The Inquisition’s Sorry Logic
The Christian Advocate says: “Monsignor Capel has a prodigious task on hand when he undertakes to defend the Inquisition. The best argument he advances is this:— “If you imprison a man for damaging property, if you hang a man for taking the life of another, I will imprison and I will hang the man who takes from me my faith.” “That is to say, because we imprison a man who takes another’s property, or hang a man who takes another’s life by violence, we may therefore imprison or hang one who convinces us by argument that we have been holding a wrong opinion. Sorry logic, this! Besides, the lecturer ought to remember that the Inquisition spent much of its force in imprisoning and burning men who were holding on to their own old faith, and resisting the efforts of the ‘holy’ church to take it from them.”