Jerusalem Report: Torturing the Truth

Jerusalem Report, The: Torturing the Truth
In the autumn of 1654, exactly 350 years ago, a group of Jews fleeing the terror of the Inquisition - in its Portuguese-Brazilian incarnation - landed in New Amsterdam and built the first Jewish community in North America. These refugees from one of the most vicious onslaughts of religious extremism the world has ever seen were among the lucky ones. Jews who remained in Brazil had to go underground. If discovered, as many were, they faced deportation to Portugal and execution.

The Inquisition - the Catholic Church's medieval anti-heresy machine - left many tens of thousands, if not millions, of Jews, Protestants and Muslims, as well as deviant Catholics, dead in Europe and the New World between the 13th and 19th centuries, imprisoning and torturing many more. What's more the campaign to ensure Catholic purity was the forerunner of much of today's religious intolerance.

Amazingly, the Vatican now wants to rewrite history. Just in case we thought the world was suffering from a shortage of religious hatred, of competing interpretations of history, and of killing in the name of God, a recent Church report claims the Inquisition was not a very big deal. According to the 783-page document, the Church's work resulted in just a few thousand deaths, due to "procedures applied with excessive vigor," what the pope has called, by way of apology, "errors committed in the service of the truth."

This revisionism - analysis made with one eye closed and the other darting in search of excuses - attempts to whitewash what is one of the most lasting and destructive effects of an orchestrated campaign of mass religious persecution that opened the gates to hatred that some historians say reached its grotesque climax during World War II.

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The Church, which under Pope John Paul II has made commendable strides to mend fences with the Jews and has apologized for some of its misdeeds, has taken a giant step back - at precisely the wrong moment in history. Relations between the Vatican and Israel and the Jews carry the burden of 2,000 years of mistrust and bloodshed. A decade ago, Israel and the Holy See established diplomatic ties, and in 2000 Pope John Paul II made a historic visit to Israel. But the links remain tense and troubled. An official report minimizing the Inquisition only gives fodder to Jews who doubt the sincerity of the Vatican's efforts.

The editor of the report, Prof. Agostino Borromeo, says only 1.8 percent of the 125,000 people tried by the Spanish Inquisition were executed, and that number, fewer than 2,500 people, does not justify the awful image that has made the Inquisition synonymous with the worst of the Dark Ages. The number itself is highly suspect. British historian Cecil Roth calculated that some 30,000 "secret Jews" died at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition alone. That doesn't include the executed Muslims and Protestants and the many Catholics burnt at the stake on patently absurd charges. In "A History of the Spanish Inquisition," the 19th-century Spanish historian Juan Antonio Llorente said Church authorities in Spain put 31,912 on the pyre, and that millions more were killed in other parts of Europe. And just in case the numerical manipulations leave you unconvinced, the Vatican blames secular institutions for most of the abuses, conveniently ignoring that it was the Church that handed over the accused for interrogations of mythical horror.

Even for those Jews, Muslims and Protestants who surrendered their religion the terror continued. Many who converted endured mistrust and abuse under a regime that put science in the service of torture, devising some of the pain-inducing machines that became the hallmark of their age. By the end of the 15th century, Dominican prior Tomas de Torquemada, one of the apostles of anti-Semitism, persuaded the king and queen of Spain to expel all the Jews from the kingdom. Portugal soon followed suit. At least 100,000 were forced from their homes, thrown out to wander in search of a land that would allow them a new beginning.

For many, the welcome came in Muslim countries. For others it meant America, as it did for the small group of Jews 350 years ago.

Not only does the Vatican report fly in the face of historical evidence when it tells us that "only" a few thousand died, it doesn't tell us about the millions who lived in fear or about the untold thousands who spent decades in dungeons. And it ignores the centuries of prejudice it engendered. At a time when religious extremism in the Middle East has started spreading to the rest of the world, the Vatican's decision to minimize the Church's role in creating the monster of intolerance is beyond baffling.

It's inexcusable.