Friday, January 12, 2018

Using Trump As a Platform to Glorify The Inquisition?


Using Trump As a Platform to Glorify The Inquisition?

Trump Is So Demonized As The Inquisition, Says Brazilian Catholic Right-Winger

By Julio Severo
In the actual world, U.S. President Donald Trump has nothing to do with the Inquisition. But in the world of ideological fiction and religious fanaticism, everything is possible.
In his article “A Inquisição e Donald Trump: o choque de civilizações ontem e hoje” (The Inquisition and Donald Trump: The Clash of Civilizations Yesterday and Today), Brazilian Catholic author Mateus de Castro praises Trump’s efforts to protect America from Islam and uses him, as a comparison, to depict the Inquisition as a similar effort of the Catholic Church to protect Europe from Islam.
Yet, the Inquisition was not born as an effort to fight exclusively Islam. For centuries, the Catholic Church and Catholic nations already applied the Inquisition against Christians who followed Christ not according to the strict commands from the Vatican.
The Inquisition fought any idea, and people espousing them, against the Catholic monopoly. Not only Muslims, but also Jews and Protestants were targeted.
Because Islam is violent, I have no opposition to the Inquisition treating harshly Muslims. But innocent Jews and Protestants were tortured, looted and slaughtered by the Inquisition, whose mission was to destroy everything opposed to the Vatican.
Even so, Mateus de Castro makes the case that just as Trump is demonized over his stance on Islam, so is the Inquisition “demonized.” He even portrays the Inquisition as a “shield” against Islam. This is a bizarre view. By some mysterious reason, the growth of conservative feelings in Brazil is producing bizarre results among Catholics.
Even though Brazil is the largest Catholic nation in the world, the conservative push has come from evangelicals, as recognized even by The Nation. The most prominent conservative victory was acquired by the impeachment of Marxist President Dilma Rousseff in 2016. The impeachment proceedings were made possible thanks to an evangelical leader called Eduardo Cunha, who had been blacklisted by Brazilian Marxists as their number 1 enemy.
The main Marxist movement in Brazil, Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, was founded by a Catholic majority with the assistance of many Catholic bishops.
Initially, the conservative Catholic reaction in Brazil advocated pro-life ideas. But lately this reaction has become more radical and strident pro-Inquisition stances are dominating the worldview of many conservative Catholics. A simple Google search for “Inquisition” and “conservative” in Portuguese (Inquisição conservador) delivers almost 300,000 hits! These impressive numbers show that the advocacy of the Inquisition has become a very prominent subject among conservative Catholics in Brazil. There are thousands and thousands of Catholic-oriented websites and blogs in Portuguese exalting the alleged virtues of the Inquisition. A real tsunami of pro-Inquisition obsession is taking over conservative Catholics.
Radical Catholic right-wingers as Mateus de Castro are at ease to use any subject to defend and excuse the Inquisition. So if Trump is demonized for banning Islamic immigration, hey, the Inquisition is as “demonized” as Trump is!
If conservatism is attacked, hey, the Inquisition suffers the same abuse!
Castro uses as base to defend the Inquisition Henry Kamen, whom he alleges to be “the biggest expert on the Spanish Inquisition in the 20th century.”
Kamen is recognized as a revisionist, who has changed the history as it really was.
Revisionism is a tool especially used by Marxists. The most prominent revisionism focuses on the Holocaust. Typically, revisionists reduce the numbers of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and their sufferings.
The real greatest expert on the Inquisition is the father of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He wrote “The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain,” a book that largely revolves about Spanish Catholics questioning, torturing, punishing and burning Jews. His book is real history, not revision to please those who defend the Inquisition.
Castro’s article was published in the Brazilian right-wing website Senso Incomum (Uncommon Sense). It is really a very uncommon or bad sense to push for the rehabilitation of the Inquisition as an important component in conservatism. It makes no sense to put on the same level conservatism and the revisionism of the Inquisition. It makes no sense for a right-wing website as Senso Incomum to put Trump and the Inquisition on the same level. But such bad sense is now trendy among Brazilian Catholic right-wingers, who are engaged in the disgraceful, anti-Christian and anticonservative mission of glorifying the Inquisition.
Castro says that America faces today the same Islamic threat Europe faced 500 years ago, and he almost said that the Inquisition is necessary today. Yet, other Catholic right-wingers have been more straightforward about the “need” of the Inquisition today. Catholic writer Theodore Shoebat has suggested that the only way to exterminate the homosexual agenda is through a Catholic “revival,” with an Inquisition that will enact the death penalty to homosexuals.
Such Catholic “revival,” with a misguided conservatism, will not leave Protestants and Jews eventually untouched. In fact, for several years Brazilian “conservative” Catholic writers have called Protestants “heretic.” “Heretics” were the main victims of the Inquisition.
A real Christian revival produces passion for Christ and repentance. In Brazil, the Catholic right-wing “revival” is producing passion for the Inquisition and no repentance. It is one of the most bizarre trends among Brazilian Catholics.
Christian conservatism and the Inquisition advocacy is a huge contradiction. Even so, Castro said as an excuse, “For this, we have to go through the thorny task of revealing that Islamic theology is based on domination, not spontaneous conversion.”
Yes, Islam is based on domination and forced conversion. But the medieval Catholicism, praised by Castro, was equally based on domination and forced conversion. Or you were Catholic or against Catholicism. Only Catholics were protected. Jews and non-Catholic Christians were in everlasting danger of falling prey to the Inquisition.
Just as in the case of abortion, when conservatives consider the plight of victims; just as in the case of communism, when conservatives consider the plight of victims, the case of the Inquisition deserves the same treatment: the Jewish and Protestant victims in their plight, not their oppressor, deserve attention and defense. To choose the Inquisition is akin to choose communist killers and baby killers (abortion physicians) instead of their victims.
To use the conservative movement as a platform to sanitize the Inquisition is a disservice to conservatism and Christianity. To say that the Inquisition has been “demonized” is to make this killing machine a victim, when the actual victims were Jews and Protestants.
To use the conservative movement as a platform to promote the revisionism of the Inquisition, as Catholic right-wingers in Brazil are doing frequently, will eventually destroy any conservative hope for Catholics in Brazil.
To use the pro-life movement as a platform to advocate the revisionism of the Inquisition, as Catholic right-wingers in Brazil are doing frequently, will eventually harm the pro-life cause among Catholics in Brazil.
To use Trump’s demonization as an example of how the Inquisition is “demonized” only shows that the Brazilian “conservative” Catholic movement is sick or even under demonic possession.
Only Christ can heal spiritual diseases and expel demons.
Only a true Christian revival can deliver Catholics from the fake Catholic “revival” that is sanitizing the Inquisition.
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1 comment :

Anonymous said...

Here is a good website exposing the claims of the Roman Catholic Church:

https://rationalchristiandiscernment.blogspot.com/