Stay ConnectedThe unvarnished, non-boring history of the popes of the Roman Catholic Church – told in a way to remind us that the world and the Church’s problems today have happened plenty of times before.
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Today we chat with Andrew Gillsmith, author of the new and critically-acclaimed sci-fi novel, Our Lady of the Artilects. The book is absolutely outstanding (find the link to purchase it below) in its merging together of a plausible ultra-high-tech future and a global landscape that's shifted both geographically and spiritually.
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Find Andrew on Twitter @andrewgillsmith
Other book references from Andrew:
- In the Camps: China's High Tech Penal Colony - https://amzn.to/3TRMKN2
- The Fourth Secret of Fatima - https://amzn.to/3Ai60MD
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Our pope this week was your garden variety early Church pontiff – battling heresy, beautifying churches, and being an all around good guy. But one thing set him apart...sending a certain snake-expelling bishop on mission to a little island in the North Atlantic, and changing the face of the world forever.
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Our pope this week was in the Chair of Peter for barely a moment in the great lifespan of Catholic history, but his humble heart and joyful demeanor has influenced each of the three popes that have followed him and put him firmly among the most memorable and beloved pontiffs of the last several centuries.
And yes, this is the second time we’ve covered him on the show, but he deserved a refresh – after all, on the day this is being released, our pope will be BEATIFIED by Pope Francis in Rome.
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First it was Peter. Then it was Linus. And then it was this guy.
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Today's episode is a great conversation with Timothy Nerozzi, who currently works as a Breaking News Reporter for Fox News. Timothy shares his take in particular on why secular reporting about the pope is quite terrible these days, his approach to journalism, and then of course we go into great detail on the office of the papacy itself – why we should keep a level head about Pope Francis, how the papacy has been changing over the past century, and a ton more.
In addition to his work at Fox News Digital, Timothy has written for a large swath of solid publications, including Catholic News Agency, The Lamp Magazine, Washington Examiner, and the Daily Caller.
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Special Guest: Timothy Nerozzi.
Now, here at The Popecast we normally cover those men who are considered to be “valid popes” – that is, a legitimate part of the unbroken line of succession in the Roman Catholic Church that began when Jesus gave the keys to Peter and, as is commonly understood, sits now with Pope Francis.
And while there have been grandiose antipopes throughout history – men who we may one day talk about in more detail – today’s subject is another case entirely. Few may know about the man from Kansas who claimed to be pope, and unironically so.
Recently he died, so today’s episode will tell the story of and serve as a tribute for David Bawden, the man who for the past 32 years had – by his estimation – reigned over the true Catholic Church as Pope Michael.
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This pope is another one of those best kept secrets of Catholic history – he held some of the most influential post in Renaissance Christendom, presided over Catholicism’s response to the Protestant Reformation, and then cracked the top 10 for shortest papal reigns. But his mom sure would have been proud that he kept the name she gave him.
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Matt had the pleasure of being a guest on Real Presence Radio out in the Midwest, on a show hosted by none other than our most recent special guest Fr. Richard Kunst, to talk about the origins of The Popecast and his own personal favorite popes and papal history stories, among other things.
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Today’s pope is certainly one for the record books. Even though he was only in office a couple short years, he’s memorable for one major papal staple that we take completely for granted these days.
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Today’s episode is one we’ve been very excited to bring you all for a long time. Our guest, Fr. Richard Kunst, is the curator of the world's largest collection of papal memorabilia and artifacts outside of the Vatican. Our conversation covers everything from how Fr. Rich’s collection came to be, some of the coolest and strangest articles he’s seen, his appearances on Pawn Stars, and (in the patron-only bonus section) even some never-before-heard stories about BOTH Popes John Paul.
In addition to curating this great collection, Fr. Rich is a priest of the Diocese of Duluth Minnesota, pastor of St. James Parish in Duluth, and believe it or not, was even at one time Fr. Mike Schmitz’s vocation director when the latter was in formation for the priesthood.
FR. RICH'S WEBSITE: https://www.papalartifacts.com
Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling [Book recommendation from Patron-Only Bonus section]: https://amzn.to/3KkQqTb
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Our man this episode is altogether unique – and not just because he’s the only Successor of Peter with this particular name. No, he’s actually most famous for something he had no control over at all – because he was dead.
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This episode is about another one of those popes who you’ve probably never heard of, but is definitely one to remember. He was saintly from an early age, and despite desiring a life of anonymity in his service to Christendom, was plucked by the emperor from obscurity to become pope and, ultimately, usher in one of the biggest reform movements in Catholicism’s 2,000 year history.
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TWO RESOURCES MENTIONED AT THE END
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This week it's a special episode of the show – professor, historian, and author Dr. Michael Breidenbach joins the show to talk about his new book, Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America (https://amzn.to/3e0RDAM)
Especially for those in America, the story Dr. Breidenbach tells in his book and on the podcast – how English-turned-American Catholics wrestled between fealty to the king and fealty to the pope, how religious liberty as we know it is directly traced to an appeal from the brother of America's first Catholic bishop, and many other lesser-known historical threads – is truly something you won't want to miss.
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Today’s episode is about a pope who’s probably easy to overlook. He only reigned for a short time, we don’t know all that much about him, and he isn’t remembered as a saint – a canonized one anyway. And yet, he dabbled in plenty of important things and did alright.
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Today’s episode is about a pope who lived...and died...during the last and worst of Rome’s persecutions of the Christian people, that of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. But just how that living and dying went is still up for discussion. 1700 years later.
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Here's a pope who kept his head down and worked tirelessly for the good of Christendom. But in an age where secular rulers used the papacy as their plaything, he refused to be anyone’s puppet, and ended up paying the ultimate price. And what’s more, everyone though he was a bad pope until not all that long ago.
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This episode we're joined by JD Flynn and Michelle La Rosa from The PIllar to tackle one of the saltiest and most recent papal conspiracy theories – one of the doozies in pretty much the whole history of the Catholic Church. A half-century ago a pope reigned for a mere 33 days. Was it all just a strange coincidence, or was there something more nefarious afoot?
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This week's episode is a very special one indeed. Our pope today needs no introduction, being one of the finest men to ever grace the Chair of St. Peter, but he does need a long episode to tell the whole tale of his long and eventful life. October 22 – the day that this episode is being released – is this man’s feast day and the anniversary of the 1978 inauguration of his papacy, so raise a glass (or a pierogi) for one of the greatest of all pontiffs.
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This pope is a guy who rose from the lowest rungs of society to become the leader of a burgeoning but still illegal faith. And yet, it wasn’t the Romans who gave him the most grief. It was one of his fellow Christians.
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Today’s episode is a Popecast Redux about a pope who may well have single-handedly kept the known world from a very, very different future. In fact, 2021 marks the 450th anniversary of his masterstroke – a convening of both corporeal and a spiritual armies to lead the Catholic Christian West to victory in one of the greatest sea battles ever fought.
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Our pope this week was in the Chair of Peter for barely a moment in the great lifespan of Catholic history, but his humble heart and joyful demeanor has influenced each of the three popes who followed him and put him firmly among the most memorable and beloved pontiffs of the last several centuries.
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Our pope this week was a pontiff in exile – the whole Roman Curia was in those days – who everyone thought would be near death, but he ended up sticking around for 10 years and set about cleaning up the clerical riff-raff, leaving us with one of the greatest hymns ever written, and hiring a bloodhound in a red hat to prowl around Italy and gain back what was rightfully Peter’s.
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Joining the show this week is special guest Eduard Habsburg, the Hungarian Ambassador to the Vatican and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, sharing the incredible story of Pope St. Gregory the Great, the "Pope Who Founded Western Civilization"
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Read Eduard's children's book, "Dubbie: The Double-Headed Eagle": https://amzn.to/3saENWS
Special Guest: Eduard Habsburg.
This pope was far more renowned for his life BEFORE the papacy than he was after. And that was a bummer, because he kinda gets a bad rap for it. But it certainly didn’t help that he avoided accepting his election like the plague.
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Our pope this week was startlingly good for a Renaissance pontiff – he didn’t use his power to elevate all of his greedy nephews, he began as a monk and never really forgot it, and he worked so hard and so much that he could have coined the phrase “I can sleep when I’m dead.”
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This guy was an able pontiff who brought much-needed respect back to the papacy at its lowest point in history. And on the family front, he was a real diamond in the rough. A lone bright spot amidst a group of relatives that would make the Kardashians blush.
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This pope wasn’t long for this world once he made it to the Chair of St. Peter and was a compromise pick from the beginning, to boot. Apparently it had something to do with being just another pretty face, but history is silent on whether or not he was a ...barbarian.
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Our pope this week hit a lot of firsts – first Latin-writing pope, first African pope, and the first papal hothead. Good thing he had the humility to match it.
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Our pope this week voted in literally one million papal elections before it was finally his turn. At least it probably seemed like that to him. He was a child of the nobility who served the Church from an early age, but there was just one small thing left to do after he got elected as the new Bishop of Rome...
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He was one of the last solid pontiffs before perhaps the darkest time in the history of the papacy. He held off the Muslim Army as long as he could, spent way too long looking for new emperors, was a patron of one of the Church’s greatest evangelists, and sadly was the first Bishop of Rome in history to meet a certain kind of sordid end.
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Our pope this week was only in office a short time, but still managed to leave a mark that’s resounded through the ages in battling one of early Christianity’s most monumental heresies. He’s also one of just three pontiffs in history to have a name that starts with the letter Z.
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Our man this week was a mentor to one of the greatest popes to ever live, he spent far too much time trying to drum up an army from the emperor to protect Rome from destruction, and met his earthly end as a deadly disease swept brutally through late 6th-Century Rome.
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This week is an extra special a CROSSOVER episode with the excellent podcast The Quizzical Papist – Your “extraordinary form” bar trivia with Fr. Brad and Grace. If you’ve ever been to bar trivia – or if you can even remember what that’s like after the long winter of 2020, that’s the exact structure of their show and, as a result, this crossover.
Grace and Matt battled it out over two rounds – the first half you’ll find on The Quizzical Papist, so make sure you go over and start there. Our half of the show has the second round and final results of the great papist showdown.
FIRST HALF IN THE LINK BELOW!
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Our first episode of 2021 is a very special one indeed. This week we’re joined by JD Flynn & Ed Condon, co-founders of The Pillar, the brand new Catholic media project focused on smart, faithful, and serious journalism, from committed and informed Catholics who love the Church, which you can find and sign up for at pillarcatholic.com.
Special Guests: Ed Condon and JD Flynn.
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Our special guest this week is Fr. Harrison from Clerically Speaking – not only is Fr. Harrison a huge fan of Pope Benedict XVI, he's writing his doctoral thesis on the guy!
But don't worry, this episode isn't super heady or academic as much as it is simply Matt & Fr. Harrison nerding out on their shared love for Pope Benedict XVI and why he's just as important to the average person in the pews as he is to the great Catholic intellectual tradition as a whole.
Special Guest: Fr. Harrison Ayre.
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This episode is a bit unique. It’s early December, so our Catholic listeners will know that there are two mega huge feast days celebrating Mary in the first half of this month – the Immaculate Conception on December 8 and Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.
So we thought it might be fitting to break from the usual format and talk about the Mother of God under one of those titles, and what two 20th-Century popes have to say about her.
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Our pope this week had the fun job of wrangling a bunch of Alphas and convincing them to work as a team for the sake of Christendom, and in the meantime tried not to lose everything the papacy had accumulated up to that point in history. Oh, and his nephew would later end up being one of the most powerful popes in history.
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Our pope this week you might not know, but odds are you know about something he did. I’m talking about the biggest and oldest unreinforced concrete dome IN THE WORLD. He converted it from a pagan temple into a church, which has been in constant use now for over 1400 years.
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Our pope this week wasn’t around for long, but the time he did spend in office left its mark. He entered the Chair of Peter at a dicey time in Christian history and dealt with an arch nemesis from within the Church right after his election, to boot. He was eventually killed for his faith, and is now the patron saint of things like lovers and earaches.
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This pope was old and sick when he got elected, and wasn’t in office for all that long. But he wasn’t about to let any younger whipper snappers outdo him in energy or productivity. Oh, he also made the founder of the Jesuits a saint, and wrote the last document from a pope about when certain someones could or could not be burned at the stake.
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Our pope this week is in elite company in more ways than one – he was holy when sanctity was severely lacking in the halls of the Vatican, and he’s one of only FIVE men in history from the Order of Preachers to be elevated to the Chair of St. Peter.
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Our pope this week faced down an invading king, fought against a nasty heresy in the East, and has something in common with just FIVE other popes in all of Church history. Oh, and he’s not the St. Paul you’re probably thinking of.
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Our pope this week was the first to hold the most popular papal name in Catholic Church history. A divisive figure in his early days, he repented of his old ways and went on to become so renowned that the emperor himself prostrated himself at this pope’s feet.
It just so happens that Episode #53 is on Pope #53. We swear we didn't realize this until after the episode was recorded.
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The pope we’re talking about today had to follow the Fisherman himself. He’s a man who not only knew the Apostles, but was taught and ordained by them. Not to mention he’s one of only two popes – not counting Peter himself – to be mentioned in Sacred Scripture.
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This week on the Popecast we have a very special guest: Author Joe Heschmeyer. Joe is a fellow pope nerd like you and me who’s just written a great book on the papacy entitled Pope Peter: Defending the Church's Most Distinctive Doctrine in a Time of Crisis.
Joe was once a litigator living in Washington DC and then was a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, but he now teaches at the Holy Family School of Faith in Kansas City, Missouri and continues to run the popular blog Shameless Popery. We hope you enjoy this great conversation with Joe Heschmeyer.
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Special Guest: Joe Heschmeyer.
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This time around we’re doing a little something different – a topic that’s more foundational to the very papacy itself – to celebrate the 50th episode of The Popecast. It's the only truly secret meeting left on the planet. Where all the red hats gather for a Catholic cage match, and the world waits, holding its breath, for that fateful white smoke.
IN THIS EPISODE
00:16 - Catholic Balm Co (Sponsor) – Enter the keyword POPE at catholicbalm.co
03:03 - Defining key terms
06:31 - History of papal elections
11:32 - What happens when the pope dies / resigns?
17:13 - Papal election fun facts
19:06 - Excerpt from Pope St. John Paul II
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Our pope this week had barely been a priest 10 years before being elected at age 55, had one of Catholicism’s great Renaissance saints as his confessor for 3 decades and, oh yeah, he’s the one who brought coffee to the Western World.
It’s fitting that our sponsor for this week is Guadalupe Roastery! These guys are the real deal – not only is their coffee excellent, but their mission is to empower farmers to support themselves and their families by bringing you the most directly sourced cup of coffee possible.
So head on over to guadaluperoastery.com and get a couple pounds for you and a friend. Be sure to use the promo code POPE at checkout to get 10% off your entire order!
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Our pope this week is one unlike any other of the 265 successors of St. Peter. Smart and eloquent with a pen though he was, for most of his life he was best known as a smooth-talking womanizer and deadbeat dad whose only goal was elevating his own career, all the way up to being crowned as the emperor’s imperial poet.
And then he met the pope (who he hated), and everything changed.
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Today’s episode is sponsored by our friends over at Sock Religious (sockreligious.com), where you’ll find all sorts of different saint-themed socks to spice up your Sunday best.
They’ve got Pope Francis & St. John Paul II themed socks along with a ton of other excellent designs that make for awesome birthday presents or honestly just a nice treat-yo-self gift.
So head over to sockreligious.com and say The Popecast sent you!
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Our pope today, the first and only British pope in history, is a man who came from nothing and was elevated to the papacy. A monk who would’ve rather not been pope, he faced down emperors and kings and shut down the entire Eternal City when a heretic threatened to hold it hostage.
Since it's another bearded pope this week, an extra special thanks again to our friends at Catholic Balm Co. for sponsoring this episode of The Popecast. Check out their beard balms and other great stuff at catholicbalm.co and be sure to enter "POPE" at checkout to get 10% off your entire order!
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Our pope today reigned barely more than a century after Jesus walked the earth, and he’s best known for welcoming a disciple of the Beloved Disciple to Rome for a friendly chat about the date of Easter.
Since it's a (likely) bearded pope this episode, an extra special thanks to our friends at Catholic Balm Co. for sponsoring this episode of The Popecast. Check out their beard balms and other great stuff at catholicbalm.co and be sure to enter "POPE" at checkout to get 10% off your entire order!
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Today we have a pope who found himself having to deal with an emperor demanding that Christian images and statues by smashed to bits. And he was having none of it.
SPECIAL THANKS to our friends at Catholic Balm Co. for sponsoring this episode of The Popecast. Check out their beard balms and other great stuff at [catholicbalm.co](catholicbalm.co) and be sure to enter "POPE" at checkout to get 10% off your entire order!
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This episode is on a pope who was already almost 80 years old by the time he was elected, and he was really hoping to be able to retire in peace before his fellow cardinals got the bright idea to put him in charge.
No, this wasn’t 7 years ago, or even 15 years ago.
It was the 1600s.
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Thanks to our sponsors over at Sock Religious, who help you bring your Catholic faith to your business attire and Sunday best with custom sock designs of all kinds. Visit bit.ly/popesocks to get a pair for you and a friend.*
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Here we have a pope who condemned a predecessor who had dug up a dead pope and put his body on trial – no big deal. He also reigned longer than most of his immediate predecessors and successors – but was still only in office for 2 years. Times were tough in the late 9th Century.
SPECIAL THANKS to our friends at Catholic Balm Co. for sponsoring this episode of The Popecast. Check out their beard balms and other great stuff at [catholicbalm.co](catholicbalm.co) and be sure to enter "POPE" at checkout to get 10% off your entire order!
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We were featured once more as a guest on the Classical Theism Podcast (see Episode #37 for our first appearance), this time on two more papal objections – how an ecumenical council called by an emperor can still be legit, and why Pope John XXII wasn't a heretic.
If you're enjoying The Popecast, please consider supporting us at patreon.com/thepopecast to get early access to new episodes and ensure we can continue to produce the show!
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The third and final installment of our series on one of the greatest popes in history.
He was the first non-Italian pope in almost 500 years and the youngest in over a century, having been elected at the young papal age of 58. He also would have the third-longest reign in history, serving as pope for almost 27 years, and trailing only Pope Pius IX and St. Peter himself in terms of longevity. He’s one of the most traveled world leaders in history and the most visible, after logging over 680,000 miles as pope and being seen in-person by half a billion people.
This is the story spanning Pope St. John Paul II's monumental papacy, from his election in 1978 to his death in 2005.
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The series so many listeners to The Popecast have been asking about and waiting for is back for Part Two.
Our pope this week, once again, is one of the finest men to ever grace the Chair of St. Peter. Ordained a priest in secret at the start of the Communist occupation of Poland, he was a bishop at 38, an archbishop at 44, and a cardinal at 47. Though he was gifted with a towering intellect and a love for academics, his greatest joy was spending time in the outdoors – canoeing, camping, and praying with his friends.
This is the story spanning Pope St. John Paul II's priesthood and tenure as bishop, archbishop, and cardinal in Poland.
SPECIAL THANKS to our friends at Catholic Balm Co. for sponsoring this episode of The Popecast. Check out their beard balms, lotion bars, and ESPECIALLY their brand new Petra Solid Cologne at [catholicbalm.co](catholicbalm.co).
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It’s finally here. The episode so many of you have all been waiting for. And this is just part one…
Our pope this week is one of the finest men to ever grace the Chair of St. Peter. His life was one of unimaginable suffering, having been under the thumb of both the Nazis and the Communists at different points in his life. A renaissance man, he was equal parts philosopher and poet – exercising the head and the heart with unrivaled passion. Losing his earthly mother at age 9, he’s perhaps best known for his devotion to another Mother – God’s Mother.
This is the story of his early life.
SPECIAL THANKS to our friends at Catholic Balm Co. for sponsoring this episode of The Popecast. Check out their beard balms, lotion bars, and ESPECIALLY their brand new Petra Solid Cologne at [catholicbalm.co](catholicbalm.co).
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Our pope this week is one of the greatest heroes of the ancient Church that you’ve never heard of. Well, at least, not until now. He was only pope for a short time, but his witness and heroic martyrdom left a mark that has echoed down through the centuries. Almost 18 centuries, in fact.
SPECIAL THANKS to our friends at Catholic Balm Co. for sponsoring this episode of The Popecast. Check out their beard balms, lotion bars, and ESPECIALLY their brand new Petra Solid Cologne at [catholicbalm.co](catholicbalm.co).
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Our episode this week is an interview we did with John DeRosa of the Classical Theism podcast, a show that’s all about defending Catholic Christian ideas in Conversation with all sorts of excellent guests like Trent Horn, Dr. Ed Feser, Jimmy Akin, Gomer from Catching Foxes and – somehow – yours truly. We chat about the stories of Pope Honorius I and Pope Liberius, along with lots of other great stuff.
Check out his show at classicaltheism.com
SPECIAL THANKS to our friends at Catholic Balm Co. for sponsoring this episode of The Popecast. Check out their beard balms, lotion bars, and ESPECIALLY their brand new Petra Solid Cologne at [catholicbalm.co](catholicbalm.co). Be sure to enter "POPE" at checkout to get 10% off your entire order!
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Our pontiff this week did one of the most infamous deeds in all of papal history. It was so memorable that no pope since has taken that particular papal name, and he was the butt of a joke at the election of our very own Pope Francis for it. His crime? He suppressed the Society of Jesus.
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LINKS MENTIONED FROM THIS EPISODE
Netflix's new film "The Two Popes" is a recently-released biographical drama of the friendship between Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, when the latter was still Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio. The film has been mostly praised in the wider culture and predominantly criticized inside Catholic circles. In this episode, Matt from The Popecast and Taylor from Forte Catholic review the good and the bad of the new film.
Listen to the first half of the review at https://www.fortecatholic.com/radiopodcast/167 (21:20)
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(P.S. I sincerely apogolize for the super crappy audio on my end! With Christmas travels I was without my usual setup, so we made do as best we could in order to get the episode out in time!)
Special Guest: Forte Catholic.
It’s a Popecast Christmas episode this week. Not only did this guy take his turn at fighting off the heresy that had infected a majority of the world’s bishops, but he stood by one of the Church’s greatest bishops and saints, and he may have even been the one to officially declare the day we celebrate Jesus’ birth.
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Our pope this week – one of the notorious so-called Bad Popes – was what the kids might call “a player”. A man of loose morals who only got the job because on his deathbed dear old dad made Roman officials pinky swear to elect his kid pope. Oh, and he was killed after being caught in bed with a married woman … at the hands of her jealous husband, no less.
[BOOK] Catholic Hipster: The Next Level – https://amzn.to/332yG8O
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We’re back this week with an episode on a pope who was equal parts lion and lamb. His blunt writing on papal authority was a respectful dunk on the eastern emperor, and served as that teaching’s foundation for centuries, but in the same breath he gave away all his earthly possessions before the end, and willingly died penniless.
No. 49 – Pope St. Gelasius
492-496 A.D
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On this week’s episode, it’s a pope who answered to no one but God. He was fierce in battling the burgeoning heresy of Monothelitism (which claimed Jesus only had one will), didn’t care if the emperor approved his election or not, and would go on to pay the ultimate price for his efforts, all for the sake of the Church.
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On this week’s episode, it’s another one of the “Bad Popes”. This guy loved partying so much, and was so bad at managing money, that one contemporary said he spent three pontificates worth of dough – everything from the guy before him, all of his own money, and all of his successor’s. Oh, and Martin Luther was stirring up a rebellion, and this pope didn’t do much to stop it.
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On this episode of the Popecast it’s a guy who historian Eamon Duffy listed as one of the 10 Popes Who Shook the World. He was friends with a couple of bad popes, did some shady stuff himself in early life, then had a profound conversion and laid the groundwork for reform of the Church that we’re still feeling over 500 years later.
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This week is a Popecast unlike any other. Our pope this episode was not only the first in history to resign his office, but he did so after being exiled alongside his archrival, a man who had set himself up as the Church’s first antipope. And the craziest part about it? Both of them are now saints.
Also, we talk about beards at the end – thanks to a question for Nick, one of our newest patrons!
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He was in office less than a year, but left a mark on the Church that’s still making waves among Catholics and non-Catholics alike to this very day. Well-educated, a lover of sacred music, and great servant of the poor, for better or for worse this pope is known for formally condemning one of his papal predecessors – though not for being a heretic, just for being wishy-washy and neglecting his sacred duty.
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Our pope today introduced a day of celebration that’s endured for over THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLENNIUM. In addition to, you know, wrestling power away from a rogue dynasty and otherwise trying to keep the Church afloat in troubled waters. All in just 3 years. No big deal.
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LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
Here's a pope who came from nothing, spent his life fighting for the Truth, and ended up practically saving the world. Better to be frail in body and strong in will, than the other way around.
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DOCUMENTS MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE
BIOGRAPHIES OF POPE ST. PIUS V
It’s a Popecast first, folks. The first time we’re covering two popes in a single episode AND the first of three times in Church history that two brothers each held the Chair of Peter – and interestingly enough, also the first of three times that the brothers reigned back-to-back. Mama must’ve been so proud.
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LINKS
Pope Sisinnius (Wikipedia)
Pope Constantine (Flocknote's Popes in a Year)
Pope Constantine (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Pope Constantine (Wikipedia)
In 1492, something else happened besides Columbus sailing the ocean blue, namely, that the most notorious pope EVER ascended to the Chair of Peter. This week it's the guy who typically tops the list of every rundown of the so-called “Bad Popes”, and who was described by contemporary historian as “more evil and more lucky than perhaps any pope before him”.
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LINKS
This episode serves as a brief recap and analysis on Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's recent letter on the Church's sexual abuse crisis – paired with the audio version of the letter released exclusively by The Popecast – for those who have neither the time nor the interest to wade through the minefield of Catholic Twitter to sort it all out.
LINKS MENTIONED ON THE EPISODE
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
CONS (Critics of the letter)
PROS (In favor of the letter, even with light criticism)
On April 10, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI released a letter addressing the scandal of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church – of which the full audible reading can be found here. The retired pope gave historical background to how the scandal came to be, how it's affected the formation of priests in seminaries, and what the Church ought to do about it.
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Dr. Chad Pecknold, associate professor of theology at the Catholic University of America, joins the Popecast this week to talk about the present scandal in the Church, human nature, St. Augustine's two Cities, and the papacy's role in securing the Church as a divine institution.
Dr. Pecknold will be speaking at Healing the Breach of Trust on March 26, a day of talks at Catholic University of America and part of a series of planned conferences on the Church's current crisis. Dr. Pecknold's talk and others will be live-streamed here.
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LINKS
Special Guest: Dr. Chad Pecknold.
This week’s pope has a bit of an ironic name. During his six years in the Chair of Peter, nothing too exciting happened, and certainly nothing that seemed to live up to, uh, how we currently define "hilarious."
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LINKS
Catholic apologist, speaker, and author Trent Horn joins Matt on The Popecast this week. Topics covered (among others) include:
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LINKS (mentioned in this episode)
Special Guest: Trent Horn.
Normally the Church celebrates feast days for persons – men and women from every age who the Church has held up as models of holy living – but today is a day that celebrates a chair.
Well, at least what the chair represents.
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LINKS
This week’s pope didn’t want the job, and lived like he didn’t have the job, which got him in some hot water. But the people who worked closest with him knew him only as the parish priest of Rome, and ultimately his personal virtue carried the day. Plus he had RBF.
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This week’s pope is defined by two words. Charlemagne and iconoclasm. And no, I’m not talking the Trump Twitter kind of iconoclasm.
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LINKS
DUBIA LINKS
The pope we’re talking about today was mild-mannered and monkish on the outside, but tough as nails on the inside. He’s went toe to toe with the tiny tyrant for 10 years, and was imprisoned for 6 of them. Never one to let the Church be bullied, he returned the papacy to the respect it deserved, after decades of being drug through the proverbial mud. One of my personal favorites, Pope Pius VII.
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FURTHER READING:
This week’s pope was once described as the epitome of a Christian gentleman, a man of universally recognized virtue, and a profound scholar. He was never one to back down from a fight, and stopped at nothing to reform a broken Church. 1000 years ago, that is.
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FURTHER READING:
The Cluniac Reform (Pope Benedict XVI)
Letter of Gregory VII to the German Bishops (Yale Law Library)
Pope St. Gregory VII (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Pope St. Gregory VII (Popes in a Year - Flocknote)
A worker of miracles, a battler of barbarians, and someone described as a man who lived to perfection the saying “pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on you.” This week it's Pope #103, St. Leo IV.
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LINKS
Wait, a pope was actually condemned as a heretic by an ecumenical council of the Church? Sounds like the jig is up – papal infallibility is a false doctrine! Right? Well...we shall see.
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LINKS- Letter from Pope Honorius to St. Honorius of Canterbury- Popecast on Instagram/Twitter/Facebook – @thepopecast - [BOOK] Pope Fiction (by Patrick Madrid): bit.ly/popefiction
This week's pope was one of the only guys to have been an anti-pope before getting legitimately elected, he pretty much killed his predecessor, and was a bit of a wuss to boot. Yes, even the Bishop of Rome can be a weak-willed flip-flopper, and it followed him around during all 18 years in office.
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LINKS- [BOOK] Pope Fiction (by Patrick Madrid): bit.ly/popefiction- Popecast on Twitter: @thepopecast- Matthew on Twitter: @MatthewJSewell
Speaker & author Katie Prejean McGrady joins the Popecast to chat about Pope Francis' new apostolic exhortation, Gaudete et Exsultate (Rejoice & Be Glad), her recent trip to Rome for a pre-Synod gathering of young people, and how Pope Francis knows exactly what he's doing in his mission of evangelization.
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LINKS
FOLLOW
How would you like to be the first pope to not be named a saint? First in 350 years and the only non-saint pope in 5 centuries was still pretty holy, but people thought he might be heretic. Also, people use him as an argument against papal infallibility.
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[BOOK] Pope Fiction (by Patrick Madrid): bit.ly/popefiction
Paul VI was nothing short of a prophet. He called out society’s future ills decades before they actually happened, and reigned as pope through the assassination of an American President, the sexual revolution, and a sweeping reform in the Church. Plus … drumroll … he just became a saint.
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Ever wonder where the official list of the books of the Bible came from? Well, this guy you’re about to learn about is who we have to thank. Every single one of those 73 books you find in Catholic Bibles was listed out by this guy, at a meeting in Rome, 16 centuries ago.
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Lent is upon us, and we have just the pope. It’s the guy who instituted giving out ashes on Ash Wednesday. The former monk. The humble, generous pontiff who basically founded Western Civilization.
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Our first BAD POPE. Called by the Catholic Encyclopedia a "disgrace to the Chair of Peter" Benedict IX was pope not once, not twice, but THREE separate times, and only because dear ol' dad pulled some strings to get him there in the first place.
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This week we’ve got a pope who was here to chew bubblegum and battle heresy … and he was fresh out of bubblegum. He also once convinced Attila the Hun to hightail it out of Rome. In short, he’s one of the greats. Literally.
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LINKS
The Tome of Leo - http://bit.ly/tomeofleo
Sermons of St. Leo - http://bit.ly/stleosermons
This week’s pope was elected in the most unusual of ways. A bird landed on his head. That's right, A BIRD.
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Here's a pope who knew personally more than one of the Apostles -- the ACTUAL APOSTLES -- and wrote a document that was thiiiis close to being included in the canon of the Bible. Batting cleanup for the young church at Pope #4, it’s St. Clement I.
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Mentioned on the Podcast
- Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/1clement-roberts.html
- Joe Heschmeyer on St. Clement I: http://shamelesspopery.com/did-the-papacy-exist-while-john-was-alive/
This week we’ve got a pope who came to power after 1000 days of an empty papal chair, a guy who wasn’t even a priest when he was elected! Our pontiff this week butted heads with ambitious kings, and made revisions to the Church playbook that lasted for nearly 700 years … among other things. Oh, and he’s also one step away from sainthood.
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This week we’re talking about perhaps the Church’s worst and best pope. The fisherman of little faith, the Apostle with the keys, the preacher who converted 3,000 in a single sermon.
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Whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, an Atheist, or something in between -- the popes of the Roman Catholic Church matter. Sure, there are 1.2 billion of the world’s citizens who pledge their loyalty to the current pontiff, but St. Peter and his successors over the last 20 centuries have been a source of fascination -- be it for their sanctity, intrigue, or mere curiosity -- for just about everyone.
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