The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

296 THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS.encouraged the sufferers to flee to Rome, where theyfound an asylum, and where he took the fugitivesunder his protection. In two years he received fourhundred and fifty refugees from Spain. Did thePontiff send them back, or did he inflict vengeanceon them at home ? Far from it ;they were restoredto all the rights of citizens. How can we imaginethat the Pope would encourage in Spain the legalized murder of men whom he protected from violence in his own city, where he might have crushedthem with impunity? I can find no authenticatedinstance of any Pope putting to death, in his owndominions, a single individual for his religious belief.Moreover, sometimes the Pope, when he couldnot reach the victims, censured and excommunicatedthe Inquisitor, and protected the children of thosewhose property was confiscated to the crown.After a struggle, he succeeded in preventing theSpanish government from establishing its Inquisition in Naples or Milan, which then belonged toSpain, so great was his abhorrence of its cruelties.To sum up: I have endeavored to show thatthe Church disavows all responsibilityfor theexcesses of the Spanish Inquisition, because oppression forms no part of her creed ;that these atrocitieshave been grossly exaggerated that the;Inquisitionwas a political tribunal ;that Catholic Prelateswere amenable to its sentence as well as Moorsand Jews, and that the Popes denounced andlabored hard to abolish itssanguinary features.