Today, we are going to look at canonical due-process as executed by the 15th century Spanish Grand Inquisitor, Tomás De Torquemada (top left) versus that of Cardinal Tucho Fernandez (top-right.) Tucho is the Cardinal who allegedly-excommunicated the SSPX recently on 2 July 2026. (SSPX is the American abbreviation for FSSPX which stands for the Fraternity of the Priestly Society of Pope St. Pius X.)
Although a heretic can’t excommunicate anyone (as explained here by the WM Review) we are going to suspend that obvious ecclesial reality in order to evaluate the difference in legal process between the 15th century Dominican and the porn-writer currently living in the Vatican.
Fr. William Saunders of the Diocese of Arlington wrote a short two-piece series on the Inquisition. In Part 1, he wrote the basics of why the Inquisition was established:
The Lord entrusted the Church to preserve the deposit of faith and to hand on the authentic faith to later generations. At the Ascension, Christ said to the apostles, “Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you” (Mt 28:20). Therefore, heresy – “the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2089) – was considered a particularly grave sin. Not only was a heretic’s soul in jeopardy, but also his false teaching jeopardized the souls of others. The Church, as the guardian of souls, has the duty to identify and “root out” any such heresy and thereby to protect the innocent faithful. While a heretic cannot be forced to recant error, he must not corrupt the faith of the innocent faithful with his errors.
We will now compare his writings on the Spanish Inquisition to the recent legal-failures of Cardinal Tucho (aka “Kissy”) Fernandez against the SSPX. Cardinal Fernandez is now head of the DDF, formerly the CDF, formerly “the Inquisition.” Information below on Torquemada will come from Fr. Saunders’ Part 2 on the Inquisition found at the Arlington Herald (abbreviated below as AH.)
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