What is The Inquisition?

Why the The Inquisition?

The Inquisitions were clerics charged to find out all knowledge they could relating to the religious beliefs of the people in the sphere of Catholic control. Regardless of the figures, which are inflated by those of an anti-catholic bent and played down by Catholics, not one person should ever be killed, maimed tortured or coerced in their religious beliefs. Religion should be a n optional set of rules, not an attempt to control.

The control of people’s beliefs into a defined orthodoxy and away from the heretical or apostate was the stated aim of the various Inquisitions and remain so to this day, although the office of Inquisition has been renamed to the much more cuddly Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This impetus arose when Catholic beliefs were defined in various congregations and councils which decided the nature of God, Jesus’ relationship to God, which texts were to form the Canon, clerical marriage, the split from other Orthodoxies, transubstantiation, Papal Infallibility and other gems of wisdom.

Of course, many of these theological coups de graces were realised long after the death of the one man who could have been a bit more proscriptive in his approach to posterity. Why did Jesus not make these things clear and have a scribe make contemporaneous records? No matter, he left it up to the vociferous zealots who would put their personal stamps on the creed long afterward.

That is where The Inquisition comes in. It concerns the pursuit of knowledge and possible re-interpretation of same, after the fact. What you will find on these pages will not be bang up to date news, it may contain some conjecture, it may go contrary to popular opinion and received wisdom. It will, however, all be scrupulously referenced and its compilation is pure torture, believe me…

Incidentally, it is all maintained by Ronan McDonnell, a freelance graphic designer from Dublin.

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