Spanish Catholicism
The Mexican Inquisition was an extension of what had been going on in Spain and the rest of Europe for some time. Spanish Catholicism had been reformed under the reign of Isabella the Catholic (1479– 1504), which reaffirmed medieval doctrines and tightened up discipline and practice. She also introduced the Holy Office of the Inquisition in 1480, combining secular and religious authority in the matter. Much of the zeal to reaffirm traditional Catholic tenets came from the history of the Reconquista. Those who overthrew Muslim domination of the peninsula were very committed to the purpose of making Catholicism completely dominant wherever they could. After the discovery and conquest of the New World, this effort to spread the faith included the belief that the non-Christians there would benefit from instruction in the “true faith.”
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Famous quotes containing the words spanish and/or catholicism:
“I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)
“When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft. Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes. Catholicism is accused of being too much like all the other religions; Protestantism of being insufficiently like a religion at all. Hence Plato, with his transcendent Forms, is the doctor of Protestants; Aristotle, with his immanent Forms, the doctor of Catholics.”
—C.S. (Clive Staples)