Log In | Register
The Archbishop of Whortleberry today called for a limited application of the Spanish Inquisition in Britain.
Roman Catholics praised the proposal but the government rejected it. The unusual suggestion from one of Britain's highest ranking Christian leaders would, if adopted, allow Roman Catholics to burn heretics, reintroduce the ceremony of auto de fe and generally torture confessions of heresy out of people.
The Archbishop said in a radio interview with the BBC that incorporating the Spanish Inquisition into UK law could help improve Britain's flagging social cohesion. "Certain provisions of the Inquisition are already recognized in our law since the government's new anti-terror laws came into force," said the Archbishop.
The Prime Minister's spokesman immediately rejected the Archbishop's proposal.
"The prime minister believes British terror laws should apply in this country, based on British values," said the spokesman.
The Archbishop said he was not advocating that Britain allow Catholics to burn witches for instance. "Let's face it," he said. "It's been seventy odd years since this country even banged a witch up in prison."
Cardinal Biggles, director of the Friends of the Holy Inquisition, said that its use would help lower tensions in British society.
"It would make Catholics more proud of being British," he said. "It would give Catholics the sense that the British respect our faith. Who knows when we may have something like an Albigensian heresy in this country."
"Nobody expects the Inquisition," he added.
