I came across this show on PBS and even though I only saw part of it, it was a very powerful show. I'm going to order the DVD from their website.
They took actual documents from the inquisition, documents the Inquisition took and kept. They used these documents to reenact different stories from the Inquisition. It was sad and heartbreaking to see what "christians" did to other Christians in the name of God. Killings, torture, prison, forced conversion of Jews, taking Jewish children from their parents to be converted and never to see their family again.
The Pope creating ghettos for Jews to live in and forcing the Jews to identify themselves with yellow markings on their clothes. Sounds familiar doesn't it.
Such dispicable, hateful and evil acts committed by these so called men of God. The history of the Churchin Europe shows why no Church should be involved in running a temporal government. Most of this was done to try and retain power and dominance over the people.
I've always known about the abuses that happened during this time but when you see the stories of the actual people it happened to it kind of makes it more powerful for me. One story that broke my heart was the story of this Jewish family. One night papal police enter this families home and under order from the inquisition take the young son from the family. They show a document to the father claiming the boy had been baptized and therefore, under the law could be taken from them. For over a decade this father tried to get his son back. He talks to the head of the inquisition in his region and says the boy is Jewish and has never been batpized. They refuse to tell the father who was claiming the boy had been baptized. The father eventually finds out what happened. At one time they had a "nanny" who watched their son, she was also a Catholic. One time when the boy was sick she baptized the boy and said a prayer. While talking to some of her friends she had mentioned this in passing. Well word got back to the inquisition and the boy was taken from the family because of that. The boy was placed in a home that specialized in "training" these children taken from their families. The father eventually was even able to see the pope, however the pope refused to give the son back to his father. The pope claimed he was now the father of the child like he was the father of all christians. The father never got his son back.
Just to think of these kind of stories and other horrific stories that happened. Its heartbreaking and so sad how corruption and evil influenced these people. At one time Christians were persecuted heavily by Rome, then "Christians" became the persecutors.