A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2Lea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- Spain
Under the Restoration greater attention seems to have been paid to
episcopal concurrence and the adherence to strict formalities is shown
in a duplicate trial of Juan Antonio Manzano, a physician of Lumbrales
in the diocese of Ciudad-Rodrigo and inquisitorial district of Llerena.
In 1817 he was tried for heretical propositions by the tribunal of
Logroño, which inquired of the Suprema whether the Ordinary of its own
diocese could act and was told that the authority of the culprit's own
bishop was imperative and that the Bishop of Ciudad-Rodrigo must
appoint a representative. The next year Manzano was again arrested, for
the same offence, by the tribunal of Llerena and was transferred to
Seville because Llerena had no prison. April 17, 1819, the Seville
tribunal asked whether its own Ordinary could join in the sentence and
received the same answer--that it must apply to the Bishop of
Ciudad-Rodrigo to make an appointment.[60] It was all the merest
technicality, for by this time the Suprema decided all cases,
irrespective of how the consulta de fe might vote and thus the
incontestable episcopal jurisdiction over heresy was practically
abolished.
* * * * *
As regards the internal forum, or forum of conscience, the Inquisition
claimed and enjoyed a still more absolute jurisdiction than in the
external forum for which it had been primarily instituted. While in a
formal and perfunctory manner it recognized the episcopal claims in the
judicial forum, it so employed its delegated papal authority as to
vindicate with the utmost jealousy exclusive control over the forum of
conscience in matters of heresy. Bishops, in fact, had long before been
ousted from this by the invention of papal reserved cases--cases in
which sacramental absolution could only be had from the Holy See, thus
creating a profitable market for its indulgences, confessional letters
and the absolutions of its Penitentiary. Heresy was the chief sin
anathematized in the early form of the bull, subsequently known as _in
Coena Domini_, from its annual publication on Holy Thursday and, in
1364, Urban V placed all the offences enumerated in it under the
jurisdiction of the papal chamberlain.[61] The papacy thus assumed
exclusive control over the sin of heresy, for which no absolution could
be granted save by papal delegation, and Paul II, in 1469, and Sixtus
IV, in 1478, issued further decrees to the effect that special licence
was necessary for this, as no general commissions were held to cover
it.[62] The Council of Trent, in 1563, timidly endeavored to revendicate
a fraction of episcopal rights by asserting that bishops, in the forum
of conscience only, could personally absolve for secret or occult
heresy, but the Roman Inquisition, by repeated decisions based on the
utterances of St. Pius V and Gregory XIII, overrode the conciliar
decree and deprived them of that slender remnant of their functions.[63]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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