Inauguration of International Symposium on the Inquisition
VATICAN CITY, OCT 29, 1998 (VIS) - Cardinal Roger Etchegaray today in the Vatican opened the International Symposium on "The Inquisition," organized by the Theological-Historical Commission of the Central Committee of the Great Jubilee.
At the outset of his speech, Cardinal Etchegaray recalled that John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter "Tertio Millennio Adveniente" exhorts us to meditate on the past in the Church. "The spiritual itinerary of preparation for the Jubilee," said the Cardinal, "must undergo a deep and sincere reflection on the 'errors, instances of infidelity, inconsistency and slowness to act' for which, over the centuries, believers were responsible. It is only in this way that there will be a genuine purification of the memory in an act of repentance."
In his apostolic letter, the Pope writes of "a painful chapter: ... 'the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of the truth'." The Pope refers "mainly, although not exclusively, to that particular ecclesiastical tribunal, competent in judging heretical crimes, known as the Inquisition."
The objective of the symposium, added the president of the Central Committee of the Great Jubilee, is "to study the Inquisition as a whole": its history, organization, methods and procedures, "more than the general argument of the repression of heresy."
Cardinal Etchegaray said that this is the first time that medieval, modern and contemporary history experts have come together to study this ecclesiastical institution. It is also the first time that "scholars investigating the Roman inquisition can present their findings, which are probably still incomplete, after the official opening of the archives of the Congregation of the Holy Office."
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