Interesting Fact of the Day (tm):

The priests of the spanish inquisition were strictly opposed to bloodshed of any kind due to the biblical scriptures where Jesus abhors bloodshed.

Now any reasonable person would think this might be contradictory to the torture the priests employed. But if there is one thing we all know, an evil person will find a loophole in everything, even a religious evil person. They determined that torture was perfectly acceptable so long as it didn't shed any literal blood for this reason hanging, the rack, drowning, and many others were perfectly acceptable according to their twisted mentality.

Another little twist was with mutilation, which was forbidden by the church at the time. However the pope in 1256 (Alexander VI I think it was) told inquisitors that despite being a sin they were allowed to absolve each other of sins after each session. Effectively a loop hole allowing them to mutilate their victims during torture.