Vision TV's Inquisition.

Toronto -- Toronto's local "ecumenical" television channel, Vision TV,, sent out a January 3 news release advertising their latest co-production, "Secret Files of the Inquisition." Described as a "docudrama" miniseries, the four-night weekly series which actually claims to use materials culled from the Vatican archives (opened to scholars in 1998), bids fair to end up as yet another "slam the Catholics" exercise. It started on February 1, 2006.

Hailed by Alberta Nokes, Vision's Director of Independent Production, as "one of the biggest and most ambitious productions with which our network has ever had the privilege to be associated," the series is the brainchild of David Rabinovitch, who is, naturally, an "award-winning producer, director and writer." The advance release material featured such pejorative phrases, in reference to the Catholic Church, as "reign of terror," "booting out heresy," "the business of terror," and best of all, 'some scholars say the Inquisition exists to this day, in the form of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ... headed until recently by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger--now Pope Benedict XVI."

Vision TV has "Daily Mass" as one of its regular features and on this basis receives three quarters of a million dollars funding from the Archdiocese of Toronto, via the National Catholic Broadcasting Council. Apparently no thought has been given to transferring "Daily Mass" to Salt and Light Television.

Comment

Ms. Nokes also notes that the Inquisition's "drive to crush dissent and independent thought" has a "great resonance for us in the here and now." Indeed. Particularly here and now in Canada where so-called "hate crime" legal rulings directly threaten freedom of speech and thought.

What is the difference between Canada today and the medieval Inquisition? The Inquisition, though eventually using the wrong methods, fought for the preservation of truth against groups such as the Albigensians and Cathars who threatened truth by spreading the views that marriage and sexual relations are evil! (as works of the flesh). Modern "hate laws" promote the extinction of truth by defending sodo-matrimony as a valid form of marriage. The one upheld truth with the wrong means; the other destroys the truth by means of fines and imprisonment. The latter is far worse than the former.

Vision's scenes of the Inquisition are transposed into modern ways of thinking, with no account taken of the medieval belief that heresy threatened not just the spiritual-religious domain but also society itself. That was the reason that the state (local ruler) took on the task of enforcing compliance.

For an accurate assessment and explanation of the Inquisition, see the following: www.nationalreview.com/comment/madden20040618102 6.asp, & www.catholic.com/library/inquisition.asp, www.ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ421.H

TM#Inquisition(s)%20and%20P ersecutions.

Post script: Anti-Catholic bias on Vision TV seems to be mounting. One recent program featured Ontario NDP MP Charlie Angus being "cast out" of the Church (Jan. 5 and 9, 2006) for rejecting Church teaching against same-sex "marriage;" another program charged widespread homosexuality among Catholic priests in Canada (Oct. 20, 2005, Fr. Karl Clemens).