Excerpt
Another gulp; his Adam’s apple bobbled. “Only the Holy
Inquisition has kept Spain free of the heresy afflicting Europe. An
iron hand is what you need.”
He was leaning forward, eyes wide, forehead wrinkled. I knew it
was better to keep silent. The glare in his eyes when he mentioned
the Inquisition troubled me. The arms of the Inquisition reached to
the New World through men like him.
“Do we have Inquisitorial Tribunals here?” I asked.
“Not one in the New World, not yet,” he said. “But I know for a
fact that steps are being taken to establish them in Lima and Mexico.
May God grant them soon, but I fear my bones will rest in the
churchyard before that happens. There are converted Jews buying
Statutes of Blood’s Purity and coming to the Indies to contaminate
everything with their hypocrisy, damning us all with their presence,
with their horrible sacrifices and vices.”
My thoughts turned to Gregorio de La Parra, but I couldn’t bring
myself to denounce him. I felt a surge of relief. At least now, my
dereliction in not denouncing Gregorio was legally absolved.
“You see how things are in Europe? Heresy has overtaken the
world since the Council of Trent,” he said. “In England, that
illegitimate whore, Elizabeth, following in her father’s footsteps, has
usurped the title of supreme ruler of the church. Priests can marry,
and they deny the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Imagine! A church born out of the will of a man!”
“They do accept the spiritual presence, though,” I said, “as does
Calvin in France, don’t they?”
“That Calvin!” He shook his head. “He imagines that salvation is
preordained, that God has already decided who will go to heaven
and who to hell. Our doings are irrelevant. He says that only faith
matters, as though an authentic faith could exist without
evangelism. Saint James said, ‘Even so faith, if it hath not works, is
dead, being alone.’ They shall all burn in hell! Calvin and Luther are
probably sharing their torment.”
I kept quiet. My opinion didn’t matter. What good would come
from arguing in a savage land?
Libros Libertad 