The Dominican Inquisitor General, Tomas de Torquemada was a very great man in my opinion. He reformed the penal system of the offices of the inquisition, and acted as a defender of the faith. His name is often slandered due to Protestant polemics, but the Spanish chronicler Sebastián de Olmedo described him as "The hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the saviour of his country, the honour of his order".
Not a bad description.
In addition BEFORE his appointment, Pope Sixtus IV had described the Inquisition as follows:
"many true and faithful Christians, because of the testimony of enemies, rivals, slaves and other low people—and still less appropriate—without tests of any kind, have been locked up in secular prisons, tortured and condemned like relapsed heretics, deprived of their goods and properties, and given over to the secular arm to be executed, at great danger to their souls, giving a pernicious example and causing scandal to many."
However, despite his bad rap, according to sources on wikipedia, he was something actually an early reformer of the Holy Office's penal system:
" For his role in the Spanish Inquisition, Torquemada's name has become a byword for fanaticism in the service of the Catholic religion. However, Torquemada was something of an early penal reformer. He cleaned up the Inquisition's prisons and ordered that the prisoners be properly fed and clothed. In time the number of common criminals petitioning to have their cases transferred to the Inquisitional courts became an administrative burden."
In other words, he was so efficient at being fair and decent that common criminals would do things that were in direct violation of church law so they could get a fairer hearing in an Inquisitional court!
A fun story I like according to the Catholic Encyclopedia under "Tomas de Torquemada":
"The Marranos found a powerful means of evading the tribunals in the Jєωs of Spain, whose riches had made them very influential and over whom the Inquisition had no jurisdiction. On this account Torquemada urged the sovereigns to compel all the Jєωs either to become Christians or to leave Spain. To frustrate his designs the Jєωs agreed to pay the Spanish government 30,000 ducats if left unmolested. There is a tradition that when Ferdinand was about to yield to the enticing offer, Torquemada appeared before him, bearing a crucifix aloft, and exclaiming: "Judas Iscariot sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver; Your Highness is about to sell him for 30,000 ducats. Here He is; take Him and sell Him." Leaving the crucifix on the table he left the room. Chiefly through his instrumentality the Jєωs were expelled from Spain in 1492."
Who can doubt the zeal for souls, the devotion to Christ, and the true Christian Character of such a confrontation?
I say his cause for canonization should be examined as soon as it becomes possible to do so.
Topic: Should Tomas de Torquemada be canonized? (Read 3775 times)