Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
interesting and unique book, August 18, 2000
This book is unique in that it mentions Moses as the first inquisitor. This means that the Inquisition was not something that began in the Middle Ages but can trace its roots back to the Old Testament. In other words, the Inquisition was something that started in ancient Israel in the Old Testament. For example, the Mosaic Law(Law of Moses) said that adulterers were to be stoned to death and idolaters were to be executed if they were found guilty after a rigorous examination and trial by the Sanhedrin(the Jewish Supreme Court). The Catholic Church merely borrowed the inquisitional methods from the Old Testament which is based on Scripture. Another unique aspect is that it says that the Spanish Inquistion was much more mild and less severe than the so called inquistions in Protestant countries. The number of people executed was far less than those in Protestant countries. Toruqemada and Ximenese actually reformed the Inquisition by making it less severe and eliminated the abuses associted with it. Torture was rarely used and drastic means of getting information was only used as a last resort for very serious reasons such as to extract information in order to get the names of the conspirators who usually committed violent crimes such as murder. The justice system of the Inquisition(medieval and Spanish) was much more advanced than the secular justice system of that time. This means that the legal methods of the Inquisition is very similar to our modern system. Some examples are the right to have counsel(lawyer) during questioning, the punishment for perjury, cross examination, the right to refute the charges or accusation brought by the accuser, and the cross examination of witnesses. The only difference was that the defendant(accused) did not know the names of the accusers nor did he ever see them or confront them. This could be similar to protecting eyewitness in our modern legal system.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding!, January 21, 2006
In this tremendously important book, Catholic historian William Thomas Walsh successfully destroys one of the greatest myths of history, that of the perfidy of the Inquisiton. He does this in remarkable fashion, starting with the venerable Moses as the first Inquisitor, then describing the papal Inquistions, and finally devoting the bulk of the corpus of his important work to the much maligned and little understood Spanish Inquisition.
In regard to the latter, Walsh provides insights that any truly objective student of history will find both compelling and enlightening. The Spanish Inquistion had nothing to do with persecution, as the popular myth holds. It had rather everything to do with maintaining the integrity of the Mystical Body of Christ, His Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Here is a critically important point that uninformed critics of the Inquistion miss entirely. The Spanish Inquisition was focused entirely on those who claimed to be sincere Catholics, but who, in fact, were heretics. That Isabella chose to expel practicing Jews from Spain in 1492 is a fact ancillary to but not at all embodied in the Inquisition epic.
Walsh completes his masterful portrayal with an amazingly prophetic essay. Writing in the midst of the Second World War, Walsh clearly illustrates the commonality of the political philosophies of the socialist FDR, the communist Stalin, and their then antagonist, Hitler. Walsh observes that it is precisely this notion of the state trimphant over the rights of the individual, a notion equally embraced by FDR, Stalin, and Hitler, against which the Inquisiton inveighed. This is great history, beautifully written, and presented with a proper sense of awe and wonder. We heartily recommend this terribly important book to all seekers after the Truth.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review from the Publisher, March 7, 2001
By A Customer
This famous historian has laid to rest the standard myths accepted by most people today. For example, the lie that the Inquisition was ruthless and unjust, that it sent thousands to merciless torture and undeserved death, and that it was administered by unbalanced and sinister minds. To settle this matter and to set forth the facts about the Inquisition, the author has drawn for us a detailed historical sketch of six prominent Inquisitors - "Characters of the Inquisition," as he calls them - and in the process has explained for the modern reader the background of the Inquisition, how it operated and the major historical lines of its progress. Within these pages the reader will see history unfold before his eyes in a manner refreshingly truthful and well substantiated, and in the process, he will witness the Catholic Church being vindicated of the mendacious claims laid against her by her enemies. Important knowledge to defend the Church.
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