Watercolor, charcoal and plaster on paper

Catholic authorities have tried to present the Inquisition in an undeservedly flattering light. And to point out the Church’s error in this matter, Leland wrote: “When people believe, or make believe, in a thing so very much as to torture like devils and put to death hundreds of thousands of fellow-beings, mostly helpless and poor old women, not to mention many children, it becomes a matter of very serious import to all humanity to determine once for all whether the system or code according to which this was done was absolutely right for ever, or not.”

-- Walker, Barbara G., The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1983. Page 447.