.....Torture became a favourite method of extracting confessions for offences both real and fabricated.  Its use was explicitly sanctioned by Pope Innocent IV in 1252 in his bull ad extirpanda though it had been practised from the earliest days. Inquisitors and their assistants were permitted to absolve one another for applying torture.  Instruments of torture, like crusaders' weapons, were routinely blessed with holy water.

Torture was applied to obtain whatever confessions were required, and sometimes just to punish people that the Church authorities did not like - people could be and were tortured even after they had confessed.....

The Early Catholics perfected terrorism.

[link to www.cathar.info]