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Episode Description
As the conclave gets underway this week after the solemn procession of cardinals entering the Sistine Chapel, Msgr. Roger Landry joins Ashley McGuire and Mary FioRito all together in Rome to discuss the way in which the Holy Spirit is at work within the conclave. At the time of writing this, the cardinals have completed day one of voting with no resolution as of yet, as the world waits to see the outcome.
Betsy Fentress also chats with Marina Frattaroli, a 2024 Eucharistic pilgrim who journeyed the entire Seton route from New Haven, Connecticut, to Indianapolis last July. Marina shares how the Real Presence in the Eucharist led to her conversion to Catholicism, along with a little help from St. Teresa of Avila!
Bios
Monsignor Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. He writes for numerous publications, speaks on radio and TV, and is the author of the book, Plan of Life: Habits to Help You Grow Closer to God. A graduate of Harvard and the Pontifical North American College in Rome, he served as Attaché to the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the UN in New York. Father Landry traversed the full 1500-mile Eucharist Pilgrimage in 2024 and joined the historic Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, an event which coincided with his 25th year in the priesthood. In 2024, he was appointed the new National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the USA by Pope Francis.
Ashley McGuire is a Senior Fellow with The Catholic Association and co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show, Conversations with Consequences. She is the author of the compelling book, Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female, and founding editor of altFem, a web magazine devoted to the exploration of faith and gender. She writes for numerous news outlets and speaks regularly on major television networks, serving as a prominent voice for the pro-life movement and religious liberty. She is the recipient of the Phillips Foundation Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship and the Susan B. Anthony List’s Young Pro-Life Leader award. She is the mother of five children.
Mary FioRito is an attorney, public speaker, radio show and podcast host, and an EPPC Cardinal Francis George Fellow specializing in human life issues, abortion law and aftermath, and ethics of life. She has a degree in English Literature from Loyola University Chicago, and a Juris Doctor from Loyola School of Law. She served as Director of Pro-life Activities for the Archdiocese of Chicago, and was named the first female Vice Chancellor for the diocese in 2000. Newsweek Magazine named her one of their “Women of the New Century,” and she received the “Woman of the Year Award” from St. Joseph College Seminary. Her writings have been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, National Review, and many religious publications. She is a contributing author to two books and has appeared on major Chicago area news outlets as well as NPR, EWTN, and local and national religious media. She lives in Chicago with her husband and three daughters.
Betsy Fentress is a professional writer and editor, and co-author of three specialty cookbooks. Betsy earned her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and studied in the graduate English program at Louisiana State University. She is a council member of the Archdiocese of St. Louis Annual Catholic Appeal, and has served as a mentor for the Hatchery Program at the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University. Betsy also tutors after-school programs in University City, Missouri, where she resides with her husband Sam. They share six grown children. She and her husband enjoy dabbling in art collecting.
Marina Frattaroli is a writer, Columbia Law School graduate, and a recent convert to Catholicism. Hailing from Dallas, Texas, she attended Duke University where she studied Art History and Religious Studies. She graduated from Columbia Law School in 2024. Marina entered the Catholic Church in 2022 and participated as a Perpetual Pilgrim who walked the Seton Route from Connecticut to Indianapolis during the 2024 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. She is a parishioner at Notre Dame Church in New York City where she resides, and where she enjoys exploring the intersection of faith, culture, and the arts through creative endeavors and studies.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 316 Transcript
| Ashley/Mary | Hello friends, and welcome to Conversations with Consequences. We are the radio show and podcast of the Catholic Association where we aim to change the culture one conversation at a time. You can listen to conversations with consequence US on the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network Saturday mornings at 7 a.m. Eastern or catch the encore at 5 p.m.. We are also on Sirius XM Channel 130. Of course, our radio show is also a podcast. Go to the Catholic Association dot org or directly to wherever you listen to your podcast. Welcome to Conversations with Consequences. I'm your host, Mary Fiorito, And I'm Ashley McGuire, and we're joined today here at the North American College and beautiful Rome, Italy, by Monsignor Roger Landry. |
| Msgr Landry | Good to be with you, Mary. Good to be with you, Ashley, in person. |
| Ashley/Mary | We're on the road here, so this is a very exciting week here in Rome. And tomorrow, as we're speaking to the cardinals of the Catholic Church will go into conclave and they will select a new Holy Father, Monsignor, later. You've been here on the ground in Rome for several weeks now. |
| Msgr Landry | Is it true since the day after the Holy Father died? |
| Ashley/Mary | my goodness. So tell me what what's the mood? First of all, tell us what the North American colleges, for those listeners who aren't familiar with the show. |
| Msgr Landry | The Pontifical North American College is an extraterritorial property of the Vatican City state. And it is the seminary that trains Americans to come back and serve the church in the U.S.. One of the hundred and 74 Latin Rite is about a decade ago we started to take some Australians here. It's called the North American College, because there was an American college when it was founded in 1859. And so we just put the north there. We don't have any Canadian district, Canadian seminarians studying here, but there is a Canadian cardinal staying here from Quebec. Cardinal Scherer. LaCour has been getting his first exposure in the North American College, and he's been very impressed at this place, which is formed generations of American priests going all the way back to 1859. |
| Ashley/Mary | So the cardinals from the United States and as you mentioned, one Canadian interloper have been staying here. But tomorrow they will move into the Casa Santa marta. |
| Msgr Landry | Actually, tonight they're going to move at 445. There's going to be a beautiful ceremony here at the North American College, which they first did in 2013 when Cardinal George was among the electors, where as they're leaving and transporting all of their materials down to the Domas, where they'll be staying for the duration of the papal election, all the seminarians and priest here at the North American College to cheer them on and to give a public witness to their prayers are going to clap them out. When seminarians come here, as I did on August 29th, 1995, all those in the building clap. You win when you come from the airport, and then when you're finally leaving, they ring the bells and they clap you out. And it's something that anybody here would never forget. And the cardinals themselves are just they recognize when they're leaving here that they not only have an office in the church universal to complete during these days, the great trust that the pope who appointed them to the college has given them, but also that they're representing the church in the future. And they see that in all the young seminarians and priests. We're going to be looking for them to do their job and to give us the 267th Peter, somebody who's going to be able to be the chief missionary in the church at the head of the giant fishing expedition we call Catholicism. |
| Ashley/Mary | So a defining moment for sure. You mentioned this tradition. And I think the thing that stands out about the conclave is how much it is rooted in tradition. Can you walk us through some of the standout traditions, the liturgical process? What are we going to see on the opening day and the subsequent days? |
| Msgr Landry | So the conclaves go back to the 13th century before it was easier to elect a pope, but there was a conclave between 1268 and 1271 that took almost three years to complete. So that's when they began to lock the cardinals in the same place without allowing them to escape. They actually in that conclave, which took place in the city of Biturbo, north of Rome, they took off the roofs so that they'd be exposed to the elements. They started to just feed them bread and water until they actually finished their job and overcome those disputes. Since that time, the conclave, which means conclave A, they're locked in with a key. It's not just to keep them in so that they can finish their job with greater alacrity, but it's also to keep all foreign influences out because various heads of state and governments as close as 1903 were trying to influence the outcome of a papal election in 1903, Cardinal Ron Paul was almost about to win. And then the descendent of the Holy Roman Emperor presented a veto, which was taken. And that's how we eventually got Giuseppe Sarto, who became Pope St Pius the 10th. And so the conclave is meant to keep the world out. It's a monastic experience, a cloistered experience, and to keep the cardinals in and to assist them to be able to do their job with greater expedition. |
| Ashley/Mary | So the conclave itself is a liturgical act. The voting for the pope is his actually takes place in a chapel because there's a liturgical element to it. Can you explain that, that it's not you're not just going in to cast ballots like at a voting booth? It's very different. |
| Msgr Landry | It's a very prayerful experience, as any cardinals participated in before says. There obviously is a little bit of a political dimension to it because you are casting ballots, but you're trying to do that the way in the early church they open themselves up to God for the choosing of St Matthias, who the church will celebrate on May 14th. And so they're going to begin in a chapel called the Pauline Chapel, and that'll happen tomorrow afternoon. The Pauline Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, dedicated to Saint Paul, is where the Blessed Sacrament is. It's right next to the Sistine Chapel. And so they begin there with the Lord and then they process into the Sistine Chapel, to the singing of the Venice Creator spiritus com creator, spirit. So this is all taking place specifically with docility to what the Holy Spirit wants. As soon as they get in the Sistine Chapel, they're going to take an oath that they're going to maintain secrecy, that they're going to obey whoever is chosen as the next Holy Father. And then they get to the scrutiny, as we call it. That's the actual elections. And there's a long historical process for that. They've got a tiny little sheet of paper that says at the top, a Lego instrument, pontifical I choose as Holy Father. And then they write in normally the candidate's last name, and then by seniority, they'll go on up to a tray and they'll swear an oath that this is the person they think best to leave the church. They'll fold that twice over, put it in this receptacle, and all the ballots will be cast that way, all hundred and 33 at the end of which there are nine guys who are going to count those ballots, three scrutineers, three and four Mary. And if they have to go to the six three reviewers, we'd call it in English to just make sure that there were only 133 ballots in there. All of them were valid. And then the elections go. The first day will be just one. Every subsequent day, two ballots in the morning, two in the afternoon, except on those times where there are interruptions for prayer. So after the first nine elections, if nobody's been chosen, they've got to hear a talk about serious about the seriousness of what they're doing from the senior cardinals deacon, which means the senior guy who works in the Vatican, Correa after another seven ballots, because that will take the place of one of the ballots. They'll hear from the senior Cardinal Priest who's under 80. And then after another seven ballots from the senior cardinal Bishop, who will be cardinal apparently, and then after another seven ballots, that's when they go into a full day of retreat and they come back. And only the two top candidates are candidates thereafter. They can no longer vote. But even though they're only two yourself to get two thirds. So that's a little bit of a summary of the way the election happened and has been happening now for quite some time. |
| Ashley/Mary | Let's talk Holy Spirit, because I think this is a confusing element to some people because we we know as Catholics, this is actually not a political event. It's a spiritual event, one that's presided over by the Holy Spirit, but it's not the Holy Spirit choosing the Pope. Right. Or clear to help or help our listeners understand what is the role of the Holy Spirit in the conclave. |
| Msgr Landry | It's similar to the role of the Holy Spirit in anybody's life. God. The Holy Spirit is always active in our life, but we've got a tune ourselves to Him and we've got to cooperate with him. We generally call that docility. We've got to discern what he's asking and then beg for his help to do it. The Holy Spirit often is obeyed. He certainly obeyed most of the time by the Saint, but many times he's ignored or disobeyed. When we've got a pope like Pope Alexander, the sixth in the late 15th century, who had had nine children from six different women, we put out contracts on people, you name it. That was clearly a time when the cardinals who voted for him were not cooperating with the Holy Spirit, but like thinking about things in worldly ways. And then we've had times where many saints have been elected, include looting situations in which it was almost miraculous who came out of a conflict. We can think back to 1978 when Saint John Paul, the second was elected. He was the first non Italian in 455 years. It was almost unheard of that a non-Italian would be elected. But that's where the Holy Spirit led the cardinals in the second conclave of 1978 courageously to go. And so he is acting. We do need to follow him, but we can't say like we see in the 15th chapter, the acts of the Apostles in the first Council of Jerusalem. It is the holy. This is the decision of the Holy Spirit in us. It's not necessarily the decision of the Holy Spirit, though He wants to be obeyed and he's clearly acting. The prayer that the people throughout the world are making is that the one God really wants comes out on that balcony dressed in white, and that the cardinals voting for him will be humble enough and prayerful enough to tune in to what the Holy Spirit would be asking. There's going to be discussion. Sometimes discernment happens in conversations with other. We can learn from each other. The Holy Spirit uses us as instruments to be able to make as well known, sometimes to others. That's all fear. But the discussions that take place don't need to be Machiavellian. They can be truly Christian in determining who among their number or even outside of their number is best fit to lead the church today and tomorrow. |
| Ashley/Mary | Monsignor, in the days since Pope Francis was buried, the cardinals have been meeting and in something called congregations. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what those meetings are like? What's discussed, who gets to speak during those? |
| Msgr Landry | So they they're called the general congregations. They start the day after the pope dies at the very beginning. They're just talking about business when the date of the funeral is going to be how to get the invitations up to the heads of state. It's a collaborative effort in which the governing body really is the group of cardinals who are present, including those over 80. But then all the cardinals throughout the world start coming here and then they start having conversations about what the church most needs in this in this age and what would be the profile of the man who would best be fit to lead the church in meeting those challenges. And so the general congregations always meet between nine and 12:30 a.m. sorry, 9 a.m. at 12:30 p.m. in the morning. Sometimes they have afternoon sessions from 5 to 7 and what normally takes place there After a little bit of business in choosing a few cardinals to help a camera lingo run the day to day business, then they start having speeches, interventions they're called, or five or 6 minutes, mostly in which each of the cardinals throughout the globe is able to share what he thinks those challenges are and what he would most be hoping for in a new Holy Father. The range of topics could be anything that they want and they are super diverse. All we know that comes out of them is what's summarized in the Bulletin of the Press office here in the Vatican. Sometimes the cardinals who are not really supposed to speak about what's taking place, we'll give you a little bit more meat in terms of when they just say we were talking about synod ality in the life of the church. Well, for or against infidelity when we were talking about evangelization, hopefully everybody was in favor of it. But these are the typical talks and we know how consequential those topics can be because on March 7th, 2013, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, got up and spoke for more 4 minutes and 44 seconds in very good Italian. And he said that the biggest need of the church would be a leader who, from his prayer, would be able to lead the church out to the existential peripheries and show everybody the joy of evangelizing and the one who said that was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the one who became Pope Francis, even though he was 76, even though at the time most were not predicting anybody over 75 being elected because of the power of that intervention, everybody recognized that not only that message was important moving ahead, but the messenger was probably the most fit person to try to implement that message. That's what they thought going on in. And so that's what's happening in the general congregations. The last general congregation happened this morning here. And so this afternoon, many of the cardinals are going to be moving in. And then tomorrow morning we're going to have the mass for the election of the Holy Father. They'll have some lunch and then we're going to have the solemn entrance into the Sistine Chapel where they'll be taking their votes and making their first vote. |
| Ashley/Mary | Monsignor, something that everybody's been focused on or talking about is how geographically diverse this group of cardinals is and that many of them have not had much time together. There's talk of them having booklets with each other's bios. And so obviously, it's a fool's errand to try and make any predictions. But what's your sense of how that geographic diversity is going to impact the dynamics of this particular conclave? |
| Msgr Landry | So historically, most conclaves were Eurocentric and sometimes centered mainly on Italian concerns. When Italians had a super majority in the College of Cardinals, we've got 95 different countries represented, 188 cardinals who are of the 133 are doing this for the first time. They're coming with all of their experiences. For me, as the head of the pontifical missions Societies in the United States and concerned about promoting the church's missions, so many of the cardinals are coming from missionary lands and I think that that is very healthy. Sometimes in the developed world we can think like that. The biggest issues is who gets to read on Sunday, where they're going to mass, wondering whether they're going to survive the mass because they're in territories where bombings happen in churches on Sunday, and that can wake everybody up to the bigger picture. Likewise, the questions of poverty, the questions of immigration can be huge for people who are coming from places of tremendous doubt and that drought in natural disasters. So all of those will inform who's there. We want someone who can speak not just to Berlin and New York. We want to have somebody who can speak to Kinshasa. We want to have somebody who can speak to Montevideo and pretty much the whole world, cities and farms. And so that looks to the profile, that looks to the candidates who would be eligible, really, Do they speak the languages that the people of the world can understand? I think it's going to be well-nigh impossible for someone to be elected who at least doesn't speak Italian. That's kind of obvious is the Bishop of Rome English, because it really has become the lingua franca in the world and Spanish because 44% of the Catholics in the world speak Spanish. And so if somebody doesn't have that profile, I just don't think he can ever be elected. But you likewise have got to be able to speak the mother tongue of the cultural experiences of the people you're trying to serve. And so that gives a little bit of an advantage to some of the cardinals who will have traveled a little bit more, would have had jobs that would have taken them across the globe, who might have been in the Vatican diplomatic corps for some of the major candidates whose just itinerary to this point has involved work on pretty much every continent and speaking these various languages, knowing these experiences in the rest. And so so the presence of so many cardinals from smaller places will help those from bigger places. Just make sure that their vision is going to have traction. |
| Ashley/Mary | Monsignor, one great point of interest for the media and Catholics is the choice of the name that the Holy Father will have. What motivates a particular pope to pick a particular name? Is there sort of a process that they go through, or is this something they might have even considered in advance from. |
| Msgr Landry | Those who have spoken about it, have said that normally they don't think much in advance. Some people might ask them and they might think about it for some nanoseconds. But until they become a really serious candidate, most will not seriously think about it. Pope Francis, for example, has spoken about it back in 2005 when he was the second in the election to Pope Benedict, who was chosen. He was thinking that if he were the one asked, he would have taken John. He would have been John the 24th. And it was only at the very end of the election in 2013 when Cardinal Claudio Hummus literally hit on his forehead and he was seated next to Cardinal Bergoglio. And he said, non demented, keep ovary, don't forget the poor. And in other words, accept the selection on behalf of the poor people from across the globe. Then he began to think, okay, how can I symbolize that? I am not forgetting the poor. And that's when he began to think about the name Francis. After Francis of Assisi, il Paul Varella, an Italian, the poor man who voluntarily took on poverty in order to be approachable by everybody, including and especially the poor. So the other cardinals who have been elected have said that they're looking for symbolism. So Pope Benedict didn't choose the name after Saint Benedict, even though he loved the Benedictines. He chose the name because what he wanted to emphasize by the name was the continuity with Pope Benedict. The 15th was the pope during World War One and a pope who very much sought peace. That's what Benedict himself you would have thought he could have taken. |
| Ashley/Mary | Augustine, a spiritual father. |
| Msgr Landry | He could have taken one of the great doctors of the church beyond who are Leo or Gregory, you name it. But he wanted to show a peace. Saint John Paul The second chose John Paul not only because of continuity with John Paul, the first the pope for 33 days, but because he wanted to continue the Second Vatican Council. And so Saint John, the 23rd was the pope that convened the council, Saint Paul. The sixth was the one who finished the council, hence the name John Paul. So it's wide open. I don't think we're ever going to have Peter the second, but I would love to see somebody come out on that balcony choosing the name Joseph. |
| Ashley/Mary | Well, traditionally, Peter isn't taken out of respect for Saint Peter. |
| Msgr Landry | That's right. That's right. But there are various prognostications of some of the so-called seers over the course of the centuries who are predicting a Peter the second eventually, and that will be the sign that the end of the world is near. Okay. So yikes. Like, in addition to that, there are some superstitious people in the world and I don't think any cardinal would be so idiotic as to choose a name in which the head story the next day among practicing Catholic is that the end of the world is not. You want to focus on some other. |
| Ashley/Mary | Things, so you you've mentioned the sort of broad challenges facing the church. You have more Western issues of secularism and empty pews and disregard for fundamental church teaching, you know, as one challenge confronting the church and then other parts of the world where basic safety, violence, beheadings, slaughter in churches. What do you see as the characteristics most needed in a pope right now who can confront those two prongs and bring much needed unity in the church as well? |
| Msgr Landry | So we're going to need to see a pope that acknowledges both issues. That's not one sided. He doesn't have to be able to straddle them equally, but he has to be able to say these are both on my agenda. The cardinals who are preparing to vote beginning tomorrow, they have been talking about what many of these issues are. One, the Vatican's terrible financial situation. You've got to have somebody who's a decent organizer or is con they're confident will choose somebody to get the house in order. If the if the Vatican is all over the place, he's not going to be able to do his work sacking somebody who's actually going to be a credible witness of the gospel. Everybody's talking about evangelization of this world. So evangelizing those who live as if God doesn't exist. The problem with secularism, but also evangelizing those who have never heard the gospel for the first time, somebody who's like Saint Peter on Pentecost is able to go out and say, Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and gives some evidence for it, you're going to need to have somebody who's not so shy that nobody's ever going to see them, but somebody who's going to travel the world with that message, somebody who's vigorous enough to be able to do it. A third big issue is going to be synod ality and what that means, because that's created a lot of confusion in the church. Does synod ality mean this wide open? Whatever you want in your church idea of the spirit of Vatican two Or is the walking together, which is what senility means in Greek, is that walking together, walking together with Christ in a particular direction in which we're living by His truth, that sets us free. And so there are a lot of cardinals that are upset with the direction of senility under Pope Francis. And then there are others who think that what Pope Francis launched, which in Fidelity is the greatest of all his legacies. And so that's one of the bigger clashes that the that is that is going to be looked at. The last thing I'd say with regard to the Holy Father is that the Holy Fathers, they're not going to be able to elect somebody who is not going to be able to carry forth Pope Francis, his very praiseworthy love for the least, the lost in the last, his care for the poor in person, not just talking about it by doing it is a high standard for every one of his successors in Saint Peter's successor is to carry. And so you're going to look for somebody with a heart for the poor, too. I think that those are the criteria that are going to be most prominent. |
| Ashley/Mary | And, Monsignor, just as we're wrapping up our conversation, a lot of media that I've done interviews with have asked me how every day Catholics participate in this election of the pope, because we all have a role to play, even if we don't recognize it. How would you suggest that anyone listening to this assist the cardinals with their prayers, the cardinals with electors? |
| Msgr Landry | So it starts with prayer, as you've said. What types of prayers, if it's possible to go to mass? We're never more united with everybody else than when we're united with Christ as members of his mystical body. Mass is the first place we start. Second would be the rosary or any type of Marian devotion. The first followers of Jesus when he ascended to heaven, huddled around Mary in that room. She taught them how to be docile to the Holy Spirit, how to receive the Holy Spirit gifts as tongues of fire and God and change the world. And so to huddle around Mary, praying for the Holy Spirit, for the Apostles, the successors, the Apostles, and all those they serve us throughout the world. The last thing I'd say is there should be some sacrifices for the Cardinals, at least at this time, some modifications, lots of possibilities there. |
| Msgr Landry | But maybe we could go without desserts until we see the pope come out on that balcony. Maybe we can go without booze. And then when there is a new Holy Father, have a nice stiff drink. |
| Ashley/Mary | Well, Monsignor, it's been such a joy to be here with you in person. We're looking forward to having another conversation with you when we have the new Holy Father. We're going to have lots to talk about. And listeners, please do follow us at the Catholic Association dot org where you can learn about everything that we're doing in our local communities and our parishes and every other place that we can. Have an influence. Thank you for joining us today. |
| Betsy | Welcome to Conversations with Consequences on EWTN Radio. I'm your host is Betty Fentress, and we have a very intriguing guest with us today, Marina Frattaroli, who is a recent convert to the faith and also a recent convert of graduate school at Columbia University in New York. And we would like to talk to her about a lot of things today, but we're going to start with her very unique role as a perpetual pilgrim. And joining our chaplain, Monsignor Roger Landry, on the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. Thanks for joining us, Marina. |
| Marina Frattaroli | Thank you so much for having me, Betsy. It's really good to be here with you today. |
| Betsy | There's I'm not sure where to begin. There's so many interesting things to talk about. You have a recent piece in the National Catholic Register on what you hope for in the next pope. We're going to get to that. But can I just talk a little bit about your background? You grew up in Dallas. You're the youngest of three sisters. You were a devout or your family were devout Presbyterians. So share with us a little bit about your faith as a child and as a teenager in Dallas. Sure. |
| Marina Frattaroli | Well, I would say that I had an act of faith as a child and a teenager. I was really blessed to be with great parents with who put me in Christian education. And so it was a big part of my life, I would say. We went to church on Sundays. I was able to integrate sort of faith in learning in my classes, and it was a really beautiful part of my life all throughout my childhood. And yeah, I'm super grateful for my Protestant upbringing. But part of part of that education just empowered me to really dig in to the faith and to know that there's answers to questions. And so that definitely planted seeds as my faith journey sort of veered towards the Catholic Church later in life. So. |
| Betsy | So you went to Duke University, and there you studied art, art history. |
| Marina Frattaroli | Art history and religious studies. Yes. |
| Betsy | So during your religious studies at Duke, were you ever exposed to Catholic writers? |
| Marina Frattaroli | that is such a good question. Very few, if any, honestly. Really? Well, you know, I read the writings of Saint Paul. Okay. |
| Betsy | He's Catholic. |
| Marina Frattaroli | Yeah. But I'm trying to think. I'm trying to think what I read. You know, I read a lot of secular biblical scholars. I read I read a lot of people who sort of spoke about religion in American culture and the way that America, like, embodies its religious history. I read I read, you know, scholars of of Judaism and Islam and many different faiths, but but I don't know if I don't feel like I really knew what the Catholic Church was when I graduated with a Duke religious studies degree, because I sort of came in with my Protestant idea of what Christianity was, which did not have a big emphasis on the Catholic Church. So I wasn't looking for it. First of all. But I you know, I did I actually in in an art history class, I got to read some some Catholic authors, particularly architects of the gothic cathedrals, and that included some stories of saints. But yeah, I, I, I was in my head. It was medieval Christianity. It wasn't Catholic per se. |
| Betsy | That makes sense. Yeah. So did you find it hard to be a visible Christian at Duke? |
| Marina Frattaroli | It was a it was a big challenge for me, and it was something I very actively wrestled with because I would say the dialog at that time, you really were not expected to bring any of your own religious convictions into the classroom. I would say that was not like sort of compatible with just the atmosphere. And so the the classroom discussions, you know, they kind of present it was a secular space, I would say. And even the approach to religious studies, it was kind of like we are looking at religious people, but we are very separate from them and we aren't making judgments about them at all. And I think there's pros and cons to that approach. |
| Betsy | But it's almost like you're studying anthropology. |
| Marina Frattaroli | Yes, it's the field of religious studies, especially when I was at Duke, was highly anthropological, which, you know, it was it was cool for me who was raised in sort of a Christian bubble to learn more about what's out there. But I would say there were absolutely limitations. So that approach and I think it also was a little bit biased against representation of the Catholic Church just because I think they were seeking to promote alternative perspectives. But ultimately, that left out a really big part of the story of like world religions. |
| Betsy | So after you graduate, then graduated, then what happened? |
| Marina Frattaroli | Well, I graduated and I had already gotten into law school, but I decided I needed a bit of a break so I would move back to Dallas. And I started working in the arts. I worked for a museum and an art fair in Texas, and then COVID happened. So as someone who worked for an international art fair, I was basically the first one to lose my job because no one was having an international gathering in April of 2020. And so that really pushed me onto the Internet in a way I hadn't really been before. But I brought that sort of religious studies curiosity with me. And so I had spent a lot of time on the Internet previously kind of looking at religious communities, like looking at LDS Reddit groups. And so one of the one of the things I discovered during COVID was Catholic Twitter. And that is actually where I began to understand the Catholic Church a little bit more was just, you know, lay Catholics in accounts, anonymous and otherwise just sharing their faith. And that was really when I began to think about the Catholic Church seriously. |
| Betsy | It's interesting you say that because I don't know if I'm quote, on Catholic Twitter, but I do follow Catholics, some Catholics. And I did notice they would do something with somebody, would retweet someone else that I didn't know saying. So today I became a Catholic or I'm going to become a Catholic. And and it was just and I think I got the impression that they were telling people on Twitter because they may or may not have known anybody else in their friend group or their family, that they could say that and get this sort of crush of affirmation. Do you know what I'm talking about? |
| Marina Frattaroli | You know, you're describing my lived experience. |
| Ashley/Mary | Really? God. |
| Marina Frattaroli | Yeah. I mean, personally, like when I got confirmed, I. I had one friend really from my history who was present at that confirmation that day. I posted on Twitter and I got hundreds of comments and likes and, you know, people who I'd been interacting at that point for a couple of years. But I would say I had a much more robust Catholic community online when I joined the church than I did in real life. Although I will say the Columbia Catholic Center was super helpful in me joining the church. |
| Betsy | Now we're going to get to that. So you were in Dallas for COVID. You discover the world of Catholicism online. So at that point, were you thinking, I'm kind of like him or like her, or were you still kind of in your religious studies, anthropological mode, just, you know, like you're Margaret Mead in Samoa or somewhere trying to figure out what these people are like? |
| Marina Frattaroli | Yeah, I would say it was it was critical, like a kind of through were looking at it through an anthropological lens until I heard about the Eucharist. And it was when I heard about the Eucharist that I was that it confronted me as a Christian. And I was and I had to question, wow, like, this is a really beautiful teaching. |
| If it's true, I need to wrestle with this. And so but I was confronted with that pretty early on. Like within the first couple of weeks of being on Catholic Twitter that I learned about what the Eucharist was. | |
| Betsy | So by the time that you went to graduate school, were you thinking, I think that I might want to become a Catholic or not? |
| Marina Frattaroli | Yes. It was like, this is a possibility for me, although that also seems like a really big deal. And I don't know if I. |
| Ashley/Mary | Wanted to. |
| Betsy | Write. Were you going to Catholic churches in Dallas to kind of see what it felt like? |
| Marina Frattaroli | I went to a couple. I Went to a couple. So because I kind of learned about Catholicism on this very particular Internet space, the first mass I went to was actually a traditional Latin mass. And it honestly was more it was not the experience I hoped for. I don't know. I don't know what I was sure. But that that made me pause. My experience was like, what am I doing? And then I did attend a couple sort of normal parish masses in Dallas. And then I moved to New York and my plan was to start attending this Presbyterian church. But it actually was hard to get to from my from my apartment. And I, meanwhile, had five Catholic churches walkable to my apartment. And so that's kind of how I started was just the way that Catholicism is baked into the architecture and urban design of New York. That made it much more a bigger part of my life than otherwise would have been. |
| Betsy | I love that about New York. I love that about all really the big cities, the older cities, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York. I live in Saint Louis. Saint Louis, for sure. San Francisco. It's amazing, isn't it? You just. And then you go to Europe? Absolutely. Unfortunately, some of them have been turned into museums. But I love that your phrase baked into the architecture. |
| Marina Frattaroli | Yes. |
| Betsy | Okay. So you get to Columbia. You think you're going to go to a Protestant church, but you end up going to Catholic churches and then you immediately get involved in the Catholic student center. |
| Marina Frattaroli | So I kind of like ping pong between churches. I'm not even going every single week because it's I'm also like experiencing my first year of law school. It's it's a tumultuous time. I would say also, COVID was still happening. You know, everyone was masked. There was social distancing in New York. It was a crazy time. And even in churches themselves were not the social communities that they can be. Right. And so I would say I was intrigued, but I wasn't all in on my pursuit of Catholicism. And that changed when I had a random encounter with Saint Teresa of Avila autobiography. |
| Betsy | That's a good one. Yes. |
| Marina Frattaroli | And I ended the way I kind of came into my life. I didn't know it was Catholic. I didn't know what I was. I didn't even know I was reading it. I just kind of felt drawn to it. And basically, she wrote about her life. She wrote about like who she was as a child. And that was something that I loved. She wrote about navigating illness and pain, like through a Christian lens, and I had never really received that kind of teaching, she wrote. And she didn't. She wrote about how apathetic she had been in prayer and how how she had spent so many years not living her full spiritual life. And I was like, okay, I kind of really did that too. |
| Betsy | She's extraordinary. And do you know Edith Stein, who took Teresa Benedict? Did you know the story? |
| Marina Frattaroli | I do. Yes. It's been told to me since that we have this kind of parallel. |
| Betsy | Right, that she reads the book that of Saint Teresa of Avila, and she stays up all night reading it. And at the end, she says, this is the truth. I loved. I have goosebumps. Just tell it. Retelling that story. And so while you're the second person that I know that that happened to, I. |
| Marina Frattaroli | Know that amazing. I don't have her reading comprehension skills to do it in one night. It would. Much more of a journey but yeah it was after that that that it all kind of clicked. |
| Betsy | Did she say anything about the Eucharist in particular that that really with you or, or was that something that you had already come to think that the real presence was indeed Jesus's body and blood? |
| Marina Frattaroli | So at that time I had basically come to my own intellectual conclusion that the strongest reading of the Gospels has the highest Eucharistic theology. And I gained that perspective through a very close reading of the Last Supper narratives in particular. And just like from a literary perspective, I was like, Wow, The Last Supper was a really important scene and it's right before the crucifixion, which is obviously a very seminal moment in the life of Christ, and it's in all four gospel accounts. And these words are really like what the scene is framing these these words of consecration. And so if this were a novel, you would you'd say, well, like everything kind of pointing to this and Jesus is pointing to this. And so those are not words to take metaphorically, like those are the words you should take maximally seriously. And so literally. And so from my own sort of liberal arts lens of reading the Gospels, I was like, this points to really how Eucharistic theology. And that's, you know, that's underpinned by John six, that's underpinned by Saint Paul himself repeating those words of consecration. And so from my own reading of the Gospels, which was, you know, this very Protestant approach to the Bible, you know, like my own reading, I, you. |
| Betsy | Know, I, I always say, just let's read the sixth chapter of John together and talk about unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you shall have life in me. I mean, it's so clear. Okay, so you go to Columbia and you read Saint Teresa of Avila, and then do you just convert while you're there? |
| Marina Frattaroli | So then I start. Then I'm like, okay, I need to I need to talk to some real Catholics. This year on Twitter has been super informative and, you know, set me on this course, but that's when I connected with the focus Missionaries at Columbia. And they were it was amazing just to have clear ambassadors who I could take my questions to. And so that was a great gift. And yeah, I decided at that time, like, I'm going to join the church. Yeah, it was a journey. It was a journey. I end up getting very ill at that time, and I was pretty ill. I got long COVID like. So the case of COVID really lingered in my system, though I tried to join. I did start Oceania in the fall, which was about six months later, but I was still quite ill. And so I was back in law school for a couple of months before I realized I'm actually not I don't have the faculties to to do law school right now. And so I took a medical leave, and that was a big challenge for me, even spiritually, because I didn't want to drop out of my New York based. Okay. To move back to Dallas. But that was God's plan for me, and it ended up being this beautiful time. Looking back where I was just sort of like lifted out of a lot of my habits, a lot of my routines. Well, that that was a very challenging time. It was it kind of like gave me a little bit of a blank slate when I was able to rejoin okay, the next year and receive some really great Catholic catechesis and be very ready to accept the challenge of joining the Catholic Church. |
| Betsy | You're like Saint Ignatius of Loyola. You know, he was wounded. He had his, I think legs shattered and got stuck in a man or a castle in Spain. And the only books were The Lives of the Saints and and he had been a pretty bad boy before that. |
| Marina Frattaroli | So not thought about that. That's that's a great I. |
| Betsy | Love I love conversion stories. There's no two are alike and it's just proof of, you know, God's mercy and grace and goodness. And so you met our esteemed resident chaplain, Monsignor Roger Landry, at Columbia. And did he did he bring you into the church? |
| Marina Frattaroli | He did. He did. He loved my okay. And he, you know, organized my reception of the sacraments, which was beautiful. And, yeah, I'm I am grateful for his great catechesis. |
| Betsy | Okay, So, Marina, after that, how did you get involved? Well, I know how you got involved because you're friends with Monsignor Landry, but it's a big step to decide. You're going to start in New Haven and end up in Indianapolis. So tell us your journey as a pilgrim and how long had you been a Catholic when you decided to do that? |
| Marina Frattaroli | Yeah, So one thing I didn't fully go into was the what caught my attention about the Eucharist was on Twitter way back when was the words national Eucharistic revival. And so those words really were the ones I was like, What is that? Like, What does that mean? And I Googled it and that's when I read encountered the word Eucharist after a really long time. And when I in framed in the context of revival, it was really meaningful to me as a Protestant. I saw I just like so much coalesced when I did that research. I saw like this is a central tenet of the Catholic faith. This is something that even the bishops are admitting, like not every Catholic fully grasps. And that was all very helpful context to me as someone who had been to some masses before, had known, some Catholics, though not. And and so I was. And so it made me have to wrestle with it like, you know, like, what is this revival? Why are they doing it? What is the Eucharist? What are the implications of that really big claim on a Christian's devotional life? You know? And so so when the national Eucharistic revival was launching this pilgrimage, it was really near to my heart already because I thought that the national Eucharistic Revival was like really powerful for conversion because it was like really set mind and inter into place and it initiated that. And so I knew it was going to be a big challenge because I was graduating law school and I have a lot to do with that. And with the bar and with working. But technically the dates fit. Technically, there was not any where I had to be during the exact dates of the pilgrimage. And then the Eucharistic Congress. I applied and I was so busy during that time that I honestly just I had I gave myself like an hour and a half to type out the application to write all those essays. I'm just like, If it's God's will, he'll put me on this pilgrimage. But, you know, I wasn't able to like to, to really edit things how I wanted to. And it was just like I really left it to God and I was accepted and and I prayerfully chose to do it. But it was it was a risk and it was a sacrifice, but it was absolutely not unrewarded. And I'm so glad I made that 65 day journey. What I witnessed in America during that time was, I would say, true revival. I saw people who were already faithful receive deep encouragement. I myself spoke to people, several people, many people for the first time, the teaching of the Eucharist. And so I just saw so many people like kind of gain new life in their faith and I saw so many seeds be planted in. And I'm just so excited. Yeah, about what happened that summer. And I'm excited there's going to be another one, another pilgrimage this summer as well. |
| Betsy | So how many were how many people like you started in New Haven and went all the way to Indianapolis. |
| Marina Frattaroli | Yeah. So I would there were there were seven or so numbers. There were there was about six young adults who were with me on the seating route. And at the same time, there were three other pilgrimage routes happening. |
| Betsy | Right? |
| Marina Frattaroli | Right. Because we we each started in one of the four cardinal directions of the country, and we converged in the middle making a cross and a cruciform Eucharistic benediction over the entire country, which is just so rich. And I'm just so grateful that that ambitious, beautiful idea happened. But yeah, it was me, three other girls, too. Two guys, including a seminarian who were young adults. We had priest chaplains, including Monsignor Landry and great CFR was Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, who accompanied us the whole way. We had this incredible order of sisters from from New Hampshire. The daughters of Mary, mother of healing love there with us as well. And then we had some laypeople who just joined us. And that was an incredibly challenging thing to do because we had, you know, all of our arrangements, all of our driving that we had to do. It was all arranged for us. So the people who joined us, including the sisters, like they had to really work to keep up with the pilgrimage. And they did it. And it was it was just so blessed. Yeah. |
| Betsy | So you bring so much joy and freshness to this that we've had for 2000 years. And sometimes we need people like you to remind us of the treasure. And to that end, part of the newness of your faith would be that you have a Holy Father and you've written an article about some of the love, your hopes for the next Holy Father. Can you share some of those with us? |
| Marina Frattaroli | Absolutely. It was. It was just such a privilege to be able to put some of my thoughts out there, especially as a convert and as someone in my twenties. Like, I'm just I'm deeply humbled that that my words have been shared. But yeah, so I think when I think the first thing I started with for my hopes for Holy Father was someone deeply aware of his need for prayer, because, you know, this is this is the work of God. That's what the church is, the work of God encountering every time with newness and with faith. And so someone who's humbly aware of his need for prayer was the first thing I think I said. And then I discussed my hopes for someone with a heart for unity with in the Catholic Church, but also among all Christians, because Jesus himself prayed that we'd be one. So someone who has a heart after our Lord Jesus for us to be one, I, I definitely made a point about about this being in a moment of Eucharistic revival in that I hope that this next Pope, he leads with the message of the Eucharist. And I, I said that in my piece in particular because I saw the, the ability of the Eucharist to bring so many people together and to unite amidst diverse city and that, you know, in the Eucharist, we all become one in this beautiful, mystical mystery of partaking in the Blessed Sacrament. And so I think I think that, you know, we can't hide that light under a bushel. We we we must lead with it. And there's so many Christians like like I had been who just don't know the teaching, who don't know this really beautiful gift that Jesus has left us and that the church has safeguarded for us. That is the Holy Eucharist. And so I really believe in the power of Jesus himself, in the Holy Eucharist, to provide for the church what it needs. So, yeah, those those are some of my prayerful hopes for the Holy Father. |
| Betsy | Well, they're good ones. Maureen, I have a copy of your article in front of me, and one of the things that I wanted to ask you about was you wrote, The church needs a vision of leadership that transcends the allures of political ideology. Is that something that you wrote out of your experience of being too secular elite schools, or is it just from watching the news or what? What what brought your heart to write that sentence? |
| Marina Frattaroli | Thank you for that question. I would say honestly, the thing that was a little in my head with that was the the film Conclave. And because I've had so many secular friends talk to me about that film. And I just thought that it really stripped away the spirituality of the church and the beautiful philosophical traditions of the church. And so, yeah, And so I would say last last summer, it was a it was an election period in the country. And I saw how a lot of, you know, people would ask me questions about what was going on with the pilgrimage. And a lot of times they would put it in political lens and I think that that film put things in a political lens. And I one of the pieces, one of the things I wanted to communicate in this piece was what we have in the church is so much bigger than that. Like what we have in the church is so much more unifying and so much deeper in the human heart. It's so much more profound and like it meets the soul and it's our very depths. And like our political differences, like that is a surface level problem in comparison with what we receive in the church and in comparison with what the true work of the Holy Father is. |
| Betsy | Well, we're almost out of time, and I think that that's a great note to end on as we speak today. The first day of the conclave. And don't you love it, though, that the whole world is watching? I mean, I love being a Catholic, especially during these times of worldwide focus on who we are and and people seeing everything from the pageantry of the Catholic Church, which is beautiful. I mean, that's that's obviously surface. But so many of the rituals and and clothing that the cardinals wear have deep significance. You know, like the color of red is blood of the martyrs. And so I think we will both enjoy watching the chimney for the white smoke to come out. |
| Ashley/Mary | Absolutely. |
| Betsy | And thank you so much for joining us, Marina. You are real light in the world and we feel honored that you shared all your thoughts with us today. |
| Marina Frattaroli | Thank you so much for having me. I'll be praying for the conclave and I ask you and all the listeners to join me in that prayer. |
| Betsy | To learn more about Marina, Fred Crowley, make sure to check out her writings at National M.S. Register dot com. That's the National Catholic Register. And to learn more about the Catholic Association, visit us at Catholic Association Board and follow everything we do in TV, print, radio, online and in our local community. |