Audio only:
We begin a three-part dive into the various Catholic inquisitions with Catholic Answers President Chris Check. In part one we ask about the mindset of the Catholics who first established the mechanisms of inquisition.
Cy Kellett:
Part one of our deep dive into the Inquisition, Chris Check next. Hello and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding, and defending your Catholic faith. I’m Cy Kellett your host and among the hardest things to defend the church against are the historical accusations that we have behaved badly sometimes. You all did those crusades, you all did those inquisitions, you all murdered the great scientist Galileo, and we hear all these things and they’re hard. They’re hard to defend against because people do bad things and there’s a lot of bad things that have been done by Catholics throughout history.
So, defending ourselves or making an apologetic that defends the historical record of Catholicism is a different thing than trying to defend the Bible or trying to defend the divinity of Christ. It’s a different thing that requires a certain kind of subtlety and care. And so, our own president, Chris Check, came in to handle that for us. In part one, we’re going to talk a bit with Chris about the mindset that makes the Inquisitions possible, but makes the Inquisitions a thing that people would do, and also kind of get into, what did they think that they were doing? Not what do we think about it, but what did they think that they were doing when they instituted these inquisitions? So, we start in the medieval era with Chris Check.
Hi, esteemed and exalted president Chris Check. Thank you so much for being here and thank you for telling me that I have to call you that.
Chris Check:
President?
Cy Kellett:
President Chris Check. You have [crosstalk 00:01:47]-
Chris Check:
In who’s esteem? This is news to me.
Cy Kellett:
You are high in my esteem, certainly, but I think you’re esteemed by many people, three out of four of your sons.
Chris Check:
Someone called me recently to pay a compliment to one of my grown sons and it made my month, year.
Cy Kellett:
It does. So, you have CASA, Catholic Answers School Apologetics course on the Inquisition.
Chris Check:
I do. It’s my first course for CASA.
Cy Kellett:
And so, we thought we’d ask you all about the Inquisition because one of the things that you get to at the beginning of the course is the fact that there are certain things that Catholics always have to have an apologetic ready for, and it’s hard to do apologetics about history. It’s a little easier to do apologetics about, did Jesus teach a sacramental faith, where you can go into the Bible and the history of the church, but it’s kind of hard to do an apologetic that defends the church against just someone just saying crusades at you or inquisition at you.
Chris Check:
It’s a great point, Cy, and the reason for this is because the big three as I like to call them, the Inquisition, or inquisitions we should say, but I guess we’ll come to that, the Galileo affair, and the crusades are all involved events that took place at a certain time in history and were influenced in their execution. Excuse me, a little humor, and were influenced in their offing… I’m sorry, that’s no better, is it? By the dominant modes of thinking of the time and also events in history and in particular places, the influence of particular places and people in history, and if someone is not willing to sit down for the few minutes that it takes to get the minimum grasp of what was going on and how did people think in that time, then it is a very difficult conversation to have because it is common for Catholics and non-Catholics alike to interpret events in history and not just events in church history, but events in history period, through the lens of our own dominant ideologies.
And, a lot of the dominant ideologies… Well, crusades is an easy example, Cy. The Frankish knights went to the Holy Land to colonize it, and it was a experiment in French imperial capitalism. Well, words like colonization and capitalism did not exist in 11th and 12th century France. So now, if we want to know it, we got to go find it. What were the motives? How did they think? And, this is true of the Galileo affair, it’s true of the Inquisition. So exactly, I’ve taken a long way to say yes to your point.
Cy Kellett:
But as you were speaking, I was thinking that there is the person of good will who wants to know history and that person you speak to in a certain way, but then there is the general modern propaganda, which goes like this, which is a complete nonsense story, and that story is there was a Dark Ages that went on for about 1,000 years. Then, there was a Renaissance in Italy, then there was a wider Renaissance, then the Age of Enlightenment and science, and that’s how we got the modern world. That is a nonsense story.
Chris Check:
It is a nonsense story, and we can thank people like Voltaire and Edward Gibbon. And Gibbon by the way, I like, as an historian I like him. He’s fun to read and everything, but you’re right, that expression, you say Dark Ages, and we should concede that after the fall of Rome and even in late antiquity, Boethius is writing Consolation of Philosophy from his jail cell, awaiting his execution. Things are getting darker, that is true, as the Roman Empire is collapsing, but this expression, Middle Ages, that describes that 1,000 of years from 476, which is the date that we assigned to the fall of Rome in the West, to the middle, late 15th century, the Renaissance, we say the Middle Ages, this middle period in which really nothing happened after the fall of Rome and before the Renaissance. I like to call it the Christian Age because that’s in fact what it was.
Cy Kellett:
Right, and some would call it Christendom, but fair enough, and I think that’s a much better… I guess at the root there’s a modern propaganda that says the modern world is a triumph over the failures of the medieval world, and the real story is the modern world is built upon the successes of the medieval world.
Chris Check:
That is in fact true. Yes, it is. In fact, someone pointed this out to me. I was at the Prairie Troubadour conference in Fort Scott, Kansas, and our host, Dan Kerr made the point that in Dante’s Inferno at the very center of hell are the disloyal, and so Judas of course is there. And so, the opposing virtue to disloyalty, Dan points out, is piety. That is, a respect for our forebears. We speak of filial piety, but it’s a respect for our father and our forebears, and we are the most impious people-
Cy Kellett:
We are.
Chris Check:
… In human history, because we have basically said… The whole cancel culture that we’re in the middle of right now is a sin against piety. It’s a sin against piety. We are on the foundations. We’re enjoying the momentum of Christendom right now.
Cy Kellett:
Exactly right, and it’s starting to exhaust itself [crosstalk 00:07:35].
Chris Check:
For sure.
Cy Kellett:
But first of all, you can’t say cancel culture because people will tell you there is no such thing as cancel culture and the way they will prove that to you is by canceling you if you say cancel culture. That’s how that works.
Chris Check:
Well then, we should just stop this podcast immediately.
Cy Kellett:
But police yourself, Chris Check. So with that in mind, there is the person of good will who would like to know what’s the truth about all of this, and I suppose there are propagandists on both sides. There are probably Catholic triumphalist propagandists who don’t want to admit any wrongdoing on the part of the church or her officials, and then there is the much broader and more common propagandist who likes this pretense that there was just this dark age, and then we got over that Catholic thing, and now we all live in the light. So, let’s go back. First of all, let’s settle this question because you alluded to it, but it’s best we settle it now before we get into the medieval mindset, you don’t say inquisition, you say inquisitions.
Chris Check:
Inquisitions and we count three. So, the Medieval Inquisition, which is a response to a particular heresy, Albigensianism or the Cathars in the 12th century, and then the Spanish Inquisition, which is perhaps the most famous, certainly the one that lasted the longest.
Cy Kellett:
Right, it made it into a Mel Brooks movie.
Chris Check:
Exactly, and then well, to an Edgar Allen Poe short story really.
Cy Kellett:
Oh yeah, right.
Chris Check:
Poe, among others, is really responsible for some of that Spanish black legend making its way into our own time, and then the Roman Inquisition by which Galileo was tried. So, starting in the 16th century, if I’m not mistaken, and actually persisting until now, although by a different name. We call it the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but the Holy Office, which is what it was called beforehand, comes out of the Roman Inquisition. So in a way, we could say that Pope Benedict Emeritus, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger was the inquisitor general. They didn’t call him that, but that’s what his job was.
Cy Kellett:
So, a Medieval Inquisition, a Spanish Inquisition, a Roman Inquisition that actually evolves into what we have now, which is the-
Chris Check:
Yeah, finds its manifestation today in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Its functions are the same.
Cy Kellett:
So, this whole idea of inquisitions then emerges out of the medieval reality. You have to understand the medieval mindset to understand… And I’m saying medieval so that people will know what I’m talking about, but the mindset of the [crosstalk 00:10:12]-
Chris Check:
The man of a Christian Age.
Cy Kellett:
Christian Age, yeah. So, how did the person of the Christian Age understand the Inquisition that began there? What did they think was happening?
Chris Check:
Well, let’s first see what we can do to describe this person, this citizen of Christendom, or this man of the medieval period and how he understood himself. So, today, Cy, we would say someone is very religious and everyone would know what that means. When they say that they probably mean pious, or he expresses a lot of manifestations of piety, but if we said someone’s religious, really meaning religious, he practices the virtue of religion, he has a close relationship with God in his life, as well ordered towards the fact that he is working towards his salvation. If you were to say that someone was religious in this period, now this is something of a blanket statement, but I stand by it, it almost wouldn’t make sense to people because everyone was religious.
Cy Kellett:
I see what you mean.
Chris Check:
Everybody was religious, so all the people of this age, in Christendom that is, understood themselves very clearly in terms of their relationship with God. They understood that this time on this side of the veil was a period of trial and journey towards eternal salvation with God, and they also understood… They didn’t think of themselves as individuals. That’s something that really comes out of that enlightened period.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Chris Check:
They thought of themselves as human persons in a community working towards a common good, and for them the common good was, well, I’ll put it this way. I’m helping you towards your salvation and you are helping me towards mine.
Cy Kellett:
Yes.
Chris Check:
Now of course, obviously, you’re growing cattle and I’m making horseshoes or whatever it is. We have these natural functions and these are natural goods.
Cy Kellett:
I’d like to be a castellan. That’s what I’d like to be.
Chris Check:
Okay.
Cy Kellett:
If I was a medieval person, I’d be a castellan.
Chris Check:
All right, so we’re just going to let the listeners look that up.
Cy Kellett:
I’m a guy that owns a castle. That’s what that means.
Chris Check:
I don’t know, they’re sort of drafty.
Cy Kellett:
I still want to be that guy.
Chris Check:
That’s what those tapestries are for. Well, I would sell you [crosstalk 00:12:31]-
Cy Kellett:
I’ll let you come up to the castle every feast day.
Chris Check:
And, I can sell you tapestry.
Cy Kellett:
Okay, fair enough.
Chris Check:
So, you and I would be understanding that we’re there working out our salvations and that we’re here to help one another work out our salvations and this at root is how we understand the common good. Sure, we understand the common good to mean that I sell you tapestries and you invite me over for a party, which is also part of that, but informing that life is our common understanding that we’re citizens of Christendom. We’re citizens of the kingdom of heaven on this side of the veil. And that sense encompasses, informs, fills all aspects of human experience, and it is reinforced, for example, in the liturgical life of the man of this age. So, he is saying the Divine Office or what the layman would say the book of the hours, which was basically a poor man’s Divine Office.
And, when he’s praying the book of the hours, he has seen the harmony between the Divine Office, and for example, the seasons of the agricultural year, and this natural and supernatural harmony are brought together in this age and in the imagination of the man of this age. People nowadays, we don’t think in these terms at all, but if we don’t begin to think in these terms, we’re not going to understand why heresy was regarded as such a threat to the common good.
Cy Kellett:
If I may say, I believe you covered this in your class as well. This is not just a thing that Christians invented. This goes far into the ancient world. This is the normal way of society to function, to fear impiety because it’s a threat to the state. The Romans certainly did.
Chris Check:
The Romans did, and in fact, this frankly is what the Christians ran a foul of. Now, just looking at this from a historical perspective, now it is true actually that the Romans tended to be more latitudinarian about different religious beliefs than many other cultures. Basically they said, “Look, if you want to believe in that guy, Jesus, that’s totally fine with us. It’s when you’re making an exclusive claim, and you’re saying our Roman gods are not gods. If you want to make him part of our Pantheon, fine.”
Cy Kellett:
Exactly.
Chris Check:
And, they certainly said this to the Jews. That’s why the Jews actually enjoyed certain privileges and liberties in the Roman Empire. They didn’t have to serve in the army for example, but Greeks, Plato is explicit. He thinks that someone who doesn’t share the religion of the ruler really ought to be sent away for a period of years and be reeducated, but the example par excellence in our tradition of inquisition before the Christian Age is in the Old Testament. Moses is the first inquisitor and there are examples, and I go over them in my course in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Numbers of actually acts of execution toward people who had fallen into cults opposed to the first commandment.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Chris Check:
And by the way, St. Paul in his work, and I go into the details in the course, St. Paul and his work refers to Moses when he’s talking about how to deal with fractious people or factious, who could be fractious as well I suppose, and James also, look, after you’ve tried to explain it to them a couple of times, then-
Cy Kellett:
Out they go. Don’t associate with those [crosstalk 00:16:32].
Chris Check:
Right, precisely. So, it isn’t something exclusive to medieval, Dark Ages, toothless Christians.
Cy Kellett:
If I may as well, Chris, it’s not something that we’re unfamiliar with entirely in our age either. There are unacceptable thoughts that you will be publicly censured for, that you will be limited from… You may not be allowed certain public offices. It’s very unlikely you can declare yourself a Nazi and wear a swastika around and also be a public school teacher in America. Every society has its, no, that’s outside the bounds. It’s just that in our society, we tend, as you said, to be impious. So, it doesn’t necessarily have to do with God, but there’s certainly things that are outside the bounds in every society.
Chris Check:
I think, Cy, this is a critical point and one that, of course, the woke aren’t going to want to hear, but the former president went through two impeachments. Those are in fact inquisitions. We’re going to have an inquiry, which is the root of the word, into what this man did and determine what his culpability is because he did something, in our mind, or in the minds of the people who were impeaching him, that was opposed to the common good. So, you’re absolutely right. Even in the anti-Christian age, which is the age in which we currently live, inquisitions continue.
Cy Kellett:
Yes, right. Somehow we think that we’re above them because our inquisitions are not of a religious nature.
Chris Check:
And, I think you’re getting to a point, not just of a religious nature, of a Christian nature, and this is why the Christian inquisitions are so intolerable because they insist on a truth.
Cy Kellett:
Yes.
Chris Check:
And, that truth is Jesus Christ.
Cy Kellett:
Right, so heresy then. If we could just take the term for a moment. To the medieval person, to this Christian person of the age of Christendom, why would that person have thought of… Or maybe you could go more deeply into it, how that person would have thought of heresy, not just as, you’re a jerk, don’t go to church with us anymore kind of thing, but as an actual threat to the well-being of the state. The heretic is a threat to the state.
Chris Check:
He is. The first I wanted to do, I had to look this up because I’m not Karlo Broussard, but it’s paragraph 2089 of the current catechism, but it’s actually quoting canon law, the Code of Canon Law, heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth, which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith. And, then I would argue that probably in the medieval period there was even a broader understanding of this most precise definition that we have currently in canon law and in, and in the catechism, and just to make one more point that I think is going to help me answer your question, there is a relationship, Cy, between the church and the state that is informed by this understanding of the common good that you and I have been talking about.
And, I’m going to borrow from two guys here who express it better than I can. One is historian William Thomas Walsh, whose work I used in preparing the course on the Inquisition, and he says in the Middle Ages, there is a genuine separation of church and state, but it’s a separation of functions, not of principles.
Cy Kellett:
Yes, okay.
Chris Check:
And then, Ed Peters whose, I think, one of the best historians on the Inquisition says the conversion of the Roman Empire had transformed the church and the absorption of the church had transformed the empire. So if you said, going back to anachronisms like we were talking about at the beginning of the podcast, if you had said separation of church and state in the sense that we mean it today, the man of the Christian Age wouldn’t have understood what you were talking about. It wouldn’t even have made sense to him. So anyway, with those two things in mind, can you say your question again?
Cy Kellett:
Okay, well [crosstalk 00:20:48]-
Chris Check:
Was that helpful?
Cy Kellett:
It was helpful, yes. I still have to say there’s some people, even in the modern world, who have a problem with the idea of separation of church and state, but just for this very reason that human beings and the societies human beings made are not silos of various different things we do, where we’re holes.
Chris Check:
Right.
Cy Kellett:
And so, there is a bit of illusion to the idea of separation of church and state.
Chris Check:
Well, also it’s a silly expression, and I don’t get far afield here, but it’s as if there are two sets of informing principles. The state principles, which are not informed by Christian morality. The two have nothing to do with each other, so you do your Christian morality thing as long as it doesn’t interfere with-
Cy Kellett:
It’s insane.
Chris Check:
It is insane. It bears zero scrutiny.
Cy Kellett:
Right, exactly. So, okay. I’m sorry, let me ask both questions at the same time. So, you would say into the mind of Christendom, the state has a role in protecting souls and the church has a role in protecting the state. These two realities are inimical to the modern mind.
Chris Check:
Yeah, they are and they’re inseparable in their relationship in the medieval period. You said it very well, Cy, I should have interviewed you before I did my course because then I could have included that quote from you.
Cy Kellett:
Really? I just made it up.
Chris Check:
It’s good.
Cy Kellett:
Tell me about the state’s role in protecting souls then.
Chris Check:
Well, so the state will become… And, I think we’re going to see this manifested more obviously in the Inquisition in Spain, but it certainly does happen in the Medieval Inquisition as well, but if a soul is so obstinate in his heresy that he is a threat to this common good… In other words, he’s a threat to the common good, but then fundamentally he’s a threat to your salvation. I’m saying something contrary to the teaching of the church that could lead you astray and cost you your salvation.
So, if I am persistent in this, then the state has to intervene, and take me out of that conversation, so that you’re not led to hell. That’s how seriously people took it. So you might think, okay, someone nowadays might say, you mean you would actually kill someone or execute someone? And, the medieval man would say, “Well, of course, because what’s the greater peril, Cy Kellett losing his soul?”
Cy Kellett:
Or this guy losing his life.
Chris Check:
Losing his life. That’s almost nonsensical to someone of this age, but actually it makes perfect sense.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Chris Check:
But, the state’s involvement comes because it’s not the church’s job to make executions, it’s the state’s, as Jesus told Pilate by the way.
Cy Kellett:
So, the church doesn’t execute people in the Medieval Inquisition?
Chris Check:
Nor in the Spanish Inquisition. No, that job has left to the state, and by the way, vastly smaller numbers than people suggest. Probably, we can dig up some of that [crosstalk 00:24:15].
Cy Kellett:
We have to get into the numbers because it does make a difference, especially when we talk about the Spanish Inquisition, in which I believe one of the questions I will ask you about the Spanish Inquisition is how many millions of people were killed in it, and it’s a parody questions, a satire question.
Chris Check:
Something like 100, 200 million, something like that.
Cy Kellett:
He’s joking.
Chris Check:
I think it was twice the population of Europe at the time.
Cy Kellett:
But for most of the Spanish Inquisition, it’s something like three people a year.
Chris Check:
A year.
Cy Kellett:
But, we’ll get to that when we do Spanish Inquisition because I do want to talk about the Cathars. I want to talk about… Because they give us an example of what a heretical movement looked like in the Middle Ages and about what kind of response that movement provoked. I don’t want to put the onus completely on the Cathars for this, and I say Cathars because I can’t spell Albigensian, all right? I’m going to just be honest about it.
Chris Check:
And, some people say Cathars.
Cy Kellett:
Cathars, that’s probably right.
Chris Check:
I don’t know which is correct. There aren’t any here to ask. Do you know that joke?
Cy Kellett:
Yes, I know, about how the Dominicans did a better job than the Jesuits.
Chris Check:
Jesuits, right. I’ve heard of a Protestant, but I’ve never heard of an Albigensian, and the Dominican says, “That’s the difference.”
Cy Kellett:
We’ll get into the Medieval Inquisition and the practicalities of it next episode, but I just want you to set that up by telling me about who these people were, the Albigensians.
Chris Check:
You can probably help me with this, and if Jimmy or Tim were here, they could be more precise than I’m going to be, but the Albigensians were a people who came from the East, migrated and settled in a town called Albi, A-L-B-I in Languedoc, which is in Southern France. They also were in Northern Italy and they’re also called Cathars from Cathari or katharos, which means pure, and they would so describe themselves as containing the purity of doctrine. And they revived… Again, these are generalizations and the theologians who work for us are going to demand a little more precision, but they revived some of that old kind of Manichaeism which divides the world into the evil material world and the good spiritual world.
Cy Kellett:
And like the Gnostics, they’re not strictly monotheists either. I believe they believe in a good god and a bad god.
Chris Check:
Yes, they do believe in a good god and the good god governs the spiritual world and the bad god governs the material world. And so, once you declare that the material world is bad, then you do start very quickly to run afoul of some fundamental Christian doctrines. So for example, they denied that Jesus Christ became a man because that would have been an evil thing for him to do, to become incarnate, to take on a human nature. And so, once you deny the incarnation, now you’re denying the holy sacrifice of the mass, and also because why? It makes use of matter in the celebration of its liturgy, bread and wine in particular. So, the human body was evil, and so marriages, which united two human bodies, because it does, a marriage is consummated, and then that’s when the marriage is consummated.
Cy Kellett:
I’m clear on how this works. You were looking at me like I don’t know how this works.
Chris Check:
No, I’m just saying, I know that there’s the wedding, but the marriage is complete. Again, I wish Tim were here because he could just do it with more theological precision, is at the consummation. So, a marriage which unites bodies is evil, and in fact, by the way, creates more bodies, and so-
Cy Kellett:
And, I think the Cathars thought it was evil to conceive a child because you’re taking a spirit that’s good and shoving it into matter, which is evil.
Chris Check:
And as a consequence, they practiced abortion and infanticide. So, they were the original pro choicers. There you go. But then in a very strange way, because… And, a philosopher would be able to manage this connection better than I can, but in their denial of marriage, but because they are in fact in human bodies, they’re very guilty of widespread fornication for example, and also unnatural vice, what we used to call unnatural vice. So, among the Cathari there were the simple believers, those who were not pure, and they were free to indulge in these activities, but then at the end of life they had one sacrament. They called it the consolamentum and it was a kind of last rights, and it was something that you would get right before death, and then that would prepare your soul for salvation, and then there was even a right out of suicide, for example. So you can see, they had something of a distorted understanding of the relationship between the natural and spiritual world to say the least.
Cy Kellett:
They were like a weird mix of Puritans and people who live in Portland.
Chris Check:
Yeah, well-
Cy Kellett:
I’m sorry. I’m a right one to talk about [crosstalk 00:30:02].
Chris Check:
Well, and some others cities in the United States too, south of Portland, but nonetheless, it’s a cult that attracts a lot of members and they get whipped up into one enthusiastic frenzy or another, and they begin the vandalization. It isn’t simply that they’re spreading heresy, which they are doing and leading souls astray, but they begin to… I said vandalization, the vandalizing of Catholic churches and interrupting liturgy, desecrating the Eucharist, burning and desecration of churches. So, they are violent people and one version of the events or others will make it sound as if Christian armies came and slaughtered these poor innocent people who thought differently from the way that they did.
It’s not the case at all even at just the historical level. These people were causing mayhem in the towns in Southern France and Italy. And in response to this, thanks be to God, the church had a relatively new order of Dominicans who were specially trained in theology, so that they could examine better than I can, because they had that philosophical training, as Carla would say, they were able to begin an inquisition to find out who actually belonged to this, who did not, who believed what, so that, going back to our earlier conversation, the common good could be restored. How’s that?
Cy Kellett:
I think it’s great and I think it does… Especially when you think of the simple person who might become subject to that preaching and to that being led away from the mysteries of the Catholic faith, that there is an element to inquisition, and we’re not going to just completely be defensive about inquisition as we talk about the Medieval Inquisition in the next episode, and the Spanish Inquisition in the episode after that, but there is an element to these included in something that is sometimes a mess and sometimes horrible, but there’s an element of simply protecting the innocent person.
Chris Check:
You’re right, and let me say this. You’ve said that very well. And, there were excesses, that were wicked excesses in the Medieval Inquisition and in the Spanish Inquisition though far fewer than people imagined, but I’d like to make this point, Cy, if we dismissed every single institution because of the sinfulness of the members thereof, or the responsible parties thereof, there’s not a human institution, the Catholic church of course, wouldn’t survive this judgment, but neither would Major League Baseball, for example, where very recently we had a scandal with the Houston Astros, and then there’s the big one of course, from whenever that was, in the 19 something, 18 or…
Cy Kellett:
Oh, the White Sox scandal, 1919.
Chris Check:
1919, right, throwing the whole series, or any professional sports, for example, where they’re cheating. That doesn’t mean baseball or even Major League Baseball is a bad thing. In fact, it’s a good thing. It’s fun to go watch baseball.
Cy Kellett:
All right, next time Medieval Inquisition?
Chris Check:
I’m here for you, Cy.
Cy Kellett:
Thanks, Chris.
Chris Check:
All right, God bless.
Cy Kellett:
Our president Chris Check is going to be here for two more of these with us, two more kind of dives into the Inquisition. We’re going to next time take a look at the Medieval Inquisition, at its actual functioning, how it functioned, what it did, maybe look at some numbers about it. And, then we’ll take a look at the big boy of all inquisitions, the Spanish Inquisition, the one that even Mel Brooks put in his History of the World. Hey, you can support us. There’s a few ways you can do it. One, you could like and subscribe if you’re watching on YouTube right now. Liking and subscribing really does help us grow the podcast.
Two, you can send us your financial support. You can do that at givecatholic.com. It costs us money to do this. I’ll be honest with you, it doesn’t cost a ton of money, but we do need to pay for it, and so your donation really makes a big difference at givecatholic.com. And if you leave a little note about why you’re giving to Focus, that actually helps a lot too. We’ve learned a lot from those notes, so we would appreciate that.
The last thing you can do… Well, maybe not the last thing. You could fly over in a helicopter and drop money on us. There’s lots of things you can do to support us, but another thing that you could do, you could subscribe wherever you get this podcast, Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you get it. You subscribe and you’ll be notified when new episodes come up, and if you leave us that five star rating, lots of other people will give this podcast a try. I’m Cy Kellett, your host. We’ll see you next time, God willing, right here on Catholic Answers Focus.