The Power of the Question

Over the weekend, Vicki and I kept life very low key and got 3 rentals from The Movie Gallery. From one of them, Goya's Ghost, came the provocation for this post.

The movie is set in Spain from the end of the 18th into the beginning of the 19th century, looking at life through the ending phase of the Inquisition and the beginning of the Napoleonic conquest. The linchpin of the movie is the noted Spanish painter, Francisco Goya, though a Catholic monk, Brother Lorenzo, and a young Spanish woman who is a model for Goya, Ines, dominate the narrative of the movie.

In an early scene, Lorenzo is shown exhorting his comrades in the church of the need to return to the days when religion and the Roman Catholic Church were taken seriously. The monk feels that the people have grown too lax in their religious duties. Worse, he believes that too many people have fallen into apostasy, with many of them being secret Jews. So, he instructs the faithful Catholics to be aware of behaviors that could signal this secret theological heresy.

Two of his minions were having dinner at a tavern when they noticed the young girl, Ines, refusing to eat pork. That was sufficient to justify a summons from the Inquisition. After the court questions her about the reason why she did not eat the pork - she claimed she did not like the taste - and does not not believe her, they moved her into the prison to question her more strenulously. They chained her hands behind her back, attached the chain to a wheel, and raised her arms until her entire body was lifted off the floor. After enduring this excruciatingly painful treatment as long as she could, Ines was willing to confess to anything, in the hope of having the nightmare end, and she did confess.

So, before questioniong her, the officials of the Inquisition were convinced that she was guilty of being a secret Jew and tortured her until she confessed to just that. Thus, the court justified everything they had done to her because she was guilty after all. In the Spanish slang of the day, as portrayed in the movie, she was asked "The Question."

Her parents enlisted Goya's help in seeking her release from prison. He, in turn, asked Brother Lorenzo to meet Ines' family for dinner and hear their request. At the table, Ines' father stated that he believed anyone would confess anything under sufficiently painful treatment. Lorenzo countered with the argument of the church that, if you were innocent, God would give you the strength to resist the Question. In case anyone wants to watch the movie, I will not reveal the plot twists, but I will say that Ines' father proves how stupid such a belief on the part of the Church was.

This movie provoked me on different levels. First, in light of the national debate in America over what is and is not torture in questioning detainees at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and the effectiveness of such techniques, I believe Ines' father was right. Anyone can be made to confess anything under sufficiently prolonged painful treatment, unless it kills them first. Second, I am appalled that any religion ever felt justified in utilizing the kind of interrogation techniques as was practiced in the Inquisition. How anyone could operate with the smug self-assurance that this kind of barbaric behavior is what God would desire is beyond me. Unfortunately, similar beliefs are held by religious folks today.

What can we do? We as part of the America people and we as part of a religious people must make our voices heard. There is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that seems apropos: "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." Then, there is another more well-known one attributed to Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Just as there is power in "The Question," so must there be power in our answer to it.