EWTN Press Release: New Mini-series!

EWTN’s New Mini-Series Reveals

The Real Truth About ‘The Inquisition’

Debunks myths & ‘black legends'

Irondale, AL (EWTN) – Were you taught that the Inquisition was a series of events fueled by religious fanaticism and rife with cruelty and terror? If so, prepare to be surprised by the truth of what really happened. Get the facts when EWTN premieres “The Inquisition,” an original four-part docudrama co-produced by EWTN, Stefano Mazzeo, and Lux Communication.


The mini-series airs 9:30 p.m. ET, Wednesday through Saturday, Oct. 26-29. The Wednesday airing will be preceded by a special “EWTN Live” interview at 8 a.m. ET with Producer, Writer, and Director Stefano Mazzeo, and Professor Thomas F. Madden, chair of the Department of History at St. Louis University, both of whom EWTN viewers will remember from their work on a previous blockbuster mini-series: “The Crusades.”

“The mini-series features live action drama sequences and interviews with leading historians and churchman to reveal the truth about one of the most misunderstood periods in Church history,” said EWTN President & COO Doug Keck, who served as Executive Producer of the series. “There were, in fact, multiple “inquisitions” in different countries over the centuries, including the widely misunderstand Spanish Inquisition.”

Filmed on location in six European countries and beautifully scored by Chorus Salvatoris, the mini-series takes on myths and heresies that are prevalent even today – as well as the real reason Galileo got into trouble!

For example, did you know that many misrepresentations about the Spanish Inquisition were developed over four centuries ago by Protestant Northern Europe as part of a propaganda campaign against the Catholic Church? Producer Mazzeo says that Spain was the Catholic superpower of the age and the Protestant countries needed a stick with which to attack Spain and the Catholic Church in order to cement the Reformation and secure the loyalty of their converts. In other words, they needed to give people a reason not to want to be Catholic! Of course, that’s not the only reason. There was also the fact that England and Spain were locked in a battle over land in the New World, and more.

What most people don’t know is that “[t]he Spanish Inquisition was set up to deal with Jews and Muslims who were converting to gain social standing and power, not [because they believed in the faith],” Mazzeo said.

The problem is that these fake Catholics were introducing heresies and immorality into the Church. “The main reason for the Inquisition was [to help insure] that everyone would go to heaven,” Mazzeo continued, which is one reason only those who had been baptized were tried. “They did not want people to lose their souls. [Many will be surprised to learn that] while heresy was a crime punishable by death by the state, “the clerics of the Inquisition were forbidden to engage in torture or even to pronounce the death penalty!”

In fact, secular “justice” in the 16th Century was so cruel that, in England, many Catholics were being tried and executed for simply being Catholics. By contrast, in countries that had an Inquisition in place, many prisoners in secular prisons blasphemed in order to be transferred and tried by Inquisitors because they were much more lenient.

Yet myths about Spanish torture and cruelty – which the Spanish called “the black legend” – abound. So how did the black legend get started? Those expelled from the country for infiltrating the Church with their heresies began to use the printing press to write lies about the Spanish. Today, Mazzeo said, new "black legends" are being created by the modern secular media and some are still aimed at the Catholic Church.

“The way Pope Pius XII is treated is a black legend,” Mazzeo said. “The Crusades was a black legend of the Enlightenment period. Today, militant secularists create black legends that the Church is anti-women. For example, the witch craze hysteria that swept Protestant Northern Europe in the Early Modern Era saw thousands of women being executed on hearsay of or the testament of a jealous neighbor. In Catholic countries, where the Inquisition was in place, if someone was accused of things like sleeping with the Devil or flying, the Inquisitors became very skeptical; they were university-trained canon lawyers and theologians!"

When EWTN asked Mazzeo to create a mini-series about the Inquisition for EWTN, he said, “I wanted to look into why this has such a bad reputation. Why can’t people see it for what it really is? What surprised me was how in favor of the Inquisition I became.”

Please take note of this series and share it with your friends. It’s television worth seeing!

EWTN Global Catholic Network, in its 36th year, is the largest religious media network in the world. EWTN’s 11 TV channels are broadcast in multiple languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week to over 265 million television households in more than 145 countries and territories. EWTN services also include radio services transmitted through SIRIUS/XM, iHeart Radio, and over 500 domestic and international AM & FM radio affiliates; a worldwide shortwave radio service; the largest Catholic website in the U.S.; electronic and print news services, including “The National Catholic Register” newspaper, and two global wire services; as well as a publishing arm.

I wish Mel Gibson had done it...

...the continuing story of Jesus Christ after he was placed in the tomb. 

The movie is "Risen"...

Whatever you think of Mel Gibson, his "The Passion of the Christ" movie was spectacular...at least in my opinion. I wish Gibson had done this movie and continued the story.  This looks good...but I just don't know if it will hold up to "The Passion of the Christ". 

More about "Risen" here: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/mark-judge/risen-next-passion-christ 



In Christ, 

Julie @ Connecticut Catholic Corner 

Methodist Preacher Has His Say, Then I Have Mine

I received an interesting email response from Reverend Ray Dubuque a United Methodist minister here in Connecticut, commenting on my recent post "Vote Yes! On Question #1!". Here is what the good Methodist Reverend had to say to me about my post and my Catholic faith:

Liberator_Rev has left a new comment on your post "VOTE YES! On Question #1": "Because your Catholic Church was not held accountable for its huge role in the Jewish Holocaust - which I document fully at JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/RCscandal - and you have never repented of that monstrous sin, confessed it and sought forgiveness for it, you are still engaged in promoting contempt for homosexuals as you did when your Roman Catholic Hitler persecuted the Jews AND homosexuals just a generation or so ago.When are you going to get around to promoting Christ's agenda, rather than Catholicism????" -Reverend Ray Dubuque of the United Methodist Church.

My response: What does the Jewish Holocaust have to do with voting yes to question #1 on this years Connecticut voting ballot? I fail to see the connection and have come to the conclusion that sales must be slow and you are trying to self promote yourself with my blog. Well I am all for capitalism and not socialism, so I will include your anti-Catholic nonsense link and wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. But what I won't do or allow, is your blatant lies to go unchecked on my blog. Perhaps "blatant lies" is too strong a word for me to use for a Methodist minister, perhaps I should chalk your comments and views up to simple ignorance? Well, here's to dispelling your ignorance with some true knowledge to help you grow as a clergyman and not be a stumbling block to your flock by teaching errors to them.
1) Your link to "Jesus Would be Furious" is nothing more then anti-Catholic hate and lies. I wouldn't line my dogs crate with that garbage. But you know what they say about "one man's garbage is another man's treasure...".

2) What "huge role" did the Catholic Church play in the Jewish Holocaust? You mean saving lives and excommunicating ANY Catholic who was a Nazi or voted for anyone in the Nazi party? Well thanks! I think the Church did well with that too, although it cost many Catholics their very lives to do so, they still did what was morally right instead of going with the flow.

3) The fact is that the conference of German bishops excommunicated all Nazis in 1930, and in the 1932 elections forbade Catholics to vote for a Nazi. The Church did stand up to the evil that was the Nazi party and they did save many lives.

4) Some quotes:
-"Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."- Albert Einstein- Time Magazine- December 23, 1940

-"The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas... he is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all... the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism... he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christian peace."-New York Times-December 25, 1941

-"I should like you to take this occasion to express to His Holiness my deeply-felt appreciation of the frequent action which the Holy See has taken on its own initiative in its generous and merciful efforts to render assistance to the victims of racial and religious persecutions." Franklin D. Roosevelt to Myron C. Taylor, August 3, 1944

-" . . I told him [the Pope] that my first duty was to thank him , and through him, the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public, for all they had done in the various countries to rescue Jews, to save children, and Jews in general." Moshe Sharett, Later First Israeli Foreign Minister (April 1945)

-"When fearful martyrdom came to our people, the voice of the pope was raised for its victims." Golda Meir, Israeli Foreign (October 1958)

-". . . the Catholic Church, under the pontificate of Pope Pius XII was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000, Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." Pinchas E. Lapide, Three Popes and the Jews (1967)

-"In his 1942 Christmas message, which The New York Times among others extolled, the pope became the first figure of international stature to condemn what was turning into the Holocaust." Kenneth Woodward, Newsweek (March 30, 1998)

-". . . Pius XII was, genuinely and profoundly, a righteous gentile." Rabbi David G. Dalin, The Weekly Standard, February 26, 2001

5) And from Zenit news:
"No one knows exactly how many Jews were hidden and saved by the Church, but according to "Three Popes and the Jews" by Jewish historian Emilio Pinchas Lapide, then consul general in Milan, "the Holy See, the nuncios, and the Catholic Church saved between 740,000 and 850,000 Jews from certain death." It is estimated that more than 80% of the Jews in Italy escaped the Nazi genocide. In Rome alone, the Jewish community has certified that the Church saved 4,447 Jews from the Holocaust." source: http://www.zenit.org/article-12040?l=english

6) Here is what Pope John Paul II had to say;
The words of the ancient Psalm, rise from our hearts: "I have become like a broken vessel. I hear the whispering of many -- terror on every side -- as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But I trust in you, O Lord: I say, 'you are my God."' (Psalms 31:13-15)
In this place of memories, the mind and heart and soul feel an extreme need for silence. Silence in which to remember. Silence in which to try to make some sense of the memories which come flooding back. Silence because there are no words strong enough to deplore the terrible tragedy of the Shoah.
My own personal memories are of all that happened when the Nazis occupied Poland during the war. I remember my Jewish friends and neighbors, some of whom perished, while others survived. I have come to Yad Vashem to pay homage to the millions of Jewish people who, stripped of everything, especially of human dignity, were murdered in the Holocaust. More than half a century has passed, but the memories remain.
Here, as at Auschwitz and many other places in Europe, we are overcome by the echo of the heart-rending laments of so many. Men, women and children, cry out to us from the depths of the horror that they knew. How can we fail to heed their cry? No one can forget or ignore what happened. No one can diminish its scale.
We wish to remember. But we wish to remember for a purpose, namely to ensure that never again will evil prevail, as it did for the millions of innocent victims of Nazism.
How could man have such utter contempt for man? Because he had reached the point of contempt for God. Only a godless ideology could plan and carry out the extermination of a whole people.
The honor given to the 'Just Gentiles' by the state of Israel at Yad Vashem for having acted heroically to save Jews, sometimes to the point of giving their own lives, is a recognition that not even in the darkest hour is every light extinguished. That is why the Psalms and the entire Bible, though well aware of the human capacity for evil, also proclaims that evil will not have the last word.
Out of the depths of pain and sorrow, the believer's heart cries out: "I trust in you, O Lord: 'I say, you are my God."' (Psalms 31:14)
Jews and Christians share an immense spiritual patrimony, flowing from God's self-revelation. Our religious teachings and our spiritual experience demand that we overcome evil with good. We remember, but not with any desire for vengeance or as an incentive to hatred. For us, to remember is to pray for peace and justice, and to commit ourselves to their cause. Only a world at peace, with justice for all, can avoid repeating the mistakes and terrible crimes of the past.
As bishop of Rome and successor of the Apostle Peter, I assure the Jewish people that the Catholic Church, motivated by the Gospel law of truth and love, and by no political considerations, is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place.
The church rejects racism in any form as a denial of the image of the Creator inherent in every human being.
In this place of solemn remembrance, I fervently pray that our sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people suffered in the 20th century will lead to a new relationship between Christians and Jews. Let us build a new future in which there will be no more anti-Jewish feeling among Christians or anti-Christian feeling among Jews, but rather the mutual respect required of those who adore the one Creator and Lord, and look to Abraham as our common father in faith.
The world must heed the warning that comes to us from the victims of the Holocaust, and from the testimony of the survivors. Here at Yad Vashem the memory lives on, and burns itself onto our souls. It makes us cry out: "I hear the whispering of many -- terror on every side -- but I trust in you, O Lord: I say, 'You are my God."' (Psalms 31:13-15)
-Pope John Paul II - March 23, 2000-Yad Vashem, Israel's main Holocaust memorial-

The Catholic Church is promoting "Christ's agenda" in my opinion, but I have a feeling you Reverend see "Christ's agenda" as something else. To me "Christ's agenda" is the Gospel message. That is telling people that Jesus Christ is the Savior and putting into action the Great Commission (Matthew 28:8 "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,"). Let's see, hmmm... there are approximately over a BILLION Catholics worldwide and how many Methodists?
I do thank you for sharing your views with myself and my blog readers. It's always enlightening and eye opening to see how others view things. May God bless you.