The Inquisition revealed

by Thomas Timpson

“5. That the ecclesiastical nuncios at foreign courts are in constant correspondence with the Holy Office, and from possessing means of procuring intelligence quite peculiar to themselves, keep the court of Rome informed of the most hidden political secrets.”

Enormous as the abominations are which are thus testified concerning the Inquisition, they are only identical with what are recorded in the former part of this work; and this testimony is confirmed by the following paragraph in a letter from a friend at Rome, April 3, 1849, addressed to the Rev. E. Bickersteth:—

“The day before yesterday, the palace of the Inquisition was opened to the public. People crowded to see that horrible place, where so many good Christians have been tormented, under the pretext of being heretics. There were then seen the horrid dungeons where the victims of the papacy have been incarcerated.

“It seems that the inquisitors, in hopes of an intervention to bring back the Pope and cardinals to Rome, did not take sufficient care to remove certain objects which might betray their cruelty to the people. There were then to be seen in the lower dungeons, which are the worst, the squalid remains of the dresses, not only of men, but of women and children. On the walls are to be read expressions of grief written with charcoal, and some with blood. A trap-door was to be seen, and a burial with human bones. But a subterranean cave occasioned special horror, covered with remains of bones and earth mixed, including human skulls and skeletons of different forms and sizes, indicating persons of different ages. The only things which have not been found, with the exception of some things which might have been used for the purpose, are the instruments of torture, which were used to make the guilty confess. It seems that these they have been careful enough to destroy, if indeed they may not be found walled up in some corner; and for this end the government have determined to have the walls broken into, to discover what may be hid there. All who have seen those remains of clothing and bones, feel justly indignant at the inhumanity of those assassins, who, under the cloak of religious zeal, permitted every kind of cruelty. Would that those who wish to excuse that hellish tribunal, and who do not believe what others say to be truth, would come and see them with their own eyes. I wish that the friends and defenders of popery in England would come and touch these things with their own hands, and then tell me of what papal ministers are not capable, when they have the heart to perpetrate such barbarities. I shall urge the government to leave this place in statu quo for some time, so that my friends among the English may verify, with their own eyes, all that they hear said concerning this ‘Palace of the Inquisition.’”

Dr. Achilli and the Inquisition at Rome.—Popish policy by the Inquisition, at the present time, may be seen strikingly illustrated in the case of Dr. Achilli. His instructive volume records, according to its title, his “Dealings with the Inquisition.” He was born at Viterbo, in Italy, in 1803, and took the Dominican habit at the age of sixteen. In the year 1821 he was ordained a priest, and in 1826 appointed professor of various sciences in the Seminary and Bishops’ College at Viterbo. He filled the chair of Theology in the college of the Dominicans till 1833, when he was elected Regent of Studies, and Primary Professor in the College of Minerva, at Rome. He was then appointed Visitor, in the Roman States and in Tuscany, of the convents of the Dominicans, among whom he continued till 1839, when, disgusted with his order of monks, he left it by permission of Pope Gregory XVI., and preached four years at Naples. He returned in 1841 to Rome, where he was imprisoned for a hundred days in the Inquisition. From this he was liberated, in July, 1842, on renouncing, for perpetuity, all his honours and privileges; and the Holy Office decreed his dismissal from all branches of the ecclesiastical ministry. In October he left Italy and became a British subject, being employed as a professor of theology in the Malta Protestant College, especially for the training of young men, converts from Rome, for the evangelical ministry in Italy. In 1848, he came to England; but the revolution in Rome, and the flight of the Pope, led him to return to that city, to advance the cause of Christ, by preaching and circulating the Scriptures. He left London, January 8th, 1849, and entered Rome, February 2nd; on the 5th the Constituent Assembly met, forming a republic. On the 24th of June, Dr. Achilli married the daughter of Captain Hely; and on the 3rd of July the French army took possession of Rome, after a siege of three months, restoring the government of the Pope, under a triumvirate of cardinals. The prisons of the Inquisition were immediately crowded with their victims. No less than sixty priests, who had ministered consolation to the wounded and dying patriots, were seized and imprisoned; and, by the authority of the cardinals, aided by six French soldiers, three officials of the Inquisition arrested Dr. Achilli at midnight, July the 29th, and immured him in their dungeons. But the great wall of the Holy Office having been destroyed in the siege, he was removed next day to the Castle of St. Angelo. His imprisonment was soon known, and the religious community in England was roused at the outrage, so that the Council of the Evangelical Alliance presented strong appeals to the British and French governments on his behalf, and sent two gentlemen as a deputation to Rome. They were not allowed to see him; but, on account of this excitement, he was treated with comparative mildness: yet, it seemed, that he was designed to be sacrificed on the return of the Pope. The French government, perceiving their national honour tarnished by this imprisonment, contrived his liberation; and, notwithstanding the vigilant hostility of the cardinals, he was requested to give evidence before a military commission, and brought out, by two French soldiers, under this pretence, and furnished with all the means of escape in a military dress, January 19, 1850!

Dr. Achilli’s imprisonment in the Inquisition, and his liberation by the contrivance of the French general, produced a powerful sensation throughout Europe. It led multitudes to contemplate, and even to execrate the Romish Inquisition, as ruinous to individuals, and hostile to the best interests of nations. And by the exhibition of the abominable character of that court, in the records of his book,—“Dealings with the Inquisition,”—Dr. Achilli has conferred a lasting obligation on the Christian public; while it cannot fail to excite the righteous indignation of all the followers of Christ against that tribunal, and against the whole system of popery!

Dr. Achilli’s testimony, therefore, regarding his own imprisonment and the state of the Inquisition will be necessary in this place. He says, “I was imprisoned in the Inquisition from July 29th, 1849, to January 19th, 1850. Every precaution was taken to render my confinement severe, and every means of escape provided against. And, as it was imagined that the prisons of the Inquisition were less secure than those of the Castle of St. Angelo, I was speedily removed to that fortress. In fact, every thing indicated a determination, on the part of the church of Rome, to keep me in perpetual incarceration.

“The story of my imprisonment presents a new feature in the annals of the Inquisition. Secure of their privilege, satisfied with the possession of their prey, which they were persuaded no earthly power could force them to surrender, they delayed my condemnation, partly because the tribunal was not yet entirely re-organised, owing to the absence of the Pope and the cardinals, and partly because—in consequence of the fact of my imprisonment being well known, and many persons of high consideration having declared themselves interested in my favour—they feared their designs might be frustrated, were it made public that I had received my final sentence. Their only course, therefore, was to condemn me to suffer in secret. The fact was, that I was detained captive, in order to grace the triumphal car of Pio Nono, on his return to Rome.

“The treatment experienced in this prison is certainly not so bad, in most cases, as it is in every other within the walls of Rome. The Castle of St. Angelo is chiefly set apart for prisoners of distinction. Cardinals and prelates who fall into disgrace with the Pope are confined in it. For this purpose there are a variety of apartments; in one of them are shown the iron rings that had the honour of securing the cord with which the celebrated Cardinals Caraffa, Coscia, and others, were hung. Pope Clement VII. was likewise a prisoner in this fortress, at the time of its occupation by the Imperial forces, which he himself had called into Rome. The records of this edifice, which, as everybody knows, was originally the mausoleum of the Emperor Adrian, would throw considerable light on the history of the papacy, and unfold many of the evil deeds of the popes. It has been the scene of the most unheard-of cruelties, as well as of the most shameless and revolting obscenities. The well-known orgies of Pope Alexander VI., which were celebrated partly in the gardens of the Vatican, and partly in the Castle of St. Angelo, have left a stain upon its walls which can never be effaced. Like the Pope’s bulls, it serves ‘ad perpetuam rei memoriam.’ In one of the halls are the notorious pictures by Julio Romano, of which it would be difficult to decide whether the artistical skill they display be more admirable, or the subjects they represent more grossly indecent and detestable. Colonel Calandrelli, one of the most valiant defenders of the republic, and a triumvirate after Mazzini—a gentleman equally learned in the history of his country, as he has shown himself brave in her service—has assured me that he has a work ready for publication, in which the whole history of this celebrated Castle is unfolded from authentic documents.”—Pp. 4, 25, 26, 465.

Cardinal Wiseman having attempted a vindication of the Inquisition, Dr. Achilli notices his jesuitical effort; and he asks, “What, then, is the Inquisition of the nineteenth century? The same system of intolerance which prevailed in the barbarous ages. That which raised the Crusade, and roused all Europe to arms at the voice of a monk [Bernard] and of a hermit [Peter]. That which—in the name of a God of peace, manifested on earth by Christ, who, through love for sinners, gave himself to be crucified—brought slaughter on the Albigenses; filled France with desolation, under Domenico di Gusman; raised in Spain the funeral pile and the scaffold, devastating the fair kingdoms of Granada and Castile, through the assistance of those detestable monks, Raimond de Pennefort, Peter Arbues, and Cardinal Torquemada. That which, to its eternal infamy, registers in the annals of France the fatal 24th of August, and the 5th of November in those of England. That same system which at this moment flourishes in Rome, which has never yet been either worn out or modified, and which, at this present time, in the jargon of the priests, is called, ‘The Holy, Roman, Universal, Apostolic Inquisition!’ Holy, as the place where Christ was crucified is holy; Apostolic, because Judas Iscariot was the first inquisitor; Roman and Universal, because from Rome it extends over all the world.