What was the role of inquisition?

Answer 1

The Inquisition was very significant in the history of the Roman Catholic Church and Europe.

it was founded far the express purpose of exterminating every human being in Europe who differed from Roman Catholic beliefs and practices.

Answer 2

There were quite a few Catholic Inquisitions over a period approximating seven centuries from the 12th to the 19th. For the most part the Inquisition was the name for the official Church court to deal with legal matters which were assigned to it. Your question, as asked, is not really answerable as you do not specify which Inquisition or what aspect of it you are asking about.

Below is my answer for the Spanish Inquisition, which is the one that most modern people think of when they say "The Inquisition".

Extracted from Seven Lies About Catholic History Infamous Myths About the Church’s Past and How to Answer Them byDiane Moczar, c 2010 by TAN Books, Charlotte, North Carolina

Of all the Inquisitions (and there were a few from the 12th century until the 19th century), practically synonymous in the popular mind with the term is the Spanish Inquisition, mostly due to anti-Spanish Black Legend Propaganda that has been produced from the Reformation until now. Thanks be to God, finally, truth is started to take hold due to people like Diane Moczar, an history professor at North Virginia Community College, Dr. William A. Donahue, the founder and president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights as well as Henry Kamen, a British Historian and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and his book, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision. Please see the links below.

The Spanish Inquistition began under King Ferdinand and his wife, Queen Isabella in 1481. At that time, the King and Queen had just reunited Spain, as a Catholic country, and were dealing with several distinct groups including the original Catholic Spaniards of Visigothic descent, practicing Muslims, the descendants of the invaders who had conquered Spain in the sixth and seventh centuries, practicing Jews, converted Jews, and converted Muslims. “The complicating factor, which became a serious problem as Ferdinand and Isabella struggled both to unite the country and to drive out what remain of the former Moorish rulers, was that some Jewish and Muslim converts were Catholic in name only. For whatever reasons, they had outwardly converted while secretly practicing their original religions and supporting their co-religionists against Spanish unifaction efforts. They constituted, in effect, a fifth column with the country in wartime. It was at them, rather than at the sort of heretics... seen elsewhere, that the Spanish Inquisition was primarily aimed.

This is an important point, as the Inquisition had no authority and did not attempt to deal with practicing Muslims or Jews, they only had authority over Catholics.

Once unification had been achieved and the Muslim Moorish rulers driven out of Spain the Inquisition became dormant until Luther’s ideas started the great upheaval known as the Peasants’ War, and King Charles was anxious to avoid the “appalling disorder and loss of life caused by Protestants in the German lands” from spreading to Spain.

Another important point that must be understood, especially in historical context is that the loss of a soul for eternity was viewed as a much greater evil than the loss of a mortal life. This was understood much better back then, and the evil that a heretic could inflict by destroying a soul was to be prevented if at all possible. The method was (hopefully) to convert them, if that was not possible to prevent harm through exile, or, later on, by other punishments, which could even include the death penalty.

Now, to quote from Diane Moczar’s book, directly:

Similarly, the preservation of Spanish Catholicism, particularly from the Protestant infiltration that would have brought the civil wars and other disasters it had already caused in the north, was surely to the credit of the Inquisition. Were there cruel inquisitors in some places? Of course. Were methods of interrogation distasteful to modern sensibilities? Sure–though we can certainly think of worse methods employed even in our enlightened modern times. Given its formidable task of guarding the purity of the Faith in Christian souls, however, the overall record of the Inquisition in dealing with heresy is not only defensible but admirable.

And now for the evidence:

Here are the links to the documentary I spoke of regarding the true nature of the Inquisition-- It would be interesting to contrast to the latest interpretation from the History Channel, still perpetuating the old myths.... Worthwhile for apologetic minded Catholics...

The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition:

Part I : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMkjvCKTK3Q

Part II : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgtLDECsUY0

Part III : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQBrAUcoaxo

Part IV : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4KZ1o6j_ss

Part V: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHk9AJ8-aQk