguing in support of the Inquisition, the Catholic Encyclopedia explains that the Inquisition of the Middle Ages began as a defense against hostile religious sects which were sweeping across Western Europe in the 13th Century. Those who promoted the sects' policies were excommunicated or imprisoned or executed. They say that it is hard for us in today's society to comprehend this because we have lost sight of two factors which dominated life in the Middle Ages:

1. the belief that faith in God is outside the realm of free private judgment.
2. the belief that the Church is perfect and sovereign, whose first most important duty must be to retain orthodoxy at any cost.

When you examine how the Inquisition was carried out, you discover that it is, essentially, the type of system employed later by dictators such as Hitler and Stalin.

• As explained by The Medieval Sourcebook, in essence, the Inquisition refers to a judicial process. There were "inquisitors of heretical depravity," individuals assigned by the pope to inquire into heresy in specific areas. They were called such because they applied a judicial technique known as inquisitio, which could be translated as "inquiry" or "inquest." In this process, an official inquirer called for information on a specific subject from anyone who felt he or she had something to offer. This information was treated as confidential. The inquirer, aided by competent consultants, then weighed the evidence and determined whether there was reason for action.
• From The Galileo Project--The Inquisition: "The judge, or inquisitor, could bring suit against anyone. The accused had to testify against himself/herself and not have the right to face and question his/her accuser. It was acceptable to take testimony from criminals, persons of bad reputation, excommunicated people, and heretics. The accused did not have right to counsel, and blood relationship did not exempt one from the duty to testify against the accused. Sentences could not be appealed. Sometimes inquisitors interrogated entire populations in their jurisdiction. The inquisitor questioned the accused in the presence of at least two witnesses. The accused was given a summary of the charges and had to take an oath to tell the truth. Various means were used to get the cooperation of the accused. Although there was no tradition of torture in Christian canon law, this method came into use by the middle of the 13th century. The findings of the Inquisition were read before a large audience; the penitents abjured on their knees with one hand on a bible held by the inquisitor. Penalties went from visits to churches, pilgrimages, and wearing the cross of infamy to imprisonment (usually for life but the sentences were often commuted) and (if the accused would not abjure) death. Death was by burning at the stake, and it was carried out by the secular authorities. In some serious cases when the accused had died before proceedings could be instituted, his or her remains could be exhumed and burned. Death or life imprisonment was always accompanied by the confiscation of all the accused's property."

Basically, the inquirer served as prosecutor, judge, and jury. The Inquisition is a process completely in opposition to our American judicial system.

Today in the United States, a commercial-political-religious system has been created with the goal of dominating the country. In the political realm, it has taken control of the Republican Party and now has a stranglehold on the legislative and executive branches of government. Its leaders are appealing to the American people by promoting conservative Christian causes while engaging in underhanded activities that are definitely not Christian, an unbelievable display of hypocrisy. Distortion of science and persecution of scientists who stand in their way is only one of the tactics that they employ.

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