The Inquisition revealed

by Thomas Timpson

Pius IX., the present pope, although regarded by many as far surpassing in benevolence almost every former pontiff, has been a zealous supporter of that tribunal. Hence, “A Narrative of the Iniquities and Barbarities practised at Rome in the Nineteenth Century, by Raffaelle Civeci, formerly a Cistercian monk,” published in 1847, declares, “in Rome the Inquisition avowedly exists. In other parts of Italy it has changed its name, but not its character; for a government, in a degree not less galling, tyrannises over the consciences of men. Dominicans have given place to commissioners and inspectors, without renouncing their right to search out the secrets of all hearts, under the veil of a supposed sacrament, satisfied to find victims on whom to place their iron grasp. Whoever affirms that the bloody persecutions of the Vatican have ceased, asserts a falsehood.”

Salvatore Ferretti, a native of Tuscany, but who has been several years in London, editor of L’Eco di Savonarola, appeals,—“Has Pius IX. even abolished the infamous tribunal of the Inquisition at Rome? the following will answer this in the negative. ‘Deceived by the display of benignity and mercy upon the part of the new pontiff,’ says L’Indicatore, ‘we spoke, in the seventeenth number of our journal, 1846, of the unfortunate Archbishop Cashiur, who for twenty-one years has been confined in the dungeons of the Inquisition at Rome, guilty of no other crime than having proved the infallibility of a pope to be fallible. We hoped, if not for his entire liberation, at least for some indulgence towards the unhappy man, from the high clemency of Pius IX.’ Instead of this, our correspondent informs us that poor Cashiur is, by order of Pius IX., more severely treated than ever. The few concessions which had been made to him by Pope Gregory, have been taken from him by Pius IX. The pretext is, that the archbishop had had a dispute with brother Pius, a monk of the order of St. Dominick, and gaoler of the Inquisition; but the true motive, says our correspondent, is, ‘that it is wished to conceal from the whole world the existence of the infamous tribunal; and the sight of Cashiur, although disguised, taking his walks accompanied by his keeper, would indicate the existence of the Inquisition.’ O Rome, when wilt thou dare to raze from its foundations this infernal edifice? The sole remnant of the barbarism of the middle ages still exists within thy walls, and thou wilt call thyself civilised!

“What is consoling is the fact that Italy will not be slow to invoke the benefit of a religious reformation. There is only a Luther wanting to raise the first cry of alarm. It cannot be doubted that the papal religion in Italy is maintained only by the tortures of the Inquisition and the bayonets of Austria!”

Raffaelle Civeci gives the following statement regarding the way in which the inquisitor-general at Rome destroyed certain monks who, having found a Bible in the library, were desirous of introducing its study into their monastery. “The general, in order to crush the design, deemed it expedient to put in practice the celebrated maxim, divide et impera. The monk Stramucci was sent to the monastery of San Sevetinonelle Marche, where, owing to the insalubrity of the situation, or some other cause, he was, from a robust man, reduced to a skeleton. D. Andrea Gigli, curate in the monastery of Chiaravalle, was called to Rome. He was then in the enjoyment of excellent health, but in a short time his appearance was strangely altered, and after gradually sinking for two months, he was one morning found in bed a corpse. We were in the same college, and I was an eye-witness to the fact. D. Eugenio Gabrielli, who was in the flower of his youth, was, in the same manner, gradually declining for six months, and then, like the former one, died of what was called consumption. The Abbot Bucciarelli, a man of herculean stature, slept with his fathers after an illness of only three days. The Abbot Berti was, after two months, attacked by a slow fever, and expired after ten days’ illness. D. A. Baldini, at the expiration of thirty-four days, was seized with violent spasms and inflammations, and went to rejoin, in heaven, those martyrs who had preceded him. The other six, through a special interposition of Providence, escaped death; but all had to sustain, for many months, a dangerous struggle with this last enemy. Only D. Alberico and myself remained untouched by this mysterious agency, but we lived in daily expectation of sharing the same fate!”

Poison is known to have been administered, by the agents of the papal court, to obnoxious individuals; and these unhappy monks appear to have been carried off by that shocking means. Various forms of murder were practised also within the dungeons of the Inquisition, as it was commonly apprehended at Rome.

Dr. Achilli, for many years “Deputy Master of the Sacred Palace,” and himself a victim of that court at Rome, in a recent work, entitled, “Dealings with the Inquisition,” testifies to the continued enormities of that horrid tribunal. He says, “This disgrace to humanity, whose entire history is a mass of atrocious crimes, committed by the priests of the church of Rome, in the name of God and of His Christ, whose vicar and representative the Pope, the head of the Inquisition, declares himself to be—this abominable institution is still in existence, in Rome and the Roman states. The Inquisition existed in full vigour during the whole period of the pontificate of Pope Gregory. Pius IX. put on a show of liberality; but this pope, believed so liberal by many, was always secretly combined with the Jesuits and the Inquisition.”

Many were the victims of that atrocious court, sacrificed with fiendish cruelty in the secret dungeons of the Holy Office. Appalling proofs of this were discovered on the opening of the Inquisition, on the flight of the pope, in February, 1848. The celebrated Father Prout, a Roman Catholic priest, present on the occasion, in a letter to the London Daily News, therefore, describes the scenes that were witnessed by the citizens, at the opening of the dungeons of the Inquisition. “In one part,” he states, “you see a quadrangular court, surrounded by strongly barred dungeons; in another, a courtyard, along which extends a triple row of cages, resembling the port-holes of a three-decker; in another, skeletons in recesses; in another, a vault full of skulls, and piles of scattered human remains, directly under a perpendicular shaft four feet square, which ascended perpendicularly to the floor of the building above, and was covered there with a trap-door; and in another, two large subterranean lime-kilns, if they may be so called, shaped like a bee-hive, in masonry, filled with layers of calcined bones, forming the substratum of two other chambers on the ground floor, in the immediate vicinity of the very mysterious shaft above-mentioned. These horrible sights may be seen by every one in Rome. To-morrow,” says Father Prout, “the whole population of Rome is publicly invited by the authorities to come and see, with their own eyes, one of the results of entrusting power to clerical hands.”

Father Prout is believed also to have written the following paper, which was published, as a “Memorial regarding the tribunal of the Holy Office, at the time of its suppression in February, 1849:”—

“In consequence of a decree of the Roman Constituent Assembly, by which the suppression of the tribunal of the ‘Holy Office’ was resolved, the government ordered that the fathers of the Dominican order, then inhabiting that vast locality, should remove to the convent called ‘Della Minerva,’ the chief seat of their order. They were in number eight, exercising the functions of commissary, chancellor, &c. The doors were then carefully sealed by the Roman notary Caggiotti, to prevent the abstraction of any object, and a keeper was appointed to the premises. These precautions taken, the inventory was commenced. The first place visited was the ground-floor of the edifice, where were the prisons, and the stables, coach-houses, kitchens, cellars, and other conveniences for the use of the assessor and the father inquisitors. This part of the building was to be immediately prepared for the reception of the civic artillery, with the train belonging to it.

“Some new doors were opened in the wall, and part of the pavement raised; in this operation, human bones were found, and a trap-door discovered, which induced a resolution to make excavations in certain spots pointed out by persons well acquainted with the locality. Digging very deep in a place, a great number of human skeletons were found, some of them placed so close together, and so amalgamated with lime, that no bone could be moved without being broken. In the roof of another subterranean chamber a large ring was found fixed. It is supposed to have been used in administering the torture. It still remains there. Along the whole length of this same room, stone steps, rather broad, were attached to the wall—these, probably, served for the prisoners to sit or recline on. In a third under-ground room was found a quantity of very black and rich earth, intermingled with human hair, of such a length that it seemed women’s rather than men’s hair; here, also, human bones were found. In this dungeon a trap-door was formed in the thickness of the wall, which opened into a passage in the flat above, leading to the rooms where examinations were conducted. Among the inscriptions made with charcoal on the wall, it was observed that many appeared of a very recent date, expressing in most affecting terms the sufferings of every kind endured in these chambers. The person of most note found in the prison of the Inquisition was a bishop named Kasher, who had been in confinement for upwards of twenty years. He related that he had arrived in Rome from the Holy Land, having in his possession papers which had belonged to an ecclesiastic there. Passing himself for that person, he succeeded in surprising the court of Rome into ordaining and consecrating him a bishop. The fraud was afterwards discovered, and Kasher, being then on his way to Palestine, was arrested and brought to the prison of the Holy Office, where he expected to have ended his days—less, as he expressed himself, to expiate his own fraud, than the gross blunder of the church of Rome, which had no other means of concealing his character of bishop, its own absolute laws preventing his being deprived of it.