Inquisition

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I find one of the most controversial regulatory bodies of the Church in the Middle Ages was definitely the so-called Inquisition. Sometimes called "God's Jury", the inquisition was centralized in Rome in 1542. It aimed at counteracting mainly the effects of Protestantism. In Spain, the inquisition took the brutal form of "burning at stakes" those suspected heretics and of placing them in "dark dungeons". Many historians hold the view that there was also the benign side of inquisition, as it literally prevented “mob rule”, in which the people took the law into their own hands in lynching alleged witches. In some places, the Inquisition was able to prevent revenge and vendetta against one’s neighbor. The Inquisition made sure that Christian faith remained pure, as threat to faith was considered a threat to Christianity itself. I think many tools of bureaucracy nowadays are reminiscent of the inquisition like the internet tools used by National Security Agency (NSA), Google, Yahoo and others. Inquisition is literally a throwback of modern repressive investigative tools employed by the government. What do you think? Photo credits: Pixabay