CARAFFA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 187, 9 August 1890, Page 3 (Supplement)

CARAFFA.

The history of the man who restored the Inquisition is one of great interest ancl more than ordinary instruction, but is touchingly sad, Caraffa had been a member of the Oratory of Divine Love, which was a little circle of moderate reformers, that held its sittings in the Trastevero at Rome, and occupied, as regarded the reform of the Roman Church, a position midway between the champions of , things aa they were and the company of decided ad< herenfcs of the Gospel, which held ibs reunions at Chiaja, in Naples. Caraffa bac? 'tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,' but the' gracious stirrings of the Spirit and the struggles of his own conscience he had quelled, and from the very threshold of rest which he was seeking in the Gospel, he had cast himself again into the anne of an infallible church. With such a history it waa nob possible that Caraffa could acfc a middle parfc. Ho fchrew himself wifch sterner zeal into the dreadful work of reviving the Inquisition than did even Paul 111., under whom ho served, and whom he was destined to succeed. 'Caraffa,' saya the historian Ranke, * lost not a moment in. carrying this edict into execution; he would have thought ib waste of time to waib for the usual issue of means from the apostolic treasury, and, though by no means rich, he hired a house for immediate pro' ceedings at his own expense; this he fitted up with rooms for the officers, and prisons for the accused, supplying the latter with strong bolts and locks, with dungeons,! chains, blocks, and every other fearful appurtence of his office. He appointed com-■ missioners-general for the different coun-' trie?. —From The History of Protestantisms