Fr. Thomas J. Reese, S.J. On The Supreme Sacred Congregation Of The Roman And Universal Inquisition.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) was once known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. Later it became the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. Even after the Second Vatican Council, when it got its current name and lost the adjective "supreme," it was still the top dog in the Roman Curia.

This is the congregation that went after so-called Modernists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It imposed biblical fundamentalism on the church until Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) by Pope Pius XII freed Scripture scholars to use modern literary and scientific tools to study the Bible. It also silenced American Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray when he wrote about issues of church and state, and it took on famous French theologians before Vatican II.

After Vatican II, CDF went after Catholic ethicists who questioned the church's ban on artificial birth control. Neither liberation theologians in Latin America nor Asian theologians working on interreligious issues were exempt from investigation. Even bishops were subject to reprimand. Most recently, it has been going after the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States.

The congregation's word was also supreme in the Roman Curia. According to Pastor Bonus (1988), the apostolic constitution governing the Curia, "Documents being published by other dicasteries [offices] of the Roman Curia, insofar as they touch on the doctrine of faith or morals, are to be subjected to its prior judgment" (article 54).

Link (here) to read the full article at the Fishwrap