condone it?...they planned , hosted and implemented it!

Are you kidding me? The Spanish Inquisition was a Catholic faith-based initiative

Does the NFL condone the Super Bowl?

By Catholics and for Catholics. You were safe if you weren't a Catholic.

Did Tomás de Torquemada go to Sunday school? ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1s_de_Torquemada http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14783a.htm

A lot of what we "know" about the Inquisition is mistaken. In the first place, a lot of what we "know" is from Protestant screeds (I'm a Protestant and I believe this since Rodney Stark published "The Victory of Reason," compiling a lot of readily available historical information on the subject.) Secondly, Will Durant in his ten-volume History of Civilization said that Ferdinand needed an instrument to unify Spain and the Inquisition was it. So you have to subtract the political element from the religious when evaluating it.

Yes I am afraid it is part of the dark history Torquemada started out as just a priest and because of his enthusiasm ended up the Chief Inquisitor.

They did. I generally respect the Catholic Church as it is today, but the Inquisition was an ugly time and a low point in church history. Even educated people were dead ignorant compared to educated people today. We have so many "ways to know" today that were unthought of even a couple of centuries ago. (Those who do not seek education today, or who approach education with narrow minds, are still ignorant.) The Catholic churchmen felt threatened by those who believed differently, and they used the threat of damnation - in which they themselves believed - as a prodigious source of influence. NOTE that the Church itself did not carry out the tortures and executions. It held the trials and then handed the "guilty" over to the civil authorities, who got right down to the bad stuff. The Church has often been embattled, both politically and under actual military threat. It was split by a schism that persists (peacefully now) to this day. There were competing popes - four at once, I believe, at one time. Was it going to make great judgments under circumstances like this. No. I was brought up Catholic, am not a practicing Catholic, know quite a lot about church history bad and good, but bear no hostility to the present-day church. Its historical record is no worse, and only some of the time better, than that of any other powerful authority at the same time in history. In barbarous times the Church - and kings, and other religions - did some barbarous things. The Puritans in England don't look great. The Muslims in expansionist times don't look great. Religious words in human mouths can get pretty distorted. Note: I am not defending the Spanish Inquisition. It was horrific. Realize, however, that it was a product of its time and perpetrated by humans - always a fearful and unpredictable lot.

It was set up by the Catholic Church, but bear in mind that the Inquisition, surprisingly enough, was sometimes a moderating influence, not always a malicious one. And it still exists today btw.

well, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition, LOL!