A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

Under the Restoration greater attention seems to have been paid to episcopal concurrence and the adherence to strict formalities is shown in a duplicate trial of Juan Antonio Manzano, a physician of Lumbrales in the diocese of Ciudad-Rodrigo and inquisitorial district of Llerena. In 1817 he was tried for heretical propositions by the tribunal of Logroño, which inquired of the Suprema whether the Ordinary of its own diocese could act and was told that the authority of the culprit’s own bishop was imperative and that the Bishop of Ciudad-Rodrigo must appoint a representative. The next year Manzano was again arrested, for the same offence, by the tribunal of Llerena and was transferred to Seville because Llerena had no prison. April 17, 1819, the Seville tribunal asked whether its own Ordinary could join in the sentence and received the same answer—that it must apply to the Bishop of Ciudad-Rodrigo to make an appointment.[60] It was all the merest technicality, for by this time the Suprema decided all cases, irrespective of how the consulta de fe might vote and thus the incontestable episcopal jurisdiction over heresy was practically abolished.

As regards the internal forum, or forum of conscience, the Inquisition claimed and enjoyed a still more absolute jurisdiction than in the external forum for which it had been primarily instituted. While in a formal and perfunctory manner it recognized the episcopal claims in the judicial forum, it so employed its delegated papal authority as to vindicate with the utmost jealousy exclusive control over the forum of conscience in matters of heresy. Bishops, in fact, had long before been ousted from this by the invention of papal reserved cases—cases in which sacramental absolution could only be had from the Holy See, thus creating a profitable market for its indulgences, confessional letters and the absolutions of its Penitentiary. Heresy was the chief sin anathematized in the early form of the bull, subsequently known as in Cœna Domini, from its annual publication on Holy Thursday and, in 1364, Urban V placed all the offences enumerated in it under the jurisdiction of the papal chamberlain.[61] The papacy thus assumed exclusive control over the sin of heresy, for which no absolution could be granted save by papal delegation, and Paul II, in 1469, and Sixtus IV, in 1478, issued further decrees to the effect that special licence was necessary for this, as no general commissions were held to cover it.[62] The Council of Trent, in 1563, timidly endeavored to revendicate a fraction of episcopal rights by asserting that bishops, in the forum of conscience only, could personally absolve for secret or occult heresy, but the Roman Inquisition, by repeated decisions based on the utterances of St. Pius V and Gregory XIII, overrode the conciliar decree and deprived them of that slender remnant of their functions.[63]

This strict reservation of the sin of heresy was imperfectly understood in Spain and so little was known of the laws of persecution that at first the New Christians, who apprehended arrest, endeavored to escape by sacramental confession and absolution, ignorant that already in the thirteenth century it had been decided that the pardon of the sin, in the forum of conscience, did not cover the crime in the judicial forum. This method of evasion could not be allowed and yet the Inquisition was uncertain how to act. A brief was therefore procured, November 10, 1487, from Innocent VIII, addressed to all the inquisitors and Ordinaries in Spain, reciting their doubts about proceeding against those who assert that they have secretly confessed and abjured to their confessors. To overcome this it was asserted that the decrees of the fathers required such abjurations to be accompanied by an oath, taken before an Ordinary, in presence of a notary and witnesses, never to return to the abjured heresy, wherefore the inquisitors were empowered to proceed against all who had not observed this rule.[64] If such a rule had ever existed, which is doubtful, it had long been forgotten and was wholly unknown in Spain, so that all who had had recourse to this device were brought under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.

OCCULT HERESY

The New Christians were not long in realizing the futility of such attempts and we hear little of them in the later periods. Yet there were cases of occult heresy concerning which the functions of the Inquisition seem to have varied. In the earlier times the Edicts of Grace brought these to the tribunals and the Instructions of 1484 permit the inquisitor to admit them to secret reconciliation and abjuration and do not contemplate his delegating his power to another.[65] There must have been doubts as to his faculties for this, since, in 1530, Clement VII delegated powers to inquisitors to absolve and reconcile for occult heresy, with the imposition of appropriate penance.[66] This evidently contemplates his administering sacramental absolution and yet not long afterwards he was told that he was judge in the external and not in the internal forum and that it was not his business to hear sacramental confessions.[67] In fact, the inquisitor was by no means necessarily in priests’ orders and, when acting in his judicial capacity, sentencing a culprit and hearing his abjuration, he simply granted licence to any approved confessor to absolve him from excommunication and to impose salutary penance.[68]

There was, however, a class of cases, by no means infrequent, demanding sacramental rather than judicial ministration, which gave rise to some debate before their treatment was settled. These consisted of good Christians, who were assailed by secret doubts or indulged in erroneous speculations and who brought their spiritual troubles to the confessional. Over these, priest and bishop had been deprived of jurisdiction, and to make sure of this there was a clause in the annual Edict of Faith prohibiting confessors from granting absolution in any case touching the Inquisition and ordering the penitent to be sent to the tribunal.[69] If he refused to go, the only alternative was for the confessor to obtain from the inquisitor a licence to absolve him, for the confession was covered by the seal and prosecution was out of the question, but as to this, even in the middle of the sixteenth century, there were doubts. Bishop Simancas says that the power of the inquisitor to grant licences is doubtful and he can only suggest reference of each case to the Suprema.[70] A body of practice, of uncertain date, asserts that when a confessor reports that a penitent has confessed heresies and asks for a licence to absolve him, it cannot be given. He must be ordered to induce the penitent to come to the tribunal; in case of necessity, or of persons in high station, the inquisitor may go with a notary to receive the confession, which is examined in the tribunal and the consequent absolution or abjuration is performed in secret. In the case of nuns, who could not be induced to discharge their consciences before a commissioner and a notary, there was a concession that the confessor might reduce the confession to writing and send it to the tribunal which would consult the Suprema, and frailes were to be compelled to seek the tribunal, where they were treated as espontaneados, or spontaneous self-denouncers and were absolved or reconciled secretly with spiritual penances.[71]

The indisposition to license confessors to absolve for heresy in the forum of conscience is easily explicable. By compelling the penitent to come to the tribunal, a record was made for use in case of relapse; if he had accomplices he could be forced to reveal them and their prosecution followed, and there was an opportunity of inflicting pecuniary penances, although confiscation was waived in such cases.[72] These same reasons operated in a contrary sense with the penitent, besides the horror which all men felt as to falling into the hands of the Inquisition. When he was obstinate, the tribunal was powerless, for the seal of confession shielded his identity; it finally yielded the point and no longer pretended that licenses could not be given to confessors. In 1562 a case was referred to the Suprema of a person who had confessed sacramentally to certain heresies, without having been taught them by any one, when the inquisitor-general empowered the inquisitors to absolve him in such way as they thought best and they empowered the confessor.[73] Finally it became the rule that the confessor sought to induce the penitent to apply to the Inquisition; if he resolutely refused the confessor applied for a faculty, which was granted or not, according to the temper of the tribunal.[74]

OCCULT HERESY

A case in 1754 shows the Inquisition in a favorable light and has interest also as illustrating the tortures of a soul which rejects belief and yet holds belief to be essential to salvation. Fray Thomas de Sos reported to the Toledo tribunal that, while on a mission at Ajofrin, a penitent had asked him to obtain a commission to absolve her for heresies internal and external, which yet were occult, as she had never expressed them except to her aunt. She said that, on a previous occasion, a confessor had done this for her and she wished to avoid the disgrace of personal appearance before the Inquisition. He was ordered to ascertain all details and reported that the penitent was a poor woman named María Lara, living with an aunt aged eighty. Her heresies were only of a few months’ standing, occasioned by intense grief at the ingratitude of one whom she had benefited; she disbelieved in the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Law of God, the Virgin, hell and the devil and at the same time felt herself lost beyond the hope of salvation. She could not say how much of this she had uttered to herself or before her aunt and the importance attached to this point indicates the weight attributed to the distinction between internal and external heresy. The aunt was examined, the cura of Ajofrin was called in, the registers were searched and finally, after six weeks had been consumed, a commission was issued which the good fraile, eager to heal a despairing soul, at an hour’s notice bore to Ajofrin and absolved her.[75]

These cases gave the Inquisition considerable concern and, in 1772, the Suprema called upon all the tribunals to report what was their practice. After carefully weighing their answers, it issued, November 9, 1772, instructions that, when a confessor reported such a case, he was to be ordered to use every effort to induce the penitent to denounce himself, assuring him of merciful treatment and showing him that he would thus be saved in case of denunciation by others. He could make this denunciation to the tribunal or to a commissioner, or could even authorize the confessor to denounce him, giving all details under oath. If, however, the penitent obstinately refused, then the confessor could absolve him, explaining that it was only in the forum of conscience.[76] If we may believe Lorenzo Villanueva, however, this liberal concession was by no means put in practice, at least by all tribunals.[77]