The medieval papal inquiries, the Spanish Inquisition and the Roman congregation founded in 1542 were different institutions. Their relationship to bishops, monarchs and central supervision varied. A claim about one system should not be transferred to another without evidence.
Jurisdiction also depended on the status of the accused and the offence alleged. The distinction between an unbaptised person and a baptised Christian accused of heresy was fundamental to the legal claims of the courts. Theological error, suspicion and established obstinate heresy were not interchangeable categories, even when practice sometimes failed to preserve the distinctions adequately.
Proof is a separate question from competence. A court may possess jurisdiction and still reach an unjust conclusion through defective evidence. Accusations, confessions, judgments and executions are different events in the record. The manner in which testimony was obtained, the possibility of corroboration and the availability of review determine what a surviving file can establish.
The civil execution of a sentence does not make an earlier ecclesiastical decision causally irrelevant; neither does it erase the civil authority’s own responsibility. A Catholic assessment should identify the acts of each participant. The defence of the Church’s doctrinal authority is compatible with criticism of a particular procedure or sentence, because a legitimate end does not make every historical means just. Salazar’s intervention in the Basque witchcraft controversy illustrates the value of evidence-based restraint within an inquisitorial institution.