Tuesday 28 October 2014

Many Thanks

Many Thanks to all who helped make and promote
EWTN’s Crusades docudrama


Templars filmed at Kenilworth Castle
I am very grateful to all who helped promote the Crusades docudrama which was screened earlier this month. It appears to have been a great success so we are relieved and particularly pleased with the very positive comments EWTN have received and also the great reviews by academics. I have now been given several new docudramas to script and produce in the next few years, so the team are going to be very busy with projects on Church history, some of which will be to dispel the ‘Black Legends’  that have been created by the post Protestant and secular world.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Professors Jonathan Riley-Smith, Thomas F Madden, Jonathan Phillips, and Damian Smith for their time and for sharing their knowledge with us. EWTN’s The Crusades was designed in some small way to set the record straight, so I heartily recommend the books, written by these historians, to those who wish to study the crusades further. The aim of the series was to dispel the myths about the crusades; I think we may have stimulated a new debate on the crusades, that they were in fact very necessary, for without them the history of Europe could have been very different and dreadful.

During the last month I have been travelling a lot, to Slovakia and to Fatima and also to EWTN in the USA where I appeared with Professor Madden to promote The Crusades. Please click here to see Fr Mitch Pacwa interview Prof Madden and myself.
 
Professor Jonathan Phillips
I would like to say a special thank you to Professor Philips for being our historical consultant. Professor Phillips is head of Department at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Also to Fr Thomas Crean OP who gave the theological background to the Crusades, to Fr Fergus Clark OFM of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and to Jamie Bogle President of the Une Voce federation for their splendid contributions. I would also like to thank the production team both at Lux communications in Slovakia and the executive producers at EWTN in States, and especially to thank St Clare Media and Buckfast Abbey in the UK.

The latest project which is in post production now is called In Search of Christendom – The Chartres Pilgrimage, for which we were honoured to conduct many interesting interviews especially by Jamie Bogle and by Michael J Matt. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Matt for his help in promoting EWTN’s The Crusades.

Our next project will be on the Inquisitions. We are pleased to announce that the historical adviser on this project will be Professor Damian Smith - who also took part in The Crusades docudrama - for his special knowledge on the Reconquista of Spain and Portugal. Professor Smith is a world authority on the Inquisition in Spain and has also written extensively on the other Inquisitions.
 
Professor Damian Smith
Please keep ‘tuned’ to this blog for news on the Christendom Project series of docudramas.


Saturday 11 October 2014

The Crusades - some reviews


EWTN’s The Crusades being well received
I must admit I am relieved that the Crusades docudrama is being so well received. It is the result of 18 months work so many thanks to all who worked on it both in the USA and in Europe.
Here is a link to a review from an academic
And on EWTN’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ewtnonline