Although Candide had committed several fowl deeds such as killing a Spanish Inquisitor and showing infidelity to his love Cunegonde, in the end he is generally admired by the reader. ... Other characters that provide reason to infer Candide contains Voltaire's feeling on religion are the Jesuit priest with homosexual tendencies, and the Grand Inquisitor who buys and keeps Cunegonde as his sex slave. ...
Candide illustrated this fact after the Lisbon earthquake when the Grand Inquisitor is ordered to ward off any more earthquakes. ... Candide explores the corruption in the Church especially the inhumanity of the clergy, most notably the Inquisitor, in hanging and executing his fellow citizens over philosophical differences. ... In executing the citizens to insure there won't be another earthquake the Inquisitor looks foolish when another earthquake occurs later that day. ...
As he remarks, he gives his audience, "Latin, practically no women, [and] lots of theology," partially rewarding their attention by also providing "gallons of blood in Grand Guignol style" (Eco, 1983). ... The fundamental tension in the novel is between those, like the inquisitor Bernardo Gui, Jorge de Burgos, Ubertino of Casale, or Adso in old age and that rare medieval-postmodern William who has abandoned his role of inquisitor, refusing to discriminate between martyr and heretic, for example. ...
