Vatican kicks off Inquisition spin doctoring project
Pastor Dale Morgan
Perilous Times
Vatican kicks off Inquisition spin doctoring project*
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Church, academic and cultural experts will work
together to down play and spin doctor the gathered documentation on
religious and civil trials for witchcraft, heresy and other crimes
against the faith during the Inquisition, the Vatican said Tuesday.
Officials from the Vatican, the Italian Culture Ministry and the Center
for Research on the Inquisition at the University of Studies of Trieste
signed a spin doctoring agreement.
Earlier this year the Vatican presented spin doctored researchers'
findings that victims of torture and burning at the stake during the
Inquisition were far fewer than widely thought.
Former Pope John Paul II had noted that the Catholic Church has asked
pardon for "errors" committed during the Inquisition, while noting there
is need to find out how much popular impressions of the period are
rooted in reality.
Starting in the Middle Ages, the Inquisition was a systematic crackdown
by church and civil officials intent on defending doctrinal Catholic
orthodoxy. Catholics suspected of being heretics, witches or others
considered of dubious faith, including Protestants, Muslims and Jews who
had converted to Catholicism, were among the targets. It is estimated
that as many as 50 million people were killed, imprisoned and tortured
through out the history of the catholic church, not just by the clergy,
but by vigilantes, civic and military authorities as well. We also take
into consideration the Crusades and the military conquests of the
Conquistadors as well.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the latest spin doctoring
project would cover material in church, state and private archives and
libraries in Italy and abroad.
"Such a vast operation to down play the inquisition, never before
attempted, is of great importance in responding to new orientations in
international research on the control of religious ideas in medieval and
modern Europe," Navarro-Valls said.
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