I came across an interesting, yet slightly gruesome tidbit while doing some research for a project: the last known victim of the Spanish Inquisition was a schoolmaster named Cayetano Ripoll.
He was executed by garroting (strangulation). It was on July 26, 1826 in the Spanish municipality of Valencia. They wanted to burn him. But the "leaders" thought that a bit too much. A nice hanging would suffice (sheesh). But the church leaders were so upset that he wasn't burned alive in a public square that they took his body and put into a barrel and set on fire--after he died.
Why was this schoolmaster (principal) murdered?
For teaching Deist principles--principles which rationalized theology. Deism just holds the position that we don't need to be told by some guy in a frock what god wants or what a book written by a bunch of guys in frocks wants us to think what god wants. Empirical reason and observation of the natural world are not only logical and reliable, they are also sufficient to determine the existence of a supreme being as the creator of the universe--you know, god. That's what Cayetano Ripoll was teaching.
The guy was a solider in the Spanish Army in the Peninsular War. He was a POW in France for two years. He was also the last known person to have been executed under sentence from a church authority.
How did this come to pass?
A letter sent by a man named Miguel Toranzo, a former inquisitor, to the Archbishop of Valencia saying that the schoolmaster:
1. Didn't believe in Jesus Christ
2. Didn't believe in the mystery of the Trinity
3. Didn't believe in the Incarnation of God the Son
4. Didn't believe in the Holy Eucharist, the Virgin Mary, or the Holy Gospels
5. And my favorite--he didn't believe in the infallibility of the Holy Catholic church or the Apostolic Roman congregation.
Again, only one of those things is true. The last one. Everything else on the list--lies.
Ripoll's last words? "I die reconciled to God and to man." (the irony...).
Any of this stuff resonating with what's happening in school board rooms in certain states or in certain parts of certain states?
Just made me wonder just how political the education business really is and has been for centuries. Perhaps that's what we need to prepare the people for--having a better understanding of the role school plays in local and state politics instead of pretending that "School is no place for politics". Maybe then, we'll start talking of all sorts of rights (e.g. students' rights, parents' rights, and...educators' rights).