After confessions of misdeeds have been obtained through torture, a painful death is
also the historical norm, with burning probably the most cruel and yet the most easily
arranged. In 1252, the Church gave torture its seal of approval when Pope Innocent IV
issued a papal bull authorising the setting up of the ‘machinery for systematic
persecution’, the so-called Inquisition, as a way of obtaining confessions to heresy.
Four years later, with licensed secular torturers struggling to keep up with demand,
Pope Alexander IV authorised church officials to use torture too. For twelve generations
the Inquisition did an imaginative job in providing an advance view of Hell for the people
of Europe on earth too.