No one expects the Spanish Inquisition -- in 2006!

Well, they’ve done it again in Spain. Sandro Magister gives us the 21st Century answer to the Spanish Inquisition, this time in the form of a pastoral instruction from the Spanish Catholic Bishops Conference called “Theology and secularization in Spain” issued on March 30, 2006.

It is nothing less than a new and up-to-date “Syllabus of Errors”. It apparently went before the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith while Cardinal Ratzinger was still in charge—I wish then that they had decided to adopt it as a declaration for the Universal Church. For there is nothing peculiarly “Spanish” about the errors it condemns. Each and every error is a blight on the whole Western Church.

The closest that we ever got to anything like this for the Australian Church was the “Statement of Conclusions” after the 1998 Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for Oceania. At the time, there were many Australian theologians and even bishops who expressed their reservations on this document.

Obviously the Spanish Bishops are made of sterner stuff…