...others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Hebrews 11:35-40

Popery is drunken with the blood of the saints, whom they call "hereticks" (today's wolf/sheep term is "separated brethren"). The Office of the Inquisition was designed by Romanism to root out "hereticks" (aka Protestants)--to torture them, kill them, and take their goods. J.A. Wylie said that by torture, "the Church of Rome proved, what certainly she could not prove by either Scripture or reason, that transubstantiation [Jesus is a piece of bread called the Eucharist/host] is true." Bless God the forefathers of the saints did not bow down before the devil and would serve no Christ but the one of the Bible. They resisted antichrist unto the blood ...

...others were tortured, NOT ACCEPTING DELIVERANCE; THAT THEY MIGHT OBTAIN A BETTER RESURRECTION. Hebrews 11:35

The Devil is the father, master, overseer and guide of all papists--

"Experience teaches that there is no other remedy for the evil, but to put heretics (Protestants) to death; for the (Romish) church proceeded gradually and tried every remedy: at first she merely excommunicatied them; afterwards she added a fine; then she banished them; and finally she was constrained to put them to death."

Cardinal Bellarmine
famous champion of Romanism cited by Schumucker p. 76

The Inquisition is an institution of the Roman Catholic religion. It was developed to stem "heresy", i.e., the gospel of salvation as found in the Bible. The Inquisition was zealously carried out by Romish Inquisitor-Generals, priests, and monks. And oh yes, they had the support of the secular authorities. Know ye not that the Dark Ages were dark because the papacy was at the height of its monstrous glory--ruling over kings and queens and encouraging recusancy towards any ruler that did not bow to the devil/papacy? Romanism is the Devil's religion, therefore papists do the works of the Devil. Only the Devil could inspire men to the deeds recounted by Samuel Clarke in his book Martyrology circa 1651. Papists have tortured and killed Christians for centuries. These are grievous crimes that are loathsome to even list but multitudes endured these for the gospel's sake. Christian friend, if YOU were before the Inquisition and they wanted you to say Jesus is a piece of bread, would you do it? Many of your brothers and sisters held out for the cause of Christ. They resisted to the blood striving against sin. Here are a just a few of the tortures they went through--

• Skin flayed off of head, face and body
• Nipples pulled off
• Fried alive in pans
• Bound to pillar head down and roasted
• Mouth slit back to ears
• Crucified upside down
• Put in cauldrons of boiling oil
• Thrown out of windows upon upward facing spears
• Bodies gored through mouths with pikes
• Arms cut off
• Torturous slow burning e.g., burn soles of feet, then up to ankles, mid-calf, etc. until dead
• Bellies burnt until bowels fell out
• Women stripped, hung from tree by their hair and scourged
• Tourniquet placed on head and twisted until eyes came out
• Ears bored out
• Tongue cut out
• Set down (by pulley) into a fire by degrees
• Thrown to dogs
• Hung up by the heels and choked with smoke
• Smothered in caves on mountains
• Hearts pulled out, which the papists gnawed with their teeth.
• Some roasted upon spits over a soft fire
• Some had their bowels pulled out
• A smith had his brains beaten out on his anvil with a hammer
• Some had sharp instruments forced under their nails and other body parts
• Some racked until their bowels broke out
• Some had their throats cut with butcher knives
• Knocked on the head with axes
• Naked women left hung up by one leg on trees until they died
• Some slain and their body parts set on stakes for 30 miles streches
• Some had their noses and breasts pulled off with red hot pinchers
• Some had their flesh torn with the claws of wild animals
• Murdered in a church during sermon
• Some hanged by one foot, their hands and breasts in the water
• Some hung up by one hand with weights of lead at their heels
• Two tied together and slain
• Some were torn in pieces by horses
• A legion of soldiers cut some to pieces with swords
• Some had boots of boiling oil put on their legs over a small fire.
• Some hung up on trees by the middle til they died of hunger
• Women's bellies ripped up and their children trod underfeet

The following quotes are cited from The American Textbook of Popery which in turn quotes from the Directory for the Inquisitors (page numbers listed are for the Directory)--

"He is a heretic who does not believe what the Roman Hierarchy teaches. --A heretic merits the pains of fire. --By the Gospel, the canons, civil law, and custom, heretics must be burned."--148, 169

"He is a heretic who deviates from any article of faith." --p. 143

"All sects of heretics are condemned and various punishments are appointed for them and their accomplices." --Pope Alexander IV, --p. 135

"Statutes that impede the execution of the duties which appertain to the office of Inquisitors are null and void." --Pope Urban IV, p. 106

"They who bury persons knowing them to be excommunicated, or their receivers, defenders, or favourers, shall not be absolved unless they dig up the corpse; and the place shall be deprived of the usual immunities of sepulture." --Pope Alexander IV, p. 104

"Inquisitors must discard all fear, and intrepidly proceed against heretical pravity."

"All defence is denied to heretics." p. 153

"For the suspicion alone of heresy, purgation is demanded." --p. 156

"Heretics are by right condemned." --p. 157

"He who is without the church can neither be reconciled nor saved." --p. 144

Torture by the pulley. Primmer page 321 "The torture chamber is a dark, subterrranean dungeon. The Inquisitor-General is seated on a raised platform and issues directions as to the tortures. A priestly scribe at a table at the Inquisitor's feet is writing down whatever is extorted by torture from the several victims. Priests and monks are applying the various tortures. There is first the torture of the pulley. The hands are tied behind the back, a rope is attached to them and put over a pulley fastened to the roof, weights are bound to his feet. At a signal the victim is pulled up to the ceiling and then let down with a rush to within a foot of the floor; this dislocates the joints and causes exquisite pain. This is repeated again and again."

The following is excerpted from Foxes' Book of Martyrs Chapter V, An Account of the Inquisition.

At the first time of torturing, six executioners entered, stripped him naked to his drawers, and laid him upon his back on a kind of stand, elevated a few feet from the floor. The operation commenced by putting an iron collar round his neck, and a ring to each foot, which fastened him to the stand. His limbs being thus stretched out, they wound two ropes round each thigh; which ropes being passed under the scaffold, through holes made for that purpose, were all drawn tight at the same instant of time, by four of the men, on a given signal.

It is easy to conceive that the pains which immediately succeeded were intolerable; the ropes, which were of a small size, cut through the prisoner's flesh to the bone, making the blood to gush out at eight different places thus bound at a time. As the prisoner persisted in not making any confession of what the inquisitors required, the ropes were drawn in this manner four times successively.

The manner of inflicting the second torture was as follows: they forced his arms backwards so that the palms of his hands were turned outward behind him; when, by means of a rope that fastened them together at the wrists, and which was turned by an engine, they drew them by degrees nearer each other, in such a manner that the back of each hand touched, and stood exactly parallel to each other. In consequence of this violent contortion, both his shoulders became dislocated, and a considerable quantity of blood issued from his mouth. This torture was repeated thrice; after which he was again taken to the dungeon, and the surgeon set the dislocated bones.

Two months after the second torture, the prisoner being a little recovered, was again ordered to the torture room, and there, for the last time, made to undergo another kind of punishment, which was inflicted twice without any intermission. The executioners fastened a thick iron chain round his body, which crossing at the breast, terminated at the wrists. They then placed him with his back against a thick board, at each extremity whereof was a pulley, through which there ran a rope that caught the end of the chain at his wrists. The executioner then, stretching the end of his rope by means of a roller, placed at a distance behind him, pressed or bruised his stomach in proportion as the ends of the chains were drawn tighter. They tortured him in this manner to such a degree, that his wrists, as well as his shoulders, were quite dislocated. They were, however, soon set by the surgeons; but the barbarians, not yet satisfied with this species of cruelty, made him immediately undergo the like torture a second time, which he sustained (though, if possible, attended with keener pains,) with equal constancy and resolution. After this, he was again remanded to the dungeon, attended by the surgeon to dress his bruises and adjust the part dislocated, and here he continued until their auto da fe, or jail delivery, when he was discharged, crippled and diseased for life.

Another excerpt from chapter 5 of Foxes'--

Gardiner himself was then tormented in the most excruciating manner; but in the midst of all his torments he gloried in the deed. Being ordered for death, a large fire was kindled near a gibbet, Gardiner was drawn up to the gibbet by pulleys, and then let down near the fire, but not so close as to touch it; for they burnt or rather roasted him by slow degrees. Yet he bore his sufferings patiently and resigned his soul to the Lord cheerfully.

The following is excerpted from Foxes Book of Martyrs Appendix F and the enlarged 1957 edition of The Convent Horror--

In 1809, Colonel Lehmanowsky was attached to that part of Napoleon's army stationed at Madrid; and while in that city, the Colonel used to express his opinions freely among the people, respecting the priests and Jesuits of the Inquisition. It had been decreed by the French emperor that the Inquisition and monasteries should be suppressed, but the decree was not executed. Months had passed away, and the prisons of the Inquisition had not been opened. One night, about twelve o'clock, as the Colonel was walking along one of the streets of Madrid, two armed men sprang upon him from an alley, and made a furious attack. He instantly drew his sword, put himself in a posture of defence, and, while struggling with them, he saw at a distance the lights of the patroles--French soldiers mounted, who carried lanterns, and rode through the streets of the city at all hours of the night, to preserve order. He called to them in French, and, as they hastened to his assistance, the assailants took to their heels, and escaped--not, however, before he saw by their dress that they belonged to the guards of the Inquisition.

He went immediately to Marshal Soult, then governor of Madrid, told him what had taken place, and reminded him of the decree to suppress the institution. Marshal Soult replied that he might go and destroy it. The Colonel having told him that his regiment--the 9th of the Polish Lancers--was not sufficient for such a service, without the aid of two additional regiments, the troops required were granted: one of these regiments was the 17th, under the command of Colonel de Lile, subsequently pastor of an evangelical church in Marseilles. The troops marched to fulfil their destined object, the Inquisition being about five miles from the city. It was surrounded by a wall of great strength, and defended by a company of soldiers.

When they arrived at the walls, the Colonel addressed one of the sentinels, and summoned the holy fathers to surrender to the imperial army, and open the gates of the Inquisition. The sentinel who was standing on the wall appeared to enter into conversation for a moment with some one within, at the close of which he presented his musket, and shot one of the Colonel's men. This was a signal of attack, and he ordered his troops to fire upon those that appeared on the walls.

It was soon obvious that it was an unequal warfare. The walls of the Inquisition were covered with soldiers of the holy office; there was also a breastwork upon the walls, behind which they partially exposed themselves as they discharged their muskets. The French troops were in the open plain, and exposed to a destructive fire. They had no cannon, nor could they scale the walls; and the gates successfully resisted all attempts at forcing them. The Colonel could not retire, and send for cannon to break through the walls, without giving them time to lay a train for blowing up the French troops. He saw, therefore, that it was necessary to change the mode of attack, and directed that some trees should be cut down and trimmed, to be used as battering-rams. Two of these were taken up by detachments of men, as numerous as could work to advantage, and brought to bear upon the walls with all the power that they could exert; while the troops kept up a fire to protect them from that poured upon them from the walls. Presently the walls began to tremble, a breach was made, and the imperial troops rushed into the Inquisition.

Here they met with an incident, to which nothing but Jesuitical effrontery is equal. The inquisitor-general, followed by the father-confessors in their priestly robes, all came out of their rooms as the French were making their way into the interior of the Inquisition; and with long faces and their arms crossed over their breasts, their fingers resting on their shoulders, as though they had been deaf to all the noise of the attack and defence, and had just learned what was going on, they addressed themselves in the language of seeming rebuke to their own soldiers, and asked, "Why do you fight our friends the French?"

Their intention was, doubtless, to make us think that the resistance was wholly unauthorized by them; and if they could have succeeded in making a temporary impression in their favour, they would have had an opportunity, in the confusion of the moment, to escape. But their artifice was too shallow, and did not succeed. Colonel Lehmanowsky caused them to be placed under guard, and all the soldiers of the Inquisition to be secured as prisoners. He then proceeded to examine all the rooms of the stately edifice. He passed from room to room, and found all perfectly in order. The apartments were richly furnished, with altars and crucifixes and wax candles in abundance, but no evidence could be discovered of iniquity being practised there; there were none of those peculiar features which might have been expected in an Inquisition. Splendid paintings adorned the walls. There was a rich and extensive library. Beauty and splendour appeared everywhere, and the most perfect order on which eyes ever rested. The architecture, the proportions were perfect. The ceiling and floors of wood were scoured and highly polished. The marble floors were arranged with a strict regard to order.

There was everything to please the eye and gratify a cultivated taste; but where were those horrid instruments of torture which were reported to be there, and where those dungeons in which human beings were said to be buried alive? The search seemed to be in vain. The holy fathers assured the Colonel that they had been belied, and that he had seen all. The commanding officer began to think that this Inquisition was different from others of which he had heard, and was inclined to give up the search.

But Colonel de Lile was of a different mind. Addressing Colonel Lehmanowsky, he said, "Colonel, you are commander to-day, and as you say so it must be; but if you will be advised by me, let this marble floor be examined. Let water be brought and poured upon it, and we will watch and see if there is any place through which it passes more freely than others." "Do as you please, Colonel," replied the commander, and ordered water to be brought accordingly. The slabs of marble were large, and beautifully polished. When the water had been poured over the floor, much to the dissatisfaction of the inquisitors, a careful examination was made of every seam in the floor, to see if the water passed through. Presently Colonel de Lile exclaimed that he had found it. By the side of one of these marble slabs the water passed through fast, as though there was an opening beneath. All hands were now at work for further discovery; the officers with their swords, and the soldiers with their bayonets, cleared out the seam, and endeavoured to raise the slab; others with the but-ends of their muskets struck the slab with all their might in order to break it; while the priests remonstrated against the desecration of their holy and beautiful house. While this engaged, a soldier who was striking with the but-end of his musket struck a spring, and the marble slab flew up. The faces of the inquisitors instantly grew pale as Belshazzar when the hand-writing appeared on the wall, and they shook with fear from head to foot. Beneath the marble slab, now partly up, there was a staircase. The commander stepped to the altar, and took from the candlestick one of the lighted candles four feet in length, that he might explore the room below. One of the inquisitors endeavoured to prevent him; and laying his hand gently on his arm, with a very demure and sanctified look, he said, "My son, you must not take those lights with your bloody hands: they are holy." "Never mind," said the commander, "I will take a holy thing to shed light on iniquity; I will bear the responsibility!" Colonel Lehmanowsky then took the light, and proceeded down the staircase. When he and his companions in arms reached the floor of the stairs, they entered a large square room which was called the Hall of Judgment. In the center of it was a large block, and a chain fastened to it. On this they had been accustomed to place the accused, chained to his seat. On one side of the room was an elevated seat, called the Throne of Judgment, which the inquisitor-general occupied; and on either side were seats less elevated, for the holy fathers when engaged in the solemn business of the Holy Inquisition.

From this room they proceeded to the right, and obtained access to small cells extending the entire length of the edifice; and here they were presented with the most distressing sights.

These cells were places of solitary confinement, where the wretched objects of inquisitorial hate were confined year after year, till death released them from their sufferings: and there their bodies were suffered to remain until they were entirely decayed, and the rooms had become fit for others to occupy. To prevent this being offensive to those who occupied the Inquisition, there were flues or tubes extending to the open air, sufficiently capacious to carry off the odour. In these cells were the remains of some who had paid the debt of nature; of whom some had been dead apparently but a short time; while of others nothing remained but their bones, still chained to the floor of their dungeon.

In other cells they found living sufferers of both sexes and of every age, from threescore years and ten down to fourteen or fifteen years, all in a state of complete nudity, and all in chains! Here were old men and aged women, who had been shut up for many years. Here, too, were the middle-aged, and the young man, and the maiden of fourteen years old. The soldiers immediately went to work to release these captives from their chains, and took from their knapsacks their overcoats and other clothing, which they gave to cover their nakedness. They were exceedingly anxious to bring them out to the light of day; but Colonel Lehmanowsky, aware of the danger, had food given them, and then brought them gradually to the light as they were able to bear it.

The soldiers then proceeded to explore yet another room on their left. Here they found the instruments of torture, of every kind which the ingenuity of men or devils could invent.

The first instrument noticed was a machine by which the victim was confined, and then, beginning with the fingers, all the joints in the hands, arms, and body were broken and drawn one after another, until the suffered died.

The second was a box in which the head and neck of the victim were so closely confined by a screw, that he could not move in any way. Over the box was a vessel, from which one drop of water fell upon the head of the victim every second, each successive drop falling upon precisely the same place; by which, in a few moments, the circulation was suspended, and the sufferer had to endure the most excruciating agony.

The third was an infernal machine, laid horizontally, to which the victim was bound; the machine then being placed between two beams, in which were scores of knives so fixed that, by turning the machine with a crank, the flesh of the sufferer was all torn from his limbs into small pieces.

The fourth surpassed the others in fiendish ingenuity. Its exterior was a large doll, richly dressed, and having the appearance of a beautiful woman, with her arms extended ready to embrace her victim. A semicircle was drawn around her, and the person who passed over this fatal mark touched a spring which caused the diabolical engine to open; its arms immediately clasped him, and a thousand knives cut him in as many pieces, while in the deadly embrace.

Colonel L. said that the sight of these engines of infernal cruelty kindled the fire of indignation in the bosoms of the soldiers. They declared that every Inquisitor and soldier of the inquisition should be put to the torture. Their rage was ungovernable. Colonel Lehmanowsky did not oppose them: they might have turned their arms against him, if he had attempted to arrest their work. They then began punishing the holy fathers. The first was put to death in the machine for breaking joints. The torture of the inquisitor that suffered death by the dropping of water on his head was most excruciating: the poor wretch cried out in agony to be taken from the fatal machine. Next the inquisitor-general was brought before the infernal engine called "the Virgin." He was ordered to embrace her, and begged hard to be excused. "No," said the soldiers; "you have caused others to kiss her, and now you must do it." They interlocked their bayonets, so as to form large forks, and with these pushed him over the deadly circle. The beautiful image, prepared for the embrace, instantly clasped him in its arms, and cut him into innumerable pieces. The French commander, after having witnessed the torture of four of the barbarous inquisitors, sickened at the awful scene, and he left the soldiers to wreak their vengeance on the other guilty inmates of that prison-house of hell.

In the mean time it was reported through Madrid, that the prisons of the Inquisition were broken up, and multitudes hastened to the fatal spot. Oh, what a meeting was there! It was like a resurrection. About a hundred who had been buried for many years were now restored to life. There were fathers who found their long-lost daughters; wives were restored to their husbands, sisters to their brothers, and parents to their children; and there were few who could recognise no friend among the multitude. The scene was such as no tongue can describe.

When the multitude had retired, Colonel Lehmanowsky caused the library, paintings, furniture, and other articles of value, to be removed; and having sent to the city for a wagon-load of powder, he deposited a large quantity in the vaults beneath the building, and placed a slow match in connexion with it. All had withdrawn at a distance, and in a few moments there was a joyful sight for thousands. The walls and turrets of the massive structure rose majestically in the air, impelled by a tremendous explosion, and fell back to the earth an immense heap of ruins.

It is to be regretted that in the papal countries, in the northern parts of the continent, similar cruelties are, however, still inflicted. The odious name of Inquisition is indeed dropped; but there are dungeons and tortures, and the like instruments are used to inflict suffering and death; while multitudes of unhappy victims for conscience' sake are dying daily, wasted away by a cruel and lingering death. May the prison doors soon be opened, the captives' chains be for ever broken, and the heralds of the everlasting gospel go forth themselves unfettered, and proclaim "the acceptable year of the Lord!"

The following excerpt is from History of the Papacy Book 3 Chapter 3 by J.A. Wylie--

...This dungeon had its one captive, and the image of suffering it presented stood out definitely before us. The rooms above had their thousands, and were suggestive of crowds of victims, which passed before the mind without order or identity. Of their names few remain, though the instruments on which they were torn in pieces are still there. Emerging from the daylessgloom of the vault, we ascended to these rooms. We entered one spacious apartment, which evidently had been the "Hall of Torture;" for there, with the rust of some centuries upon it, stood the gaunt apparatus of the Inquisition. In the middle of the room was a massy beam reaching from floor to ceiling, with a strong pulley a-top. This was the corda, the queen of torments, as it has been called. The person who endured the corda had his hands tied behind his back; then a rope was attached to them, and a heavy iron weight was hung at his feet. When all was ready, the executioners suddenly hoisted him up to the ceiling by means of the rope, which passed through the pulley in the top of the beam: the arms were painfully wrenched backwards, and the weight of the body, increased by the weight attached to the feet, in most cases sufficed to tear the arms from the sockets. While thus suspended, the prisoner was sometimes whipped, or had a hot iron thrust into various parts of his body, his tormentors admonishing him all the while to speak the truth. If he refused to confess, he was suddenly let down, and received a severe jerk, which completed the dislocation. If he still refused to confess, he was remanded to his cell, had his joints set, and was brought out, as soon as able, to undergo the same torture over again. At each of the four corners of the room where this beam stood was a pulley fixed in the wall, showing that the apartment had also been fitted up for the torture of the veglia. The veglia resembled a smith's anvil, with a spike a-top, ending in an iron die. Through the pulleys at the four corners of the room ran four ropes. These were tied to the naked arms and legs of the sufferer, and twisted so as to cut to the bone. He was lifted up, and set down with his back bone exactly upon the die, which, as the whole weight of the person rested upon it, wrought by degrees into the bone. The torture, which was excruciating, was to last eleven hours, if the person did not sooner confess. These are but two of the seven tortures by which the Church of Rome proved, what certainly she could not prove by either Scripture or reason, that transubstantiation is true. The roof beneath which these enormities were committed was plastered over with the sign of the cross. In a small adjoining apartment we were shown a recess in the wall, with an oubliette or trap-door below it. In that recess, said the guide, stood an image of the Virgin. The prisoner accused of heresy was brought, and made to kneel upon the trap-door, and, in presence of the Virgin, to abjure his heresy. To prevent the possibility of apostacy, the moment he had made his confession the bolt was drawn, and the man lay a mangled corpse on the rock below. We had seen enough; and as we re-crossed the moat of the Castle of Chillon, the light seemed sweeter than ever, and we never in all our lives felt so thankful for the Reformation, which had vested us in the privilege of reading our Bible without having our limbs torn and our body mangled.

That that religion, whose birth-place is heaven, and whose mission is love, should be propagated over the earth by means of racks and stakes, is utterly repugnant to all that we know of her and of her author. No; it was not Christianity, but its counterfeit, which the Inquisition was erected to promulgate. These were not priests, but demons; this was not a "Holy Office," but a DEN OF MURDER. Of the enormous crimes and the horrible cruelties there enacted, much is known; but, alas! that much is but an insignificant portion of the whole. When we take into account the countries to which the Inquisition extended, the length of time it flourished, and the countless thousands of every rank, and age, and sex, who entered its gates, and never more saw the light of day or heard the voice of friend,--the virgin whose youth and beauty were her only crime,--the rich man whose possessions were needed to swell the revenues of the Church,--the heretic, for whom are reserved the strongest racks and the hottest fires of the Holy Office,--the imagination is overwhelmed by the number of the victims, and the awful aggregate of their sufferings. Yet, though but a tithe of these horrors is known, enough has been disclosed to cover the Church of Rome with eternal infamy, and to convict her before the world as but an assemblage of miscreants and villains, banded together in the name of religion, to rob and murder their fellows. And while we have the Papacy, we must have, in one shape or other, the Inquisition. Errors so monstrous as those of Rome cannot be maintained but by coercion. Those who talk of separating between Popery and her screws and racks would disjoin what the laws of superstition have made eternally one. So long as the one exists, both will continue, like substance and shadow, to darken the earth. When the papal government was temporarily suspended in 1849 by the Roman Republic, the Inquisition was found in active operation, and it was restored the moment the Pope returned to Rome. The various horrors of the place,--its iron rings, its subterranean cells, its skeletons built up in the wall, its trap-doors, its kiln for burning bodies, with parts of humanity remaining still unconsumed,--were all exposed at the time. These partial disclosures may convince us, perhaps, that it is better that the veil which conceals the full horrors of the Inquisition should remain unlifted till that day when the graves shall give up their dead.

Is the Inquisition Over?

According to The American Textbook of Popery:

The usurped power of the Romish Prelates and Inquisitors to imprision, torture, confiscate, condemn, and burn Protestants, is only suspended in its operation.

The assertion of right is not abandoned; and the exercise of the sway is not abolished. Papal statutes respecting the Inquisition must be valid as long as the pontificate endures [popes are supposedly infallible]. The enactments of the Council of Trent will have the authority of Popish law, until the overthrow of Babylon the Great. All Roman Prelates and Priests in Protestant countries are authorized ever to adopt the appointed regulations and customs of the Inquisition; both in the shameless methods of the Confessional, and in the more excruciating terrors of the Masshouse dungeons. The preceding decretals, rescripts, rules, and cannons, as transcribed from the Directory for the Inquisition, and the bulls of more than twenty Popes during a period of nearly four hundred years, are the common law of the Papacy upon this subject; the full obligations of which, according to their casuistry and decisions, are universal and permanent.

...That the above canons and rules for the extirpation of heresy or Protestantism are in full authority, and that the enforcement of them is only delayed to "a more convenient season," is self-evident; when we advert to the "profession of faith of Pope Pius IV" which every Roman Priest ratifies by his oath; and which is the solemnly announced creed of every Papist. In that document are the following articles. "I acknowledge the Roman Church for the mother and mistress of all churches: and I promise true obedience to the Bishop of Rome, successor to Peter, Prince of the Apostles and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. I most steadfastly admit and embrace apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions, and all other observances and constitutions of the same church.--I also admit the holy scripture according to that sense, which our holy mother the church has held, and does hold, to which it belong to judge the true sense and interpretation of the scriptures; neither will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanaimous consent of the fathers.--I likewise undoubtedly receive and profess all things delivered, defined, and declared by the canons and general Councils, and particularly by the Council of Trent: and I condemn, reject, and anathematize all things contrary thereto, and all heresies which the church has condemned, rejected, and anathematized.--I do freely profess, and sincerely hold this faith, without which no one can be saved."

Thus it is explicitly declared, that the belief of all the decretals, canons, extravagants, and bulls of the successive Roman Pontiffs and Popish Councils in every age during the last 1200 years, is essential to salvation...

...Where can you travel about Europe, and not find the deathless proofs of the sanguinary spirit and merciless exhibition of Popery? Cities, towns, villages, and other spots consecrated by the Christian's prayers and tears, and hallowed by the martyr's blood, continuously bring before your eyes, the prophetic vision, Revelation 17; "The woman sitting upon the scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy; drunken with the blood of the Saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus;" delighted with the work of death which she had enjoined, and exulting in the racks, and daggers, and poison, and fires which that "Mystery" had invented and coerced into ceaseless and universal application? Greater numbers of mankind have been murdered by the Papal hierarchy, on the account of the Christian religion, than have untimely perished from any other cause...

The New American Bible (NAB), is a Catholic Bible which has the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur (official Catholic declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error). The "School and Church Edition (1994-1995)" of the NAB says this concerning the Great Whore of Revelation 17--

17, 1-6, Babylon, the symbolic name (5) of Rome, is graphically described as "the great harlot".
17, 9 Here is a clue: literally, "Here a mind that has wisdom." Seven hills: of Rome.

"But aren't they telling on themselves?" Yes and no. They must admit that this startling description can ONLY fit Rome BUT they squirm out of it by saying that Revelation 17 chronicles PAST events--

17, 1-19, 10: The punishment of Babylon is now described as a PAST event and, metaphorically, under the image of the great harlot who leads people astray into idolatry.

Mystery Babylon is STILL "leading people astray into idolatry"
--thank you, you Great Whore, for the wording.