Die Päpste

I'm sure there are more reliable sources on this topic.

I got 5 minutes into this piece of trash before I gave up on historical accuracy

1) It says that Christianity was illegal. No, it wasn't, in general. The Jewish authorities were threatened by it, and would cause trouble, blaming the Christians. So Christians would be blamed for civil unrest, not for their beliefs. The Neronian persecution was not throughout the empire, but in the city of Rome only, because Nero needed a scapegoat.

2) Some alleged scholar claimed that Rome was the ONLY city with an apostle. But, prior to Rome, Peter was resident in Antioch. Andrew was resident in Byzantium. John was the leader of the church in Ephesus.

A little bit of historical research could have easily corrected these errors. "Scholars" interviewed couldn't be bothered. I, therefore, can't be bothered to watch it.

I enjoyed this documentary very much. I learned a lot of the Catholic Church and the Vatican. I had the privilege to visit Rome and the Vatican.

Learn history!!! A lot of wrong facts in the first few minutes. It seems the director / writer / producer wants to tell their story, whether it's true or not. This is not a documentation, but a mockumentary. Or they were just sloppy.

I love the visuals and narration. It's dramatic, but so is this history and all history! It's wonderful and gives the recounting of papal history an excitement that's fun and fair. Very enjoyable documentary to watch.

It's also pretty concise. They go through the important moments and show the flow of time and impact.

The drawbacks are the over-generalizations made by the writers. For example, suggesting that Urban II ordered the massacre of the Jews in the Rhineland is just false. This outcome was the result of religious zealots who took advantage of the crusades to act out their own ideological beliefs. (Look up Emicho) This still happens today. Also, accusing him of having deceitful purposes is just inaccurate. He was doing what he could to help our brothers and sisters in the east defend themselves against invading armies of Islam. Somehow, the fact that this all started with outside invaders attacking first gets completely ignored. And the Islamists were engaged in a holy war, while Christians in the east and west were engaged in self-defense. But okay. Let's ignore that.

The accusatory stance can be seen again in how Pope Francis is described as "mischievous." Whoever sees our Pope this way has a mischievous heart himself and so sees through the lens of his own faults. ("For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you." Matthew 7:2)

Still, the recounting of historical events is accurate and if one is willing to see objectively and look below the surface of the shallow judgements presented here, one can see much more-the hand of God preserving and growing the Church in every way. The friction of events-the uncertainty, the errors, the challenges to authority and the infighting among Christians-all of this has made the Church stronger and wiser over time. Unlike nations which have all crumbled away, she has remained intact and improved, leading to peace and strength that's nations have never achieved ever. It is clearly God who has done this as only with God could things that would normally lead to an institutions demise end up leading to its preservation and constant renewal.