"History's Mysteries" The Inquisition (1999)

Director:

SueAnn Fincke

Writers:

SueAnn Fincke (writer)
Steve Muscarella (writer)

TV Series:

"History's Mysteries" (1998)

Original Air Date:

1999 (Season 15, Episode 6)

Genre:

History | Mystery

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Torquemada | Spain | Science | Knight Templar | Black Legend

Cast

Arthur Kent	...	Host
David Ackroyd	...	Narrator (voice)
Edward Peters	...	Himself
Stephen Haliczer	...	Himself
James Given	...	Himself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Lu Ann Homza	...	Herself

Runtime:

USA:89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

France

Company:

A&E Television Networks

Pretty weak documentary about the Inquisition

I saw both parts of this documentary and it was disappointing that except for a couple of professors, the rest of the historians were apologists for the Catholic Church. The scholars who were picked added almost nothing of substance. While the documentary correctly pointed out the dates and authors of the numerous Papal Decrees which commanded various nations to conduct full scale Inquisitions (and The Vatican had their own in-house Inquisitorial panel),one alleged professor claimed that the Catholic Church could not be blamed for the Inquisition. Over the centuries nearly every Pope issued Papal Decrees authorizing and demanding Inquisitions against Judeaizing, Moslems, Protestants, Agnostics, scientists, philosophers, the Incas, the Aztecs, etc. The documentary pointed out that the Inquisition went on for several hundred years and it was always empowered by the specific demands of the particular Popes. Not to mention that the Inquisitors were all Catholic Priests.

In addition to using scholars that try to absolve the Catholic Church of blame, this documentary claims that the Inquisition in fact tortured people less than the standard courts of the era, and that the numerous burnings, mass executions, and torture murders were much less than what was previously presumed to be fact.

One glaring defect of this documentary is that on several occasions it is noted that Pope John Paul II opened the Vatican archives for scholars to review the Vatican records of the Inquisition; and yet none of the so-called scholars who were giving their opinions in this documentary had ever done any research at the Vatican or anywhere in Europe for that matter. It was hard to ignore that this documentary basically admitted that it was based on outdated information and old research that had not resulted from examination of the archives of The Vatican. In spite of the obvious consideration that The Inquisition happened primarily in Europe, this documentary relied on a cast of professors from various small American colleges.

Just as bad as the lack of comprehensive credible scholarship was the fact that apparently the person filming this movie only had access to only one reference book regarding The Inquisition. So every time they would narrate about the torture of the accused, the same four lithographs were pictured with close-ups of various victims in those book illustrations.

At the very end of this poor excuse for a documentary, a segment about Adolf Hitler and Serbia is added because they apparently could not fill up their time slot, so they needed to pad the documentary with several minutes of filler material about the Nazis, Serbians, and others who engaged in genocide. They did not even try to tie any of that back to The Inquisition, except to point out that many people throughout history have engaged in genocide, not just the Catholic Church (this was the message!!!).