THE BUILDER September 1917

THE INQUISITION
BY BRO. LEO FISCHER, MANILA P.I.

I. HISTORY

In its struggle against ignorance, superstition, and intolerance
Freemasonry encountered a most formidable opponent in an
institution that for six long centuries ruled a large portion of
the globe with a rod of iron, namely, the Inquisition. Wherever
the Catholic missionaries had carried the cross of Christ, there
the Inquisition implanted its system of tribunals and spies, its
practices of denunciation, torture, and spoliation, its autos da
fe and burning piles. The avowed aim of the Inquisition, that of
preserving the purity of the Roman Catholic religion and with
this end in view to ferret out, punish, and destroy all heretics
and other offenders against the faith was, of course, bound to
bring it into violent collision with Freemasonry, especially
after that institution had been condemned by the several papal
bulls fulminated against it.

We shall now proceed to give a brief history of the Holy Office,
as the Inquisition is also called, confining our attention
principally to Spain, the country where its reign was the longest
and bloodiest, after which we shall endeavor to give an idea of
the character and procedure and the results of the work of that
institution, and finally we shall deal with the persecutions
suffered at its hands by Freemasonry on the Spanish peninsula.

There is some dispute as to what should be considered the date of
origin of the Inquisition.

Heretics were persecuted and put to death long before the
Inquisition, as such, ever existed. History records the massacre
of the disciples of Vilgard in southern Italy in the 10th
century; the burning of thirteen Cathari at Orleans in the 11th,
and numerous executions of heretics in subsequent years; but
these killings were in most instances the result of mob violence
or of "justice" administered by secular magistrates and lords.

The first rules of inquisitorial procedure were laid down at the
councils of the Church at Verona (1183) and Toulouse (1229). At
the latter council, sixteen decrees relative to the investigation
and punishment of heresy were passed, and the bishops were
declared to be natural judges of the doctrine. Later, however,
the bishops were deemed to be too lenient in their attitude
towards offenders against the faith, and the Cistercian and then
the Dominican Orders were put in charge of the work of
persecuting heretics. Of this task the Dominicans acquitted
themselves with such zeal that their rigor and cruelty aroused
much resentment and hatred against the Inquisition. But no amount
of opposition could stop that institution now: the tiger had
tasted blood during the famous crusade against the Albigenses, in
southern France, where a century of the bloodiest and most cruel
persecution resulted in the suppression of the sect mentioned and
the destruction of the flourishing Provencal civilization; and
although the inquisitors were driven out of Toulouse in 1235 and
massacred at Avignonet in 1242, and suffered other temporary
checks and reverses, the Inquisition took a firm foothold in
Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, and other countries of Europe and
held nearly the entire Christian world under its bloody bondage
for six centuries.

In Spain the Inquisition was first established in 1233. At the
beginning it met with bitter opposition. The Spanish monarchs
exhibited tolerance towards the Jews and Mohammedans and thereby
incurred much criticism from Rome. However, the priests did not
remain idle, and massacres of Jews and Mohammedans, instigated by
them, began in the 13th century and continued throughout the 14th
and 15th. Finally, in 1480, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella
founded a National Inquisition for Spain, without the aid of the
Papacy. Inquisitorial tribunals were established throughout the
peninsula and the Spanish possessions in Italy, and a reign of
terror was initiated. The course of the Inquisition did not
always run smoothly and several inquisitors, among them the
merciless Pedro de Arbues, afterward canonized by the Church of
Rome, were slain.

In 1483 the Dominican father Thomas de Torquemada was, by papal
bull, appointed Inquisitor General of the Crown of Castile.
During the first six months of his term of office, over two
thousand Jews and Mohammedans who had embraced the Christian
religion under compulsion, but had relapsed, were burnt at the
stake; others, who had escaped in time, were burnt in effigy, and
some seventeen thousand persons suffered other severe punishments
for heresy.

According to a careful, conservative estimate by Llorente
(Histoire Critique de l'Inquisition d'Espagne, Paris, 1818, Vol.
I), during Torquemada's terrible rule, extending over eighteen
years, 10,220 persons were consigned to the flames; 6,860 were
burnt in effigy; 97,321 received sentences of imprisonment for
life, confiscation of property, disqualification from holding
public office, and other severe penalties, and 114,400 families
were irretrievably ruined. So hated was the arch fiend Torquemada
that on his travels he had to be guarded by a small army of
"familiars," 50 of them mounted and 200 on foot, and on his table
there always lay the horn of a rhinoceros ("unicorn," Llorente
has it), which was supposed to detect and counteract the
influence of poison.

The Grand Inquisitors-General were nearly all members of the
Dominican Order. Dominick de Guzman, the founder of this Order,
had organized during the persecution of the Albigenses in
southern France the so-called "Militia of Christ," a corps of
spies and denouncers of both sexes, recruited from all classes of
society, which later became known by the name of "familiars" of
the Inquisition.

From Spain and Portugal the Inquisition was carried to the
colonies and possessions of these two countries beyond the seas.
Revolts and uprisings against the reign of terror instituted by
it occurred in many places, but were suppressed with iron hand.
At times the Holy Office relaxed somewhat in its severity, but
periods of recrudescence generally followed. Spain and her
possessions were still a stronghold of the Inquisition after the
other countries had driven it out or reduced its power to
practically nothing. On December 4th, 1808, Napoleon suppressed
the Inquisition in Spain, but after the downfall of the great
Corsican it was re-established and held that unfortunate country
under its sway until 1820, when a general insurrection resulted
in its final overthrow.

Nothing was sacred to the Inquisition, nothing exempt from its
fury. Its thunderbolts did not spare age or innocence, and rank
and station were no protection against them. Even death was not
respected by it; the remains of many dead were disinterred and
publicly burnt on the charge that the deceased had been a
follower of the law of Moses or Mohammed or had been guilty of
other forms of heresy. Mere children were subjected to torture
and the children and often grandchildren of persons condemned by
the Holy Office were declared infamous, in addition to having
their inheritance confiscated. In one instance a son was
compelled to disinter the remains of his father and burn them
publicly.

The following is part of the decision pronounced by the
Inquisition of Mexico in 1609: "And the sons and daughters, if
any, of the said Jorge de Almeida are hereby disqualified from
serving in any public office, or occupying any public position of
honor or trust, whether in the secular or ecclesiastic branches
of the government; and they are also forbidden to wear about
their persons any ornament or jewel of gold or silver, or
precious stones, or coral, or to dress in silk or fine cloth, or
any other fine material of any kind." (Dr. Cyrus Adler, Trial of
Jorge de Almeida).

Heckethorn says that "the Inquisitors were the first to put women
to the torture; neither the weakness nor the modesty of the sex
had any influence on them. The Dominican friars would flog naked
women in the corridors of the Inquisition building, after having
first violated them, for some slight breach of discipline." (The
Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries, by Charles William
Heckethorn, London, 1875).

Puigblanch ("The Inquisition Unmasked," translation by William
Walton, London, 1818) cites the case of a noble lady, lately
delivered of her child, who was arrested in 1557 on the charge of
being a Lutheran, and to whom the tribunal of Seville
administered the rack "with so much rigor that the ropes fixed on
her arms, legs, and thighs entered as far as her bones, when she
remained senseless, casting up quantities of blood; and died at
the expiration of eight days, without any other attendance than a
young female who had also undergone the torture." The same writer
tells us that "in Seville . . . an inquisitor commanded a
beautiful young female, accused of practising Jewish rites, to be
scourged in his own presence; and, after committing lewdness with
her, delivered her over to the flames."

It must be remembered that these horrors were committed by virtue
of orders of torture beginning with the phrase "Christi nomine
invocato" !

After relating deeds like these, which one would expect only of
fiends incarnate, it seems bloody sarcasm to read what one of the
defenders of the Inquisition has to say: "In reality, so great is
the compassion of the Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition with the
offenders that these themselves acknowledge it. The Holy Office
shows much forbearance, much kindness, much perfection, and this
being true, as the enemies and accusers of the Inquisition well
know it is, let those accusers come forward and confess and
repent their errors; let them admit that it was malice which made
them say that the Inquisition is excessively rigorous, and let
them present themselves before this Holy Tribunal repentant and
thus return to the bosom of the Church; so mote it be, Amen."
(Defensa critica de la Inquisicion, by Don Melchor Rafael de
Macanaz, Madrid, 1788.)

How little protection rank and station in life afforded, is made
patent by the fact that among the victims of the Inquisition
there were numerous nobles, statesmen, bishops, and persons of
wealth and influence. Even a nephew of King Ferdinand V was
thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition and released only
after undergoing humiliating public penance.

The right of asylum did not exist for the Inquisition. The
following extract from an order of arrest plainly shows this:
"and ye shall seize the body of Gabriel de Granada, a resident of
this city of Mexico, wheresoever ye may find him, although it may
be in a church, monastery or other consecrated, fortified or
privileged place." (D. Fergusson, Trial of Gabriel de Granada.)
Even the secret of the confessional was violated. Don Juan
Antonio Rodrigalvarez, canon of the royal church of St. Isidore
of Madrid, said of the Inquisition: "The infraction of every
right and principle in this tribunal still goes further, for
though secrecy is the very soul of all its proceedings, that of
sacramental confession is nevertheless not respected by it, in
consequence of the declarations it frequently requires of
confessors relating to their penitents." (Puigblanch, in the work
above quoted.)

A person could be the devoutest catholic imaginable and yet be
arrested, thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition and perish
there or at the stake, on the calumnious accusation of an enemy
or on account of some thoughtless remark, misconstrued and
twisted to suit the purpose of his enemies or of the inquisitors.

If a person put a clean cloth on the table on Saturday, or sat at
table with a Jew, or had his friends for dinner at his home on
the eve of his departure for a journey, he exposed himself to the
suspicion of being a Judaizer," and if he sang a Moorish song or
danced a Moorish dance, abstained from the use of wine, or
changed his linen on Friday, he was liable to be suspected of
being a secret Mohammedan. Once suspected, a person never escaped
without suffering: years of imprisonment in the secret dungeons
of the Inquisition, torture, and the most humiliating penances
were sure to be his fate, because the Inquisition always devised
some way of finding a prisoner guilty. Llorente states that one
acquittal to every two thousand cases was about the proportion
observed in the judicial findings of the Holy Office.

II. PROCEDURE

The procedure of the Inquisition, evolved by many generations of
crafty and fanatical priests, was the most insiduous that could
be imagined. Upon receipt of the denunciation, though it often
came from the most suspicious sources and was inspired by the
impurest of motives, the Holy Office ordered the arrest of the
accused, who was considered guilty unless he achieved the
tremendous task of proving himself innocent. He was arrested
without warning and conveyed forthwith to the secret prisons of
the Inquisition.

During the first three days of his confinement there he received
three monitions to confess his offenses against the Catholic
faith and thus secure mercy. He was not informed of the charges
against him, but was told that no one ever entered the prisons of
the Inquisition without being guilty of some crime. If he
confessed himself guilty of some offense or offenses not covered
by the denunciation, his confession furnished grounds for new
charges. Whatever he said, his testimony was so turned and
twisted by his tormentors that his guilt appeared to be much
greater than an unbiased judge would have found it to be. In many
cases his confession did not save him from torture, and in none
did it deliver him from the humiliating penances decreed by the
tribunal.

After the monitions had been delivered, he was formally arraigned
and the charges were then read to him; but the name of the
informant was never revealed, nor was the accused allowed to face
his secret accuser or the witnesses that had testified against
him. If the culprit remained mute or his confession was deemed
incomplete, he was ordered taken to the torture chamber, where
the rack, pulley, thumbscrews, fire, and other means of extorting
a confession were applied to him for hours at a time. If he
fainted or remained obdurate, the torture was suspended for the
time being. Thousands of persons remained firm, thousands died
from the barbarous treatment received, and many thousands
confessed to crimes they had ever committed and were punished
accordingly.

The terror inspired by the Holy Office was a mental torture that
often brought about the same result as the physical suffering.
The ascetic, cruel, relentless faces of the inquisitors sometimes
sufficed to terrify the prisoner into saying all the tribunal
wished him to say. One of the witnesses in the case against Jorge
de Almeida, above quoted, "begged that the Inquisitor" Don Alonso
de Peralta should not be present, because the mere sight of him
made his flesh creep, such was the terror with which his rigor
inspired him."

All proceedings were carried on in the utmost secrecy. As they
advanced, more and more persons were implicated in the case. Many
an accused, shrinking from pain and death, driven frantic by the
pangs of torture, or deceived by false promises of clemency or
immunity, became the accuser of his friends and relatives. Sons
betrayed their parents and parents denounced their children, and
the flinty-hearted secretary of the court coldly penned orders
for the arrest of victim after victim as the cowering wretch
before the tribunal stammered their names.

When the evidence was all complete and sentence ready to be
pronounced, preparations were generally made for an auto da fe
(in Spanish auto de fe, i.e., decision or sentence in a case
regarding the faith). This ceremony began with a solemn
procession, generally attended by much pomp, of the
functionaries, familiars and henchmen of the Inquisition, the
persons condemned to be burnt or to suffer other punishment or
penance, and religious organizations and priests with banners and
crosses. A suitable stage and seats had been prepared on the
square where the ceremony was to take place, and after the
arrival of the procession a mass was read; the king, viceroy, or
governor of the territory and other high government officials
took the oath of allegiance to the Holy Office; a sermon was
pronounced by the Inquisitor General, and the sentences of the
persons condemned by the tribunal were read. The condemned
prisoners were arrayed in sanbenitos and corozas, sack-like
garments and pointed caps painted with flames and figures of
demons, and many of them were gagged in order to stifle their
imprecations.

After the ceremony the condemned were "relaxed" (turned over) to
the secular authorities, for the execution of their sentences,
with the injunction that they be dealt with compassionately. What
hypocrisy ! Llorente says: "It certainly causes one surprise to
see the Inquisitors insert at the end of their sentences the
formula praying the (secular) judge not to apply the penalty of
death to the heretic, while it is demonstrated by several
examples that when, in compliance with the request of the
Inquisitor, the judge did not send the culprit to the stake, he
was himself indicted as a suspect of the crime of heresy."

An auto da fe was generally a gala occasion in Spain and her
colonies. We have before us the account of one of the most
elaborate known, held at Madrid in 1680. This detailed account,
written by a member of the Inquisition, was published in Madrid
in 1680. (Relacion historica del auto general de fe que se
celebro en Madrid el ano de 1680, por Jose del Olmo.) At the auto
da fe mentioned, 120 prisoners, each accompanied by two priests,
and the effigies of 134 accused persons who had made their escape
or had died in the prisons of the Inquisition, were paraded
through the streets of Madrid in a procession composed of
thousands of priests, soldiers, members of religious
organizations, etc., had their sentences read to them in the
presence of the King and Queen of Spain on the "Plaza," and were
then "relaxed" to the secular authorities. Nineteen of them, who
had been sentenced to death, were taken to the brasero late at
night, after the ceremonies were over, and were there burnt at
the stake.
 

The scenes that took place at these burnings were sometimes of
the most revolting and gruesome nature. The following is an
extract from the account of one of these executions in 1691, on
which occasion two Jews and a Jewess were burnt: "On seeing the
flames near them, they began to show the greatest fury,
struggling to free themselves from the ring to which they were
bound, which Terongi at length effected, although he could no
longer hold himself upright, and he fell side long on the fire.
Catherine, as soon as the flames began to encircle her, screamed
out repeatedly for them to withdraw her from thence, although
uniformly persisting not to invoke the name of Jesus. On the
flames touching Valls, he covered himself, resisted, and
struggled as long as he was able. Being fat, he took fire in his
inside, in such manner that before the flames had entwined around
him, his flesh burnt like a coal, and bursting in the middle his
entrails fell out." (Puig-blanch).

Often the poor wretches met their death bravely; some died
mocking and cursing the executioners and of one, a Jew, it is
even told that he drew the blazing fagots towards him with his
feet. The "relaxed" who had repented were generally strangled to
death before being consigned to the flames.

The fanaticism of the populace is the best expressed by the
following incident recorded by Del Olmo: "It seems as if God
moved the hearts of the craftsmen in order that the serious
difficulties that arose might be overcome; this is shown by the
following incident: Tomas Roman, overseer of works, having taken
charge alone of the execution of the work (of building the
staging for the auto da fe described by Del Olmo), at his own
expense, in accordance with the design and plan of Jose del Olmo,
sixteen master builders with their subordinates, lumber, and
tools came, without human solicitation, to offer him their
services in the performance of his undertaking, and such were
their perseverance and fervent constancy that, without observing
the accustomed hours of rest and taking only sufficient time for
food, they returned to their labors with joy and pleasure,
explaining the reason for their eagerness by shouting: "Long live
the faith of Jesus Christ; it shall all be finished in time, and
if there should be any lack of lumber, we would tear down our own
houses to put them to such holy use."

These were, of course, only ignorant persons, but the more
enlightened classes were not much better. We again translate from
Del Olmo's work the account of an incident illustrating this:

It seems that two days before the auto mentioned, a preliminary
ceremony took place which shows the attitude taken by the royal
couple of Spain. A company of soldiers marched out to the Alcala
gate to get  the firewood prepared there. Each soldier took a
fagot and the company then marched back to the Palace Square.
"The captain went upstairs to His Majesty's apartments by the
rear entrance, bearing a fagot on his shield. It was taken from
him by the Duke of Pastrana and carried into the presence of His
Majesty. The latter, with his own hand, took it in to show it to
our lady the Queen, Dona Luisa Maria de Borbon, and upon his
return the Duke received the fagot from the hand of the King and
returned it to the captain, with the command that His Majesty
ordered it taken in his name and cast into the fire the first. In
giving such command, our Lord the King followed the dictates of
his pious character, inherited from the sainted King Don
Ferdinand the Third, who on a similar occasion, in order to give
an example to the world, took himself firewood to the burning
pile."

Who were the principal victims of the Inquisition ? 

When the Inquisition was first instituted in France, its hand
fell the most heavily upon the Albigenses of Languedoc, of whom
many thousands were slain.

Upon the establishment of the Holy Office in Spain, its first
efforts were directed against the so-called "New Christians."
These comprised the but lately converted Jews (marranos), many of
whom had become Christians in order to escape the numerous
persecutions, but were secretly practising Judaism, and the
converted Moors, who had abandoned their religion for similar
reasons, but were secretly practising Moslem rites. These new
Christians were especially welcome victims to the Inquisition on
account of the antipathy and envy with which they were looked
upon by the old Christians, owing to their constantly increasing
prosperity and wealth, which latter, on the other hand, offered a
powerful incentive to the Holy Office, a very expensive
institution, according to all accounts, and in need of all the
money it could lay its hands on.

Later Lutherans, Jansenists, Illuminati, and members of other
sects came in for a great deal of attention, and finally, during
the last century of its existence, the Inquisition waged a
relentless war against Freemasonry.

In addition to these, the Inquisition had other classes of
offenders to contend with.

It had jurisdiction over bigamists, persons claiming to be
possessed by demons or to have supernatural powers, witches and
sorcerers, soothsayers, priests guilty of expressing unorthodox
views or of seducing or attempting to seduce women in the
confessional, etc.

It also had charge of the censorship of books, and numerous auto
da fe were held at which books, writings, pictures, and statues
that had incurred the disapproval of the Holy Office were
consigned to the flames.

Enormous damage was done to literature, art, and science by this
particular activity of the Inquisition. Valuable products of
literature were destroyed and suppressed or stifled in their
birth, and works of science and inventions that might have
secured for Spain a place in the foremost ranks of the civilized
nations were never conceived. This having continued for many
generations, the very brain of the nation became atrophied, and
it will take centuries before unhappy Spain will be able to
cleanse her life blood from the poison permeating it as a result
of the many centuries of spiritual slavery and corruption.

This leads us to speak of the consequences of the Inquisition in
general.

The six centuries of the reign of the Holy Office had the most
terrible and widespread consequences in Spain. The Inquisition
drove from Spain's dominions millions of her most useful
subjects; it depopulated entire villages, towns, and districts;
it even changed the national character. Let us here quote what
Burke has to say on this matter in his "History of Spain":

"The work of the Inquisition, while it tended, no doubt, to make
men orthodox, tended also to make them false, and suspicious, and
cruel. Before the middle of the sixteenth century, the Holy
Office had profoundly affected the national character; and the
Spaniard, who had been celebrated in Europe during countless
centuries for every manly virtue, became, in the new world that
had been given to him, no less notorious for a cruelty beyond the
imagination of a Roman emperor and a rapacity beyond the dreams
of a Republican proconsul."

We have no doubt that Spain would not have declined so rapidly
and would still be a first-rate power had she not had her life
blood sapped by the Inquisition. Compared with the terrible
injury wrought to country and nation by that institution; the
destruction of the Armada, was but a trifling incident which a
rich and powerful country could have remedied comparatively
quickly, in order to repeat the attempt with better success under
more favorable conditions.

III. FREEMASONRY

Now we shall give a short account of the influence of the
Inquisition on the Masonic Order, confining our attention to
Spain, with a few brief references to Portugal, and to the 18th
and 19th century. We shall, therefore, not allude to the
persecution of the Knights Templar, who suffered such fearful
torments at the hands of the Inquisition.

In 1738, Pope Clement XII excommunicated all Freemasons in the
bull "In eminenti," and two years after, in 1740, Philip V, king
of Spain, published a royal decree which was the first blow
struck at Freemasonry by Spain. Many Freemasons were arrested and
sent to the galleys where, laden with chains, ill fed and worse
treated, they were compelled to toil at the oars without
compensation. In 1751, immediately upon the publication of the
bull "Providas romanorum ponticum," Ferdinand VI of Spain issued
a still more severe edict against the Order, and now the
Inquisition began to wage a merciless war against Freemasonry. We
translate the following from the "Ritual del Maestro Mason"
(Madrid, 1909), an official publication of the Spanish Grand
Orient:

"The persecutions reached their height in Spain in 1751, as a
result of the new anathema launched by Benedict and the
denunciations of an ambitious, malevolent friar named Jose
Torrubia, who, desirous of obtaining a bishopric as reward for
his services, had promised to exterminate Freemasonry. He quickly
rose to revisor and censor of the Holy Office, which latter
ordered him to enter a lodge under an assumed name, after
receiving from the Papal Penitentiary a dispensation authorizing
him to take any oath which might be required of him. This
Torrubia actually did, and soon thereafter he began to visit
lodge after lodge in the peninsula until he had gathered all the
information he required for the execution of his infamous plan.
Having achieved this purpose, he presented to the Tribunal of the
Inquisition a terrible denunciation of the labors of Freemasonry,
accompanied by a list of ninety-seven lodges, with the membership
roll of each.

"As a result of this denunciation, hundreds of Freemasons were
arrested and many were tortured by the Inquisition."

In his "Histoire de l'Inquisition," Llorente gives an account of
the prosecution of a Monsieur Tournon, in 1757. This man, a
Parisian, had been called to Madrid by the Spanish government to
instruct Spanish workmen in the making of brass buckles. One of
his pupils denounced him to the Holy Office as a heretic,
alleging that Tournon had endeavored to induce him and others to
become Freemasons. Tournon had shown them diplomas or charts on
which architectural and astronomical instruments were depicted,
and this had caused them to suspect magic, "in which belief they
were confirmed when they heard the imprecations contained in the
oath that, according to Tournon, they would have to take to
preserve profound secrecy regarding all they should see or hear
in the lodges."

Tournon was arrested on May 20th, 1757.

Upon being interrogated by the tribunal, he frankly admitted that
he was a Freemason and had been one for twenty years. He stated
that he did not know whether there were any lodges in Spain; that
he was a Roman catholic; that he saw nothing in Freemasonry that
interfered with his religion, and that it was not true that
Freemasonry taught religious indifference. Here are a few of the
questions and answers:

Q. What oath must a person take in order to become a Mason ?
A. He swears to preserve secrecy.
Q. Concerning what things ?
A. Concerning things which it is inadvisable to make public.
Q. Is this oath accompanied by execrations?
A. It is.
Q. What are they ?
A. One consents to suffer all evils and penalties that may
afflict body and soul if one should ever violate the obligation
taken under oath.
Q. Of what importance is this obligation that it is considered
justifiable to take an oath with such fearful execrations?
A. It is of importance for the good order in the society.
Q. What is going on in those lodges that might make trouble if it
were made public ?
A. Nothing, if you judge things without bias and prejudice.
However, as there is a general mistaken impression on this
subject, care must be taken to prevent malicious interpretations,
and these would surely arise if one told everything that is going
on in the lodges on the days when the brethren meet.

The inquisitors further asked Tournon whether and why Saint John
was the patron saint of Freemasons; whether it was true that the
sun, moon, and stars were held in reverence in the lodges and
were represented therein; why a crucifix, a skull, and a dead
human body were present in the lodge room during initiations, and
other questions more.

Tournon having answered all these questions according to the
truth, in the most frank and intelligent manner, he was informed
that his answers were false and untrue, and was admonished, for
the sake of the respect he owed to God and the Holy Virgin, to
say the truth and confess to the heresies of religious
indifference, the superstitious errors which had caused him to
mix the sacred with the profane, and the error of idolatry which
had induced him to worship the heavenly bodies. If he confessed
and repudiated all these errors, the Holy Office would use
clemency in his case, otherwise he would be prosecuted with all
the rigor authorized against heretics.

Tournon remained firm in his attitude during the several hearings
of his case. He finally stated, however, that nothing was left to
him but to "admit that he had been in the wrong and to confess
his ignorance of the dangerous spirit of the statutes and customs
of Freemasonry; that he therefore confirmed all that he had
testified in so far as he had said that he had never believed
there was anything contrary to the Catholic religion in what he
had done as a Freemason; but as it was possible that he had
erred, owing to his ignorance of certain particular dogmas, he
was ready to disavow all heresies into which he might have fallen
and prayed to be absolved from censure and promised to undergo
such penance as might be imposed upon him."

In December, 1757, judgment was pronounced upon Monsieur Tournon,
convicting him of the errors of religious indifference,
naturalism, superstition, and pagan practices; but in view of his
offer to recant, he escaped with a comparatively light sentence.
A private auto da fe was held in the court rooms of the Holy
Office, attended by such persons as had received permission from
the senior inquisitor, and there Tournon had his sentence read to
him, received a reprimand from the senior inquisitor, abjured all
his heretical errors, read and signed a declaration of his faith,
and promised to sever all connections with Freemasonry or suffer
accordingly. He was sentenced to one year of imprisonment, at the
expiration of which he was to be expelled from Spain, and to
undergo certain spiritual exercises.

Then Freemasonry had a breathing spell and began to spread. In
1767, the first Grand Lodge was constituted in Spain, and in 1780
a Grand Orient was organized there. The following years, however,
saw a change for the worse. The first Grand Master of Spain, the
Count of Aranda, a minister under Charles III, was banished in
1794 by Charles IV. In the neighboring Portugal the persecution
of Freemasonry reached the greatest violence in 1792. "Queen
Isabel, counselled by her confessor, ordered the governor of the
island of Madera to deliver over to the Tribunal of the Holy
Office all members of the Masonic Order who could be found. But
few of the families of Freemasons succeeded in escaping the fury
of the Inquisition by fleeing to Europe or taking refuge in
America. In 1809 the persecution was renewed as a result of the
constant agitations of the Catholic priests, who so excited the
fanatical populace that at Lisbon the mob vilely murdered a large
number of Freemasons who were following the funeral of a brother
mason. . . In 1817, the Grand Orient of Portugal had to dissolve
again on account of the edicts of King John VI, of 1818 and 1823,
the first of which assigned imprisonment and the second death as
the penalty for every Portuguese found to be a Freemason."
(Ritual del Maestro Mason.)

A new era seemed to have dawned for Freemasonry in Spain when
Napoleon I. conquered the country and abolished the Inquisition.
Freemasonry flourished exceedingly under the protection of the
French invader and for a brief period after the French had been
ousted. The Cortes of Cadiz, which adopted the first Spanish
constitution, were largely composed of Freemasons. When the
reconstruction came, however, the Inquisition was re-established
and another period of trial and persecution set in for
Freemasonry. In 1814, Ferdinand VII ordered all lodges closed.
Some continued to meet secretly, however. In 1815, lodges were
raided at Granada and Malaga and the brethren apprehended were
cast into the prisons of the Inquisition. During the next few
years the persecutions became extremely cruel and violent.

"In 1819, a Lodge was surprised at Murcia; the brethren, nearly
all persons of distinction, died from the tortures inflicted upon
them by the Inquisition, except the illustrious lawyer Brother
Romero Alpuente, whose strong constitution enabled him to
withstand the cruel suffering and who was released, the same as
the other persons who were imprisoned because they were
Freemasons, by virtue of a decree of the Provisional Government
of 1820." (Ritual del Maestro Mason) .

In 1820, Ferdinand VII of Spain fixed death on the gallows as the
penalty for membership in the Masonic Order, and when a Lodge was
raided at Granada, in 1825, all the members were hanged and the
candidate, who had not yet been initiated, was sent to the
galleys. In 1828, the Marquis of Lebrillana and Captain Alvarez
de Sotomayor perished on the scaffold because they had not come
forward and denounced themselves as being Freemasons. In 1829, a
Lodge was raided at Barcelona; the Master was hanged, some of the
brethren were sent to prison for life, and others were sentenced
to less severe penalties.

In 1832, at last, the liberal government, organized with the aid
of Freemasons, issued a general amnesty for all offenders of this
class and Masonry flourished once more. A new period of trial
began in 1849 and many persons were deported or sent to prison
for their connection with the Masonic Order, until the September
revolution (1868) came and put a final stop to these
persecutions. An attempt was made to renew them after the
uprising of the natives of the Philippine Islands (1896), as a
result of which the Grande Oriente Ispaniol was charged with
having fostered the separatist movement and fathered the
"Katipunan," a nave revolutionary society patterned on Masonry so
far as matters of form and organization were concerned. his
attempt fell flat, however.

While the persecutions last mentioned can not, perhaps, be
charged to the Inquisition, yet they were, to a certain degree,
the result and upshot of the bitter war which that defunct
institution had waged against Freemasonry for so many years.

This concludes our brief study of the Inquisition and its
influence on humanity in general and the Masonic Order in
particular.

The thought that it will have inspired his brethren in
Freemasonry with thoughts of gratitude and admiration towards
those who suffered and died for the cause in the days gone by is
alone sufficient to compensate the author for the time and effort
which he has devoted to this subject.


