The Inquisition; not just for Spaniards and Albigensian Cathars.
They even killed Italians. Did you know that the entire province of Venice, Italy was excommunicated in the Middle Ages? PBS has a new documentary on the grip Orthodoxy had
on citizens all over evolving Europe throughout the Holy Roman Empire. Over the top Fellas.
http://www.pbs.org/inquisition/
Especially delightful was the boiling in tar and oil in the Piazza Navona episode where a law student refused to denounce the corruption and found himself at the end of Friar's temper. Nice.
Then there was the official list of baned books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum
These included copies of the bible in the common language of Italian rather than official Latin -as all Liturgy was in Latin. Possessing or printing these could get you tortured quicker than shouting Al Queda in a crowded theatre. This list of banned books was not repealed until after Vatican II in 1966. I was 6 years old before it was legal for a Catholic to read a bible in English according to Canon law. Ask the next Friar lecturing you how old he was in 1966 or how old his Professors were in 1966.
Banning literature oppressively- it could cost you your life- or at least merited medieval torture (rack anyone? bed of nails?) was their way of protecting the soul from the critical literature that came from the Guttenburg Press invention which revolutionized printing making it affordable and accessible to anyone. Bibles didn't have to be painstakingsly copied by monks in monestaries- they could be mass produced. This is a bit like having a secret police monitor website traffic then track down everyone who clicks on an objectionable link and shooting them in the head while confiscating all their computers and software.
Thank God we have a separation of church and state in the US and the only thing we let burn in oil is popcorn. Even more charming is the cameo interview of the good Dominican Friar, current resident in Washington, DC at the Dominican House who labeled it all "a model" approach- or did they take that out of context. You watch it and you tell me.
Are we surprised there are such things as Lutherans? By the way- now women get to read from scripture at a Mass in the common language (non-latin) of English from an English Bible- then it would get you fried in boiling oil and the biggest bonfire of the vanities where all such texts went aflame in the public square to intimidate anyone from reading scripture for themselves so as to be completely dependent on what the hierarchy taught- making their interpretation the only valid one.
So what are you hanging on to doctrinally that 500 years from now will be completely horrifying to God's people. You probably know in your heart it is off its rocker now.---Because your heart is your heart for a reason.
http://www.inquisitionproductions.com/purchase.html
The torturing of heretics: The first step is labeling them criminals.
http://www.torturemuseum.com/content.html
http://www.corkscrew-balloon.com/balloon/99/siena/18pix2.html
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