That reconciliation to the Church, which was represented as a loving mother, eager to welcome back to her bosom her erring children, should be regarded as a punishment, seems a contradiction in terms, yet so it was, and the Suprema did not hesitate to speak of those “who had been condemned to reconciliation.”[403] It would not be easy to invent a more emphatic illustration of the perversion of the spirit of religion by persecuting fanaticism.
The apostate or the heretic, who had abandoned the Church after admission through the waters of baptism, could only be reincorporated by abjuring his errors and applying for reconciliation. In the case of Conversos, who secretly adhered to the Mosaic or Mahometan law, there could be no question as to this, nor was there with such heretics as Protestants. To what extent other errors might constitute formal heresy requiring reconciliation, or might infer suspicion of heresy, light or vehement, was a problem for the calificadores, and sometimes was an intricate one, for the gradations of theological error are infinite and subtile.
RECONCILIATION
In the tumultuous proceedings of the early period when, under Edicts of Grace, penitents came forward by the thousand, confessing their errors and begging for reconciliation, the ceremony was naturally simple. Under the Instructions of 1484, the form described by Joan Andrea was to be used: the inquisitors declared that the penitent had been an apostate heretic, who had followed the rites and ceremonies of the Jews and had incurred the penalties of the law but, as he now says that he has been converted and desires to return to the faith, with a pure heart and faith unfeigned, and is ready to accept and perform the penances to be imposed, they must absolve him from the excommunication incurred through the said crime and must reconcile him to Holy Mother Church, if, as he says, he is converted to the holy faith truly and without fiction.[404]
No mention is made here of any subsequent ceremonies, although at least abjuration must probably have followed. When procedure was less hurried and there had been time for its elaboration, the process became impressive. The sentence recited that the penitent was admitted to reconciliation; that as penance he was to appear in an auto de fe, without girdle or cap, in a penitential habit of yellow cloth, with two red aspas or bands forming a St. Andrew’s cross, and a candle in his hand when, after his sentence is read, he should publicly abjure the errors confessed and all other errors and apostasy, after which “we order him to be absolved and we absolve him from any excommunication which he has incurred and we unite and reincorporate him in the bosom and union of the Holy Mother Catholic Church, and we restore him to participation in the holy sacraments and communion of the faithful”—to which was appended a recital of the various punishments to which he was condemned. After the auto de fe was ended, the abjuration was administered. This was similar to the abjuration de vehementi already given and in it he consented, in case of relapse, to submit to the penalties of the canons. On the conclusion of this, he was formally absolved and the next day his abjuration was read over to him, with a warning that in case of relapse he would be burnt.[405]
As described in an account of the Madrid auto de fe of 1632, this ceremony was imposing. The penitents to be reconciled were brought before the inquisitor-general who was presiding. While they kneeled before him he read a short catechism, comprising the creed with some additions, to each question of which they answered “Yes, I believe.” Then the secretary recited the abjuration, in which they followed him. The inquisitor-general then pronounced the exorcism and the customary prayers and the royal chapel chanted the Miserere, during which the chaplains of the Inquisition struck the penitents with rods on the shoulders. After this the inquisitor-general recited the customary verses and prayers and the royal chapel sang a hymn, while the black cloth was removed from the cross, which had been covered as a sign of mourning, and the inquisitor-general concluded the solemnities with a hymn.[406]
Superficially, there is nothing formidable in this reception of a wandering sheep back into the fold, but the serious aspect of reconciliation, justifying its characterization as a punishment, lay in the penalties which were virtually inseparable from it, and were customarily included in the sentence—imprisonment, sanbenito, confiscation and disabilities, with occasionally scourging and the galleys, some of which we have already considered while others will be treated hereafter. There was further the fact that the canons pardoned the heretic but once. If, after reconciliation, he was guilty of reincidence, there was no mercy for him on earth, although the Church in its kindness, would not close the portals of heaven on him and, if truly contrite, would admit him to the sacraments, although it would not spare him the stake.[407] The crucial question of relapse, however, will be considered in the next chapter and meanwhile it should be said that the Spanish Inquisition did not always enforce this cruel precept. In the later period second reconciliations were by no means infrequent, and, even in the earlier time, men sometimes shrank from the holocausts which the strict enforcement of the rule would have caused amid a population terrorized into suddenly forswearing their ancestral faith. In Majorca, under the Edict of Grace, there were three hundred and thirty-eight reconciliations, August 18, 1488, followed by ninety-six on March 26, 1490. Soon after this an Edict of Mercy was published, under which there were reconciled a second time no less than two hundred and eighty-eight of the previous penitents. One of these, Antonia, wife of Ferrer Pratz was even reconciled a third time, June 28, 1509. Scattering cases of second reconciliations can also be found elsewhere.[408]
RECONCILIATION
There was a rule that the reconciled were not to be subjected to scourging or the galleys, even though they might have deserved them by varying and revoking confessions, but I cannot find that this was observed for, in both the earlier and later periods, cases as we have seen were numerous in which reconciliation was accompanied with these corporal punishments.[409] On the other hand, although the principle was absolute that reconciliation carried with it confiscation and perpetual prison, cases sometimes occur in which these penalties were lightened. In the Toledo auto of November 30, 1651, there were nine reconciliations, in which the accompanying punishments were mostly trivial—in one case the sanbenito was removed immediately on return to the Inquisition.[410]