by emad » Mon Jan 30, 2006 1:21 pm
Inquisition was a mistake but legally justified, claims Vatican official<br>By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent<br>(Filed: 30/01/2006)<br><br>The Vatican is preparing for fresh controversy over the Inquisition after allowing an official to appear in a television documentary to offer a defence of the "Holy Terror". <br><br><br><br>The Rev Joseph Di Noia, the Under-secretary of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, admits in a television series starting tonight that the use of torture and public burnings were "mistakes".<br><br>But the American-born cleric argues that these methods of suppressing heresy were explicable in the context of the times, when people believed passionately in heaven and hell. <br><br>Fr Di Noia's gloss on history is significant because the Congregation is the successor body to the Inquisition and, until last year, it was headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.<br><br>The late Pope John Paul II apologised for the Inquisition in 2002.<br><br>He said the Church should show penitence for "accepting methods of intolerance or even violence in the service of truth".<br><br>The four-part documentary on the UKTV History channel draws on research gleaned from Vatican files only opened to scrutiny in 1998.<br><br>It highlights periods of the persecution that began in the 13th century and ended only in the late 1800s.<br><br>The Inquisition was established by Pope Gregory in 1233 as a special court to help curb the influence of beliefs deemed to deviate from official Church doctrine. <br><br>Interviewed in the documentary, The Secret Files of the Inquisition, Fr Di Noia says: "It was a mistake to torture people.<br><br>"However, torture was regarded as a perfectly justified, legitimate way of producing evidence and it was therefore legally justified."<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/30/ninq30.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/30/ixhome.html">www.telegraph.co.uk/news/...xhome.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br> <p></p><i></i>
