. In medieval Latin, the term inquisitio generally conveyed the sense of investigation or inquest. Charlemagne’s agents, the missi dominici, conducted inquests; William the Conqueror’s survey that produced Domesday Book was an inquisitio....

The long history of the Inquisition divides easily into two major parts: its creation by the medieval papacy in the early thirteenth century, and its transformation between 1478 and 1542 into permanent governmental bureaucracies—the Spanish,...

Inquisition (capitalised I) is broadly used in reference to the judgment of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church. It can mean an ecclesiastical tribunal or institution of the Roman Catholic Church for combating or suppressing heresy, a number of...

In his 1994 encyclical Tertio millennio adveniente, dealing with the beginning of the third millennium, Pope John Paul said that it was appropriate for the Church to repent of the sins of its officers and its faithful during the last two thousand years:...

Inquisition not that large, says Vatican Pope praises research on church's horrors By FRANCES D'EMILIO Associated Press Wednesday, June 16, 2004 Vatican City -- Torture, burning at the stake and other punishment for the faithful condemned as witches or heretics...

Events outpace the written word, showing no mercy for the self-assured. Writing on the Web site Counterpunch.com, Greg C. Estabrook recently suggested that the new Pope might emulate his immediate namesake, Benedict XV, who was "known for three things-putting an end to an intellectual witch-hunt...

Ecuador's new leftist government has set up a truth commission to investigate alleged human rights abuses committed over the last 27 years, particularly during the right-wing administration of former President Leon Febres Cordero.President Rafael Correa said Thursday that the four-member commission _ composed of a...