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Holy reform of the Church Possibly Isabel’s greatest legacy, which surely helped save millions of souls, was her initiation and support for reform of the Church. This encompassed both ecclesial reforms and reforms of religious orders. Although Isabel had sharp disagreements with successive popes, these disagreements were never on matters of dogma. Not once did she challenge papal infallibility. Isabel’s response to corruption was never disloyalty to the Church but to practice and call for closer loyalty to Jesus Christ. The ecclesial reforms Isabel successfully pursued anticipated the Council of Trent by 80 years. She insisted that bishops live in their diocese (rather than Rome) and that priests say Mass at least four times per year. And the subsequent record attests that at Trent itself the Spanish bishops, by the grace of the Holy Spirit ‘rescued’ the Catholic Church. The religious reforms Isabel instigated weeded out the lax and corrupt so that the contemplative orders could thrive, bearing fruit for which the world can be grateful today. Those who benefited from Isabel’s reforms include St John of the Cross; St Theresa of Avila and Discalced Carmelites; St Ignatius of Loyola and the Society of Jesus; and from the evangelisation of the Americas, St. Rose of Lima, St. Peter Clavier and St. Martin of Porres and countless others. Despite very longstanding, widespread and mendacious propaganda to the contrary, Isabel’s establishment of the Spanish Inquisition saved countless lives and suffering. While other European countries fell to religious civil-war in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Spain was spared thanks to the defence against heresy made by the Inquisition. This defence cost lives, but widely accepted research shows that cost over the Spanish Inquisition’s 350-year existence to be about 4,000 lives. This is far less than the scores of thousands who died in other European countries due to religious conflict. During the same 350-year period the rest of Europe burnt 150,000 witches alone for heresy. The Spanish Inquisition saved women from being burnt as witches, dismissing the accusations in case after case as absurd. The Inquisition valued life far more than other contemporary tribunals. Records show cases of criminals imprisoned by the state deliberately blaspheming so they might be transferred to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition where prison conditions were much more humane. We cannot say that if Isabel had not lived then the Church would have fallen to ruin; instead we say that God would have chosen another instrument to fulfil His Mighty works. But the fact that Isabel was chosen as His instrument, and that she acceded to His will so fully – as shown by the good fruit for the Holy Catholic Church – adds to her reputation for sanctity. |