PBS docudrama on Inquisition

Catholic League questions accuracy of PBS docudrama on Inquisition: "Catholic League questions accuracy of PBS docudrama on Inquisition


New York, May 9, 2007 / 12:23 pm (CNA).- Catholic League president Bill Donohue has raised some concerns about a four-part docudrama on the Inquisition. “The Secret Files of the Inquisition” will air on PBS, starting tonight.

Donohue bases his critiques on the advertisement of the film on the PBS website, which states: “For over half a millennium a system of mass terror reigned. Thousands were subject to secret courts, torture and punishment.”

“This is plainly dishonest,” says Donohue.

Donohue cites British historian Henry Kamen, author of The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, who posits that almost all the conventional wisdom about the Inquisition is wrong.

According to Kamen, the Inquisition’s courts were more human than the secular courts at the time, since the former allowed defendants to be represented by an attorney.

Historian Edward Peters also argues against the commonly held view of the Inquisition. “Modern historiography has completely blown the old Inquisition propaganda out of the water. No one seriously contends that hundreds of thousands or millions were killed, or that the Protestant countries were any more humane than Spain was,” Peters states.

Donohue also "