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May 10, 2007
PBS on the Inquistion
Maclin Horton watched it and summarizes. Your thoughts?
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
I only watched the second half of it, but it seemed to me to be the predictable anti-Catholic hatchet job you might expect from PBS. Maclin summarized the first half as:Cathars = good, Catholics = bad. The second half could be summarized as:
"Conversos" (Jews who pretended to convert to Catholicism) = good
Catholics = bad.
Posted by: Niall Mor at May 10, 2007 11:11:22 AM
I caught part of the second half and concur with Niall: conversos = good, Catholics = really, REALLY bad.
It didn't even make an attempt to be somewhat even-handed. How can they honestly bill this kind of thing as a documentary?
The BBC, of all places, did much better with The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition, a 1994 (joint production with A&E that has aired on the History Channel).
But one watches the PBS production and wonders if the researchers looked up anything. At all.
Posted by: CV at May 10, 2007 11:30:30 AM
I watched the first half-hour. It was easy to see where this thing was going, which is exactly as Maclin reports. I cussed at my TV, asked God to have mercy on fools and switched over to the Red Sox. They were pummeling the Blue Jays. A peaceful slumber overtook me along about the top of the eighth. I awoke this morning to find that the final score was 9-3, and that the Church had survived PBS on the Inquisition.
Posted by: Int'l Harvester at May 10, 2007 11:31:35 AM
I didn't see it but when I saw a feature article about it in the newspaper it brought to mind the disportionate media attention that is given to the Spanish Inquisition. This can be documented if you compare Google hits for the Spanish Inquisition and Google hits for La Vendee. Henry Kamen, a Jewish historian, estimates I believe that in the Spanish Inquisition 3,000 or so people were put to death, and this was over more than a century. In less then a year, in what was essentially the first modern genocide, the Jacobins killed approximately 300,000 innocent Catholics in La Vendee for their loyalty to priests approved by Rome. Google "Spanish Inquisition and Catholic" and you get 228,000 hits -- 76 hits for every person killed. Google "La Vendee and Catholic" and you get 14,000 hits -- 1/5 of 1 hit for every person killed. What this tranlates to is 380 times more attention given to the Spanish Inquistion than La Vendee, when adjusted for number of dead, and 16 times more attention without even considered the relative number of people killed.
Posted by: Dan at May 10, 2007 12:00:55 PM
Too bad. There was a superb documentary on the medieval inquisitions and the Spanish on BBC a number of years ago. They had as the principal presenters Henry Kamen and Bernard Hamilton. They are the authorities on those topics writing in English.
As the presentation represented mainline secular scholarly consensus, there were many complaints that the program was "pro-inquisition," etc. People always prefer what feeds the prejudices. I guess that's why PBS has produced its own version.
Posted by: Fr. Augustine Thompson O.P. at May 10, 2007 12:06:18 PM
I finally made the decision to longer support my local PBS station. I suppose a letter needs to be sent off to them to explain why. There are lots of good things on this station, but I feel I need to make a point. I don't know what else to do.
Posted by: Stephen at May 10, 2007 12:14:42 PM
I watched the first hour and a half before I fell asleep in the chair, only to wake up as the closing credits were going. Maclin's summary is exactly right on the first part, and the second half was even more biased (if that's possible).
At the end, one thought I had was that the whole thing was premised upon the notion that one's personal religious choices are paramount. Heresy doesn't matter because it's all individualistic. Taking that angle, of course, the Cathars and Conversos seem like the heroes of the story.
Posted by: Edmund C. at May 10, 2007 12:21:41 PM
Silly me...I got my degree in history. I actually worked to understand the stuff. Who'd've guessed that I could just make it up as I went along - and get away with it - and get paid for it.
Posted by: Mark Windsor at May 10, 2007 12:23:49 PM
Reminds me of elementary school where a teacher told us that the Cathars wanted to sing pretty hymns and the Church persecuted them for that.
Posted by: Eileen R at May 10, 2007 12:23:58 PM
Silly me...I got my degree in history. I actually worked to understand the stuff. Who'd've guessed that I could just make it up as I went along - and get away with it - and get paid for it.
Posted by: Mark Windsor at May 10, 2007 12:23:59 PM
Tedious. Aside from the many inaccuracies, it was just plain boring. I couldn't bring myself to watch the second hour.
Quite apart from the basic cartoonish portrayal of the angelic Cathars v. the demonic Catholics, just about every minute had some sort of historical inaccuracy in the "dramatic re-enactments." From the setup of the churches to the priest's vestments to the way Mass was celebrated, it was on a par with a community theatre production. Not to mention the errors of terminology, such as the priest and the woman "consummating" their relationship -- every Sunday. Hmmm. I thought consummation was only the first time.
All in all, not up to the standards of PBS. A plethora of small inacuracies makes me wonder if they even got the narrative correct, quite apart from the Bush-like depiction of absolute good v. absolute evil.
Posted by: Eric at May 10, 2007 12:26:48 PM
My reaction was the same as Maclin's. The show was just another hatchet job, with the content (whether or not the events depicted really occurred) a convenient stick to pick up and beat modern Catholics and Catholic priests with.
I thought about writing a letter to my PBS station and telling them I wouldn't support them anymore - but then how could I watch real news on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer?
Posted by: Kathleen Lundquist at May 10, 2007 12:46:50 PM
Does anybody know if the 1994 BBC/A&E "Myth of the Spanish Inquisition" is for sale online anywhere? Thanks.
Posted by: john at May 10, 2007 1:03:21 PM
Personally, I don’t see how it is possible to interpret the programs as anything other than an attempt to incite hatred against the Catholic Church. There were issues across the board - tendentious characterizations of what was known, mood music, Catholic beliefs placed at the center of the web of sinister motivations of some individuals guilty of despicable behavior, actors (well, overactors at least) conveying every possible negative stereotype through heavy-handed melodrama. It just goes on and on.
At one point I thought I heard the figure 1.2 million reported as the number of people killed as a result of the Crusade launched in the region, which I took to mean the Albigensian Crusade. Is such a figure historically supportable? Clearly, the casualty count was placed in a context designed to lead the viewer to associate it directly with the Inquisition itself, which of course, is one of the oldest tricks in the anti-Catholic book – ‘The Inquisition (sic – singular) killed millions, millions!”
It’s not as if an honest and straightforward examination of the facts of this issue or time period should be off limits. Far from it. We can all learn if we honestly examine the past. And Pope John Paul II put the Church through such a process of examination, including examination from outside itself, on the issues arising from the Inquisitions.
But I think it would be a mistake to pass off the issue of the programs lightly. They were – and should be considered – a declaration of all-out war to the very destruction of the Church. PBS placed the programs prominently, advertised them. Did PBS pay for them? It seems to me that PBS has chosen to place itself in a situation in which no Catholic of good conscience is able to contribute to or support public funds for PBS since it has decided to become an explicitly anti-Catholic organization.
This is no sputtering rage. It’s just simple logic. PBS exists to attack and destroy the Catholic Faith among other, and even worthy, purposes. Therefore unless the bigoted agendas as represented by these programs are disavowed (don’t hold your breath), it is neither logical, just, nor morally acceptable for Catholics to support PBS. We don’t have to be nasty, and of course we have an obligation to provide specific reasons when asked. We don’t need to “attack”, “blast” etc. any individuals. But, bottom line, Catholics cannot support this or any other anti-Catholic organization.
Look, I’m realistic. I don’t expect a collapse of contributions from Catholics to PBS, a solid “no” vote from Catholic politicians on public appropriations to PBS, or Catholics in foundations to consistently decline PBS grant applications. But we have an obligation to begin now, and to gradually educate unaware Catholics and train the new generation of Catholics to not support PBS – as long as it exists to destroy the Church.
Of course, better yet would be a situation in which PBS lived up to its charter and founding principles and the standards of historical truth. But given the arrogance of many of the influential individuals in early 21st century arts and academic fields, and the cultural/historical mindset they embrace, I would be surprised if such a turn-around were to happen.
Ultimately, though, we will win and in fact are winning. As the demographic shadows creep further across the face of the current populations of Europe and North America, little sub-groups of survival-level fertility will stand out more and more prominently. And their cultural influence will grow accordingly. As Catholics live out their vocations and are represented in those sub-groups, the culture will follow accordingly.
Posted by: Glenn Juday at May 10, 2007 1:29:48 PM
Despite disliking emperor's-new-clothes versions of our Religion, I turned it off quickly since art tends to lie in the nuances when applied to history. Picasso had said that "art is the lie that tells the truth" and we want art to lie when art depicts on a canvas a beach and surf and sand dunes with no empty coke bottles on the beach like in real life nor gull leavings on the dune fences. We need that lie because it is giving us the world renewed as it will be after history ends... per Isaiah and per Revelation. But when art enters the field of history, it lies in a lying manner as it has an inquisitor's face half in shadows under a hood as though he has a sociopathic problem best dealt with by prozac or paxil.
For the same reason, I don't like movies of Christ when he is depicted as having a face that belongs in GQ when in fact Isaiah 53:2 said that Christ would not come that way since it would have attracted people for reasons beside the point "..There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him."...(Isaiah 53:2) Dan's stats were more history than shadows on sociopathic visages.
Posted by: bill bannon at May 10, 2007 1:40:31 PM
Thanks for the link, Amy. As I mentioned in my email, I'm hoping someone with a lot more historical knowledge than I have will critique it in some detail.
It was really a pretty appalling piece of work, if the intention was to present serious history. 85% somewhat cheesy re-enactment, another 10% face time with a very beautiful young woman whom one assumed to be some kind of scholar, but turned out (thank you, Google) to be a novelist who's written a book set in the period. Presumably she did her research, but she didn't seem to have a deep grasp of the material. (The other 5% was spent with a guy who may have been a bit more of a scholar but didn't really have that much of interest to say and was far less photogenic. I think there was one brief comment from a Vatican spokesman.)
In sum, it was your average superficial History Channel sweep, with a (dare I say it?) rather Manichean point of view. PBS should have higher standards.
Maybe someone here can answer this question: the program asserts that the Albigensian Crusade killed two million people. Can that be accurate?
Posted by: Maclin Horton at May 10, 2007 1:40:34 PM
PBS can consistently be counted on to take an anti-Catholic stance. On the other hand, why do Catholics feel such compulsion to defend the indefensible? As if the Church were such a perfect institution, nothing that its members (all of whom have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God)do offends human decency and violates the law of God. (Recent history, if nothing else, should show us how bankrupt that notion is.) Please, friends, there may have been extenuating circumstances for the development of the Inquisition, but we ought not feel compelled to defend it.
Posted by: Dan Crawford at May 10, 2007 1:49:14 PM
Was someone defending the inquisition on this thread? If so, I missed it.
Posted by: Robert G at May 10, 2007 2:16:58 PM
We don't need to defend (and can't)the Inquisitions as such but let's stand up for the facts at least.
Another excellent book on the mythic aspects is INQISITION by Edward Peters (not our Ed).
I expected this show to be vile so I didn't watch it.
Posted by: Sandra Miesel at May 10, 2007 2:17:47 PM
I pretty much refuse to watch anything "historical" on television, and I tend to avoid most histories not written by professional historians for the same reason.
Posted by: alias clio at May 10, 2007 2:28:13 PM
My impression, after a visit to the web site created to market this "docu-drama" is that the chief purpose of the series is to air the preoccupations and grievances of its creator, David Rabinovitch. In future episodes, it seems, we're to be treated to demonisations of Pope Paul IV ("most hated pope in history", but you knew that, right?) and Pius IX.
Posted by: Romulus at May 10, 2007 2:31:09 PM
There were so many problems with that show! Where were references to the French monarchy's giant role? Where on earth did they get the estimated death toll of 2 million (?!?) in the crackdowns against the Cathars? I enjoyed the wierd suggestion that somehow people decided in roughly 1200 they needed a change from that mean ol' all-powerful and monolithic church, too. I mean, we all know there were no divisions within the church over doctine or the treatment of those outside the faith, and that everyone blindly paid and obeyed in those days of yore as they were hypnotized by that priestcraft in some strange latin tongue that no one knew anymore. Both Voltaire and my collection of Chick tracts told me so, and how could argue with them combined with public tv?
The lack of face time for the professor and the Vatican spokesman and the reliance on the historical novelist reminded me of that great vehicle of enlightenment, "In Search Of..." Once in a while, the show would give 20 seconds of air time to some square academic scientist in a grey suit who denied, say, a new ice age could start tomorrow. Then the rest of the show would have clips of some fine tan lesiure-suit clad madman declaring he saw yetis or that an asteroid was en route to destroy all life.
Posted by: Jeremy Rich at May 10, 2007 2:32:15 PM
I watched about 15 minutes of this show last night. Total waste of time. It was an amateurish dramatization of stereotypical "Black Legend" fare. The narrator made constant, anachronistic references to "Roman Catholics" and "the Roman Catholic Church" (terms that were not in use until hundreds after the period depicted).
Posted by: Mark at May 10, 2007 2:46:19 PM
Dan, I didn't notice anyone trying to defend what is evil. We would just like an attempt to put things in perspective, tell the truth, search for the balance, keep it fair, not exxagerate, not bloviate one way or the other. That's all. And PBS and many others can't seem to do that with regard to the Catholic Church. Not everybody, all the time has an anti-Catholic bias, but lots of people, lots of the time, in fact, do.
I listened to it from my non-Catholic relatives as a child and as an adult, I listened to it in history class in public high school, in the army, and in lots of other places from lots of people - including PBS.
Posted by: Stephen at May 10, 2007 3:03:30 PM
The show was comprised of alternating segments of, on the one hand, statements from historians (including someone from the vatican, apparently) and on the other hand dramatic reenactments with voice-over narration. The historians did not strike me as axe grinders. But when it came to the dramatizatons they were caricatured and maudlin.
Posted by: Sean at May 10, 2007 3:08:44 PM
