EVERYONE EXPECTS THE EU INQUISITION:

Vatican sees cultural 'Inquisition' in Europe (Jason Horowitz, October 19, 2004, The New York Times)

The Vatican said Monday that anti-Christian elements were ravaging Europe with a new Inquisition that had claimed a devout Roman Catholic Italian minister because he expressed his faith and called homosexuality a sin.

Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, the president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said that "a new holy Inquisition full of money and arrogance" had reduced the Catholic Church and Christians to defendants in a trial, and that against them "everything goes as long as it serves to silence their voices: from intimidation to public dishonor."

Cardinal Martino's comments were a thinly veiled reference to the nonbinding vote last week by the European Parliament's civil liberties committee rejecting Rocco Buttiglione, 56, an Italian and a conservative Catholic nominee to be the EU's justice, freedom and security commissioner.

Buttiglione had told the committee that he considered homosexuality a sin, though he made it clear that he did not consider it a crime and vowed to defend the rights of gays in Europe.

Some members of the European Parliament saw Buttiglione's stance as a potential threat to civil rights in what they hope will be a politically progressive union, but the Vatican saw the committee's rejection as further evidence of a continent in decay, where secularism runs rampant over Christian values.

Cardinal Martino echoed that complaint when he said Monday that the teachings of Pope John Paul II, who is a personal friend of Buttiglione's, were being diluted by "a cacophony orchestrated by powerful cultural, economic and political lobbies moved prevalently by prejudice against all that is Christian."

You'd think the Church would have more sense than to use the term "Inquisition" as a pejorative. Every coherent society has to have an orthodoxy and an Inquisition, formal or informal, to enforce it. Indeed, the original Inquisition was a popular and useful institution, though it made some mistakes. The real problem arises, as in this case, where the orthodoxy being enforced is detrimental to a healthy society.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 27, 2004 06:33 PM