Gates of Hell Podcast Project

Stephen Lynch DiJulius

A longform history podcast thoughtfully exploring the moments that brought the Catholic Church to the brink, and how She prevailed.

Episodes

  1. Rome Has Spoken, Part One: Plenitude of Power

    02/16/2024

    Rome Has Spoken, Part One: Plenitude of Power

    A geopolitical history of the cataclysmic events that shaped the First Vatican Council and the Dogma of Papal Infallibly. After Gregory XVI died, the aristocracy of Europe convened to pressure the college of cardinals to ensure the next pope is an inexperienced liberal, someone who can be told what to do, that the fate of European monarchies hung in the balance. Another backward troglodyte would surely invoke revolution. This message was primarily delivered and enforced by Prince Metternich of Austria. For Metternich, Giovanni Maria, who was now a cardinal, was the ideal candidate. He was well liked by both clergy and laity. He wasn’t a monk, like Gregory. They did not want that again. He was a bishop of a small town and had no experience with the intrigues and politics of the Roman curia. The conservatives found him favorable as well, as they saw him as manageable.  To answer the question, why we are examining a church council, is Papal Infallibility – declared a dogma of the faith during the first Vatican council. What might surprise you, and what certainly surprised me, was how controversial this dogma was – and always had been. In fact, many of the world’s most prominent theologians, almost all of the Catholic princes, and at least 25% of the Church bishops felt the Gates of Hell had either prevailed or come dangerously close at Vatican I. It also – and there’s no getting around this – changed the trajectory of the Church Hierarchy in ways that no one ever expected, and in ways we take for granted today. This appears to be mostly forgotten history, and the perfect type of subject for this podcast. Audio Source: https://tabletopaudio.com/ For show transcripts and sources, please visit gatesofhellpod.com. For show transcripts and sources, please visit gatesofhellpod.com.

    55 min
  2. The Christ Nation, Part One: Antemurale Christianitatis

    07/28/2023

    The Christ Nation, Part One: Antemurale Christianitatis

    A story of the persecution and survival of the Polish Church during communist rule. The story of this Christ-nation begins over a thousand years ago with the conversion of this agrarian people and ends in the offices of the most powerful people in the world. The pope, representing a Vatican at peak world-wide influence, and the president of the United States, at peak geopolitical consequence, when at any moment the world might well end in nuclear war – the central, significant, centrifugal, geopolitical, spiritual focus of all these energies lay withing the meager borders and daily struggles of this eastern European nation that sought, century after century to simply be itself. To exist according to its designs. To be free. To be Catholic. To be Poland.  In researching Polish history, I decided to focus on the Soviet era for a couple reasons. It still exists in living memory and therefore can be a tangible, easy-to-grasp, and somewhat relatable story, despite its over thousand-year dance with its faith. For guides through these five decades, we have at hand a cast of characters that ranges from local hardline communists and atheist to the common priest, and all the way up to the pope himself. But first, before we can discuss what Poland was from the end of World War II to the fall of the Soviet Union, we must understand how it got there, for before it earned the reputation as the lynchpin of the Soviet Union, it was known as the Bulwark of Christendom. Audio Source: https://tabletopaudio.com/ For show transcripts and sources, please visit gatesofhellpod.com.

    1h 3m
5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

A longform history podcast thoughtfully exploring the moments that brought the Catholic Church to the brink, and how She prevailed.