Inquisition

any one of several institutions which fought against heretics (or other offenders against canon law) within the justice system of the Roman Catholic Church It also refers to: o an ecclesiastical tribunal, o the institution of the Catholic Church for combating heresy, o a number of historical expurgation movements against heresy (orchestrated by some groups/individuals within the Catholic Church or within a Catholic state), or o the trial of an individual accused of heresy.

In practice, the Inquisition would not itself pronounce sentence, but handed over convicted heretics to secular authorities for the punishment deemed fitting by the Church purpose of inquisitorial penalties: punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit Arguably the most famous case tried by the Roman Inquisition involved Galileo Galilei in 1633. The last execution of the Inquisition was finally carried out in Spain on July 26, 1826