HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1985-10-16, Page 25Page 8A—Crossroads—Oct. 16, 1985
H. GO DciN
GREEN
To South Americans Sir ards 'decided that they had
Francis Drake was not a had enough of disastrous
great English nobleman but surrender and it was then
a bloodthirsty pirate —the that they began the building
absolute worst of the the Castillo of San Felipe de
thousands who ravaged the Barajas which, when
Spanish Main 40+) years ago. finished 230 years later was
I learned this last week the most massive, most dia-
when I paid a brief visit to bolically intricate fort in all
the historic walled city of the world.
Cartagena in Columbia. It's cannons still watch the
Back in the Jolly Roger and horizon for Englishmen or
cutlass days Cartagena was anyone else lusting for gold,
the port through which was emeralds and beautiful
funneled the fabulous wealth women, and over the years
which the Spaniards had they mus6have guarded the
plundered from the hapless town well because in the
Indians ( the loot from one older parts of Cartagena are
temple alone weighed 300 beautifully preserved houses
ton!) so little wonder that which were built in the 16th
this port was a prime target century. And what set me to
for other plunderers. writing this was the dinner I
In 1585 Drake conquered had in one of them.
Cargagena and threatened to The Bodegon de la Candel-
burn it to the ground unless aria is now a famous restau-
given all the gold in town. He rant featuring tuxedoed
got the gold, but the Spani- waiters, circulating min -
NEED DRAWER DIVIDERS? MAKE
THEM FROM HEAVY CARDBOARD
PUTTING 2 -SIDED TAPE ON ENDS.
HEY KIDS! LEARN TO DRAW
WITH DANNY COUGHLAN
1. Here's Danny's complete drawing.
2. Finish what Danny started.
#7--e
strels and the absolute best
in Spanish and Chilean
wines; but while the food is
superb, I suspect it is the
unique history of this mag-
nificent old building which is
its•ma jor attraction.
The back of your menu re-
veals that the Candelaria
was built in the late 1500's by
a merchant prince from Se-
ville and that it was here
where the Virgin of La
Candelaria made her mirac-
ulous appearance. She has,
been the patron saint of the
city ever since.
But the mansion is equally
famous because it was once
a house of refuge for people
fleeing from the Inquisition.
Whether or not the Virgin
had any connection to the In-
quisition wasn't made clear
to me, but I was surprised.to
learn that this dreaded agent
of piety was very active in
South America until 1819
when Bolivar put an end to
Spanish rule, and that Carta-
gena was its headquarters.
Indeed not far away from
the Candelaria the Palace of
the Inquisition is still pre-,
served as a tourist attraction
and one may see the small,
three -cornered arched win-
dow with the box where se-
cret denunciations were once
placed.
The accused was never
permitted to know the author
of the charge against him, he
was presumed guilty until
proven innocent •and any
lawyer who offered to defend
him would also be put on
trial. The rack 'and thumb-
screw aided. the Inquisitors
geatly in extracting confes-
sions, but such confessions
had to be "freely" confirmed
after the torture in order to
be valid. The canon law
governing these trials stated
that the accused might be
tortured only once, but the
same law ruled that a second
trip to the torture chamber
when required was to be con-
sidered merely as "a contin-
uation of the exercise.
Once the confessor was
extracted the penalty might
be anything from a public
whipping and Toss of
property to being burned at
the stake, and in the two cen-
turies when the Inquisitors
held Cartagena in their grip,
770 heretics perished in that
now lovely square in front of
the Palace.
And what, in the view of
the Inquisition, constituted
heresy?
In a single word — change.
The Inquisition was born of
the medieval church's fierce
dedication to the conviction
that there would be no new
truths. Back on the old side
of the ocean Galileo's con-
tention that the earth was not
the centre of the universe
brought him before the
Inquisitors, and only his
friendship with the Pope and
a humble recanting saved
him from the torture dung-
eon.
On the way home I sat with
a Colombian and over a
scotch I confessed that at my
dinner in the Candelaria I
couldn't shake the impres-
sion that I was hearing
screams coming from the di-
rection of the Inquititors'
Palace.
"But it wasn't quite the
same with us as it was in
Spain," he told me. "You see
the Inquisitors set up shop in
Cartagena just when we
were seeing the first books.
And books were awful excit-
ing because they were new
and full of new ideas maybe,
so the bishops decided they
would have to examine every
one of them first. Well, to be-
gin with, they just burned the
books they figured were
dangerous. And then one
year they sent a publisher to
the stake. And after that,
when'the books got really ex-
citing it got worse. A lot
worse. And my guess is that
those screams that seemed
to be coming out of the
smoke at your dinner the
other night were apt to be
coming from some poor
sucker who had done nothing
more than read the wrong
'book."
He was surprised that no-
thing like that had ever hap-
pened in Canada, and I
admitted that our history
seemed to lag behind that of
his country.
"Oh" I said, "from time to
time some uplift society or
other burns a few armfuls of
Playboy and Penthouse, and
one of our supercharged
evangelists wants to take
Shakespeare out of the
schools. And we've bank-
rupted a few publishers; but
as for us sinful readers, well
for the moment at least, the
pious people seem resigned
to having our burning post-
poned to the hereafter.
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•
4
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ob
• • •
41.
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