ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to analyse the canonisation in 1867 of the first inquisitor from Aragon, Pedro de Arbués, who died in 1485 from the wounds inflicted two days previously by eight assailants, themselves funded by converso Jews and Aragon nobles, when they found him praying at the high altar of the Cathedral of the Saviour of Zaragoza. His dual quality as both a victim and an agent of religious violence, as well as his connection with an institution as notorious as the Inquisition, which had been discredited by a significant part of the population, meant that Arbues’ canonisation sparked a bitter controversy in the international media. The Arbues’ affair will enable us to observe a number of phenomena: tensions between ultramontanes and liberal Catholics before the First Vatican Council; Catholic antisemitism; and the Catholic apology of the Inquisition and Catholic intolerance.
