At a time when a new Pope, Benedict XVI, has just been elected and has chosen to carry on his predecessors search for rapprochement with two other major world religions-Judaism and Islam-it may be instructive to see just how greatly this Polish/German search for unity departs from traditional Catholicism, or, more particularly, from what was arguably the world"s most vicious brand of Catholicism, that practiced in Spain and Portugal up to, during and after the period known as the Inquisition. It has been widely believed that the virulent Catholicism of the Inquisition was extremely damaging to both Jews and Moors, of which Spain and Portugal had large populations. .

             Much of what is popularly believed about the effect of Catholicism on Judaism and Islam in the Spain and Portugal of the Inquisition period is really more precisely about what happened in the 15th to 17th centuries, rather than what went before or came after. And yet, it is possible to posit the possibility that the Inquisition began earlier, in a very legalistic way that was meant, in fact, to save Jews (and one would assume other non-believers) from the excesses of Catholic religious frenzy, particularly that brand that could break out on Good Friday when, as Marcus notes, Catholics were prone, in remembrance of the crucifixion, to violence (1938?). In short, despite the restrictions in the Seven Point Code, it was relatively humanistic for its time and place, especially.

             It should also be noted that the period of the Inquisition was the Age of Discovery. Ferdinand and Isabella were paramount figures who "were personally neither anti-Jewish nor anti-Muslim, nor did they use the Inquisition to forge a unity of faith" (Loomie 1999 356). In that regard, it could be argued that the Inquisition was less harmful to Jews and Muslims than the religious tenor of northern Europe was to other groups there, Christian groups such as the Pilgrims, the Huguenots and so on, who actually dispersed to north America the second they could.