https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/02/02/vatican-office-doctrine-inquisition-239898/
The Vatican’s doctrinal office is ‘no longer the Inquisition,’ Cardinal Ladaria says
by Carol Glatz - Catholic News Service February 2, 2021
20210202T0830-VATICAN-LADARIA-DOCTRINE-559478
Cardinal Ladaria said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is no longer "the Inquisition," but rather its main focus is handing down the teachings of the apostles. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Established almost 500 years ago, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is no longer “the Inquisition” — rather, its main focus is handing down the teachings of the apostles, said the office’s prefect.
“Our mission is to promote and protect the doctrine of the faith. It is a task that will always be necessary for the church, which has the duty to transmit the teaching of the apostles to the next generation,” Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, congregation prefect, told Vatican News Feb. 1.
Called the Sacred Roman and Universal Inquisition when it was instituted in 1542, the congregation was initially a tribunal exclusively for cases of heresy and schism, but soon its responsibilities were expanded to include “everything relating directly or indirectly to faith and morals,” according to the congregation’s website.
Of the many people examined in the early days, the one mentioned most often is Italian scientist Galileo Galilei, who was found “vehemently suspect of heresy.” St. John Paul II issued a declaration in 1992, recognizing the error of Galileo’s trial.
The Index of Forbidden Books was originally entrusted to the Inquisition until it became its own congregation for three centuries until 1917 when its duties were again handed back to the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office — the Inquisition’s new name after it was reorganized by Pope Pius X in 1908.
It was again reformed in 1965 by St. Paul VI and renamed the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Index of Prohibited Books was also abrogated.
Cardinal Ladaria told Vatican News, “The past of our congregation still weighs heavily, sin
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