Did the church burn people to the stake? Why isn't this practiced anymore. Did the Catholic Church condemn it.? God bless you all.
I am no expert but my understanding is that the Spanish Inquisition burnt countless innocent women under the charge of witchcraft. This was a Catholic Church led movement and I believe the Inquisition is now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is the oldest among the nine congregations of the Roman Curia. It was founded to defend the church from heresy; today, it is the body responsible for defending Catholic doctrine. It also happened in England under the Witch Finder General (Matthew Hopkins) but that was a Protestant movement I believe. The Salem Witch Trials are the most famous of all. Why isn't it practised anymore? The belief in witches began to decrease in the 18th durng the advent of modernity I believe. http://people.ucls.uchicago.edu/~sn...s/2013/11/14_Witchcraft_-_The_Beginnings.html
Initially, it was started in the 12th century in France... and spread over many European countries. Spain is remembered because there the Inquisition came about the same time as the Reconquista, the Reconquest of Spain, by the Catholic Kings. They wanted to establish a Catholic Kingdom and demanded that Jews and Muslims, either convert to Catholicism, or leave the country. The Inquisition was active among the Conversos, former Jews who converted to Catholicism, particularly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition
One thing to keep in mind with all of this burning witches at the stake business was that the Governments of many Kingdoms took it on themselves in many cases to exert their power in regards to their interpretation of inquisition and the defense of the Faith. There was no Catholic initiative to burn people alive. Protestant so called historians which in many cases are nothing of the sort have written many books condemning the Church and attributing to it many evils.
Saint Rose of Lima had many mystical experiences; it is reported that when she prayed in her garden beside her hermitage all the trees and all the plants in the garden would bow, with saint Rose, when she bowed down in prayer to Our Lord!. The mother of Saint Rose, 'María de Oliva' was distressed by Saint Rose's piety and mystical experiences and when, María de Oliva, heard that the inquisitioners were coming to Lima, she became fearful that Rose would be questioned by them and find out about the many mystical things that happened to her daughter and then deem that this was diabolical and burn Rose at the stake. St Rose, thankfully never came to the attention of the inquisitioners. However Saint Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake. The reason burning people at the stake is no longer practiced........ is because it is barbaric! It was seen at the time as a type of justice, However, rearly did the victim of this crule death have recouse to a fair trial! So like gladiators of the past who fought each other to death in an arena for the spectators enjoyment and comfort, or cruifictions, or abortions, or hangings, or euthansia, or beheadings; they are no longer practiced because it is crule and inhumane. Oh wait a minute....... the savage practice of abortion, euthanasia and beheadings and cruifictions of Christians, now out number all the above 'burning at the stake' like about a billion to one, so maybe the practice of burning at the stake will come back into vouge soon!
The most infamous burnings were the Spanish Inquisition founded by the discoverers of the New World . Queen Isabel of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon. The co- sponsors of Christopher Columbus I was reading an interesting book about Queen Isabel lately called 'Isabel the Queen'. By Peggy K Liss. http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14084.html
The fist thing I would say about the burnings is that there seem to be a lot of myths around the subject. The first is in the number of people who died. Modern historians estimate 5,ooo , whereas the myth is hundreds of thousands died. Stil lbad enough if you happened to be one of the 5,000 who were burnt. The Inquistion was not actually carried out by the Church itslef. It was mainly a Spanish Government project which was carried out for several reasons none of them really religious as such. There was dough to be made from the victims. Loads and loads of dough. Land too. There was a very great deal of fierce anit semitic hatred. It gave the new country a common cause and so on. Still it is not true to say the Church had clean hands. The Pope of the day gave the Monarchs a nudge and a wink for a go ahead. How could Catholics do such things? Well your guess is as good as mine. Why do evil people ever do evil things? I guess because they are evil. There are evil Catholics just as there are evil Muslims, Jews, Hindu's and whatever. I guess the simply answer is evil people do evil things. Some of those evil people happen to have been Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, Kings and Queens. There was a time I suppose the evil folks get up to both inside and outside of the Church would have shocked me. Not anymore. I am still saddened by it. TO a large degree I can never get my head around it. I hope I never do. I hope I keep at least that amount of innocense till I die. There ways are not mine, thank God.
The strange thing about Queen Isabella you know was that she was a very admirable person in so many ways. But the bottom line is she burnt loads and loads of people. I guess because she was a Queen she reckoned she ought to. Which is why I would recommend any soul that truly loves God never to seek power. Thrones are were the serpent sits. This clip shows Isabella taking Granada back from the Muslims, a wonderful thing to have done:
The church did not burn anybody. Heresy was considered a treasonous crime against the state as well as the church . Therefore persons judged to be obstinate heretics were handed over to the civil authorities who carried out the burnings.
