Note 446 — Chapter I · THE INQUISITOR-GENERAL AND SUPREME COUNCIL.
Reading edition
Tomás Sanchez, the supreme Spanish theologian, says “Licitum quoque est interrogare, non deprecative sed coactive, aliquam veritatem ad peculiariam Dei gloriam et astantium utilitatem quando adjurans prudenter judicaverit id expedire.... Ex levitate tamen et curiositate quadam res vanas et inutiles interrogare dæmonem in energumeno existentem est veniale propter actus imperfectionem.”—In Præcepta Decalogi Lib. II, cap. xlii, n. 24, 25.
The offence of Villanueva consisted in enquiring about the future and believing the responses of the demons. This was divination, which infers denial of free-will and is therefore forbidden as heretical. This is well defined in the Edict of Faith of 1696, which restricts the offence to enquiries as to the future—“O si sabeis ... que alguna ó algunas personas ayan preguntado en los cuerpos endemoniados ó los espiritados ó lunáticos cosas por venir ocultas, preguntandolas á los demonios.”