The Spanish Inquisition: Catholic Beliefs

The Spanish Inquisition

The original purpose of the Spanish Inquisition was to discover and punish converted Jewish believers that were not following the Catholic beliefs. The Spanish Inquisition also started converting Muslims, who were insincere. However, within a few months no Spaniard felt safe from the torture that was going on around them. After a couple years the censorship policy came about this is where all books had to be approved by the Holy See. The Spanish Inquisition was harsher, organized, and freer with the death penalty. The Spanish government established the Inquisition in all its dominions; however, in the Spanish Netherlands, the local officials did not cooperate with the edicts, and the inquisitors were chased out of

The Jews then faced an increase of persecution and were pressured to convert to the Catholic beliefs. (S.I.) There were many threats of violence hanging over the Jewish community in Spain. They were faced with the choice between being baptized or choosing death, this made the number of converters to the Catholic faith very great. If the Jews did not adopt the Catholic beliefs then the Jews were tortured in many ways and were often killed. The ways the Jews were tortured were: starving them, making them hold a huge amount of water or other fluids, put them on racks, which is where the inquisitors ties the accuser’s hand and feet to a roller and stretches their bodies apart, they also used a method called strappado, this is where they tie the hands behind their back and then lift them up dislocation the shoulder sockets, they also put weights on their ankles to help the gravity pull them down. The Jews who did convert faced a lot of suspicion but never encountered torture unless they did not confess something that they did wrong.

In 1542, Pope Paul III established the Holy Office as the final court of appeal in trials of Heresy. The Church also published a list of books that were forbidden to read. Unorthodox books were outlawed, and examined out by domiciliary visits. Every book that came in was analyzed thoroughly with the direct object of finding some passage which might be interpreted as being against the principles or interests of the Catholic faith. (“Religion”)

The nonspiritual coadjutor’s were also not allowed to learn to read or write without permission. No man was able to seek to any rank above that of which he was already holding. The church insisted on this guideline as a means to obtaining a perfect knowledge of its attendants. The censorship of books took three different forms: the first was to complete disapproval and suppression, the second was to remove the certain offensive passages or parts and the third was to correct the sentences or to delete of specific words as mentioned.