 Hi again everybody. Welcome to this next handbook's podcast. I'm Paul Ken Gore, Steve Cunningham is the producer, and we have Julia Maloney with us this week, and she's done a fantastic book on the St. Gal and Mafia, titled The St. Gal and Mafia. And this is a subject that a lot of Catholics have been very intrigued by, have wanted to know about, wanted to understand better. I have two, and I'll say right off that for a book to be done on this in a way that I think is so readable, so lively, and so fair, so levelheaded, and not a book that goes out to take shots at Pope Francis, but just really written very well. This is it. So I think this is the book on the subject, the book that needed to be written. But before going through all of that, let me welcome here Julia Maloney. How are you? I'm doing great, Paul. Thank you so much for having me. Sure thing. So tell us a little bit first about yourself before you go into this, before we talk about the book. And so I've read you at Crisis Magazine for, I guess a few years now. I don't know how long you've been writing for Crisis. It seems like a while, a little while. And so tell us a little bit about your background, where you're from. Yeah. So I am a cradle Catholic, originally from Colorado, and I just grew up in a really great Catholic family and went off to Yale and Harvard to study English literature. I focused on the Middle Ages. So I was actually like my senior essay at Yale was on St. Catherine of Siena. So I tried to kind of, I was, you know, in kind of a hostile cultural Marxist center, but I tried to kind of hide out and do medieval studies. So what time was that? When were you there at Yale? I was there in the early 2000s. And then, and then I took a couple of years off to teach high school literature. And then I went to grad school to Harvard to get my master's degree in English literature as well. Did you, did you by chance know Michael Knowles at Yale? I don't know if you, if you were in the same years or not. No, I did not know him at Yale, unfortunately, because he was, he was in a similar area, I think, and even did, I think Italian literature, I believe. And and but this is one of the questions I was going to ask you, you must read or speak Italian. Yes, no, I, I have a reading knowledge of several languages. I can, I can have a dictionary and translate it. But I don't really speak any other. I'm very bad at speaking the languages. Okay, yeah, I mean, it's one thing. So I'm like this with Italian, I can read it and speak it a little bit if I practice it. But but it's hard right off the cuff to just sort of break break into a language. But but but did did you did you read some of these books in the original Italian? It looks like maybe you did some of the books on Francis. Yes, so there are a lot of books, especially the ones on Martini that you can't get them in translation. So and there were a number of French books too. There was a really good French book by Nicholas Diat that was kind of it was a major source for a lot of these revelations. So so yes, I would I would just read them in the original and and and for most of them, I just did like a paraphrase of like in the in the actual writing of the book. The footnotes, as you know, are so dense. There's like six, six or seven footnotes a page. And so I would just kind of summarize for the reader what was going on in there. And they and they are indeed footnotes rather than end notes. In fact, a lot of a lot of people in books, they use end notes. And I think footnotes are better. They're more transparent, right? People can look right at the very bottom and check your source right away. A lot of people won't flip to the back with with end notes. But but some people also feel that that that footnotes are more distracting, right? But I prefer them. And especially it really it really shows, I think that it gives you an immediate feel for how much you've read, how well read you are on this, the scholarly feel to it. And the and you and you refer a number of times to Vaticanistas, people like Sandro Magister, who I go, I visit his website. And a lot of them you can you can translate right away when you go to the website. But but but some of them are not not translated. And you really kind of need to read them in the original language to get a sense of exactly what they're saying. Yes. Yes, exactly. This was the sort of book. I think that some of these linguistic issues are some of the reason why we, you know, several years ago, when I thought about this project, I I wondered why no one had taken this project yet. Because to me, you know, the way I framed it to my family when I thought about this was, if I could write a book, I would write it about the St. Gallin mafia. That's that was the one thing that I wanted to write about. And I thought it was just the most fascinating subject in the entire world. And I think that you know, there are some sources, if I could say, you know, one gap in the book is definitely that I don't have any reading knowledge of German. And so there are key German members, of course, but Dr. Micahickson at LifeSite News and a lot of other people have, you know, read a lot of these texts and summarize them for us. So I had to kind of rely on other people for that. But it's definitely a project that, you know, you know, as much as I've tried to kind of collect things in this book, I feel like this is a starting point, hopefully for, you know, maybe someone else will get interested in this and do it their own deep dive into some of these sources or asking similar questions as well. Yeah. And so I'm sort of jumping ahead. But and I've wondered why no one else tackled this, why no one else jumped into this. And obviously you were wondering the same thing, right? Why hasn't anybody written about this, including I could think of a lot of really anti-Francis writers on the on the Catholic side and some of which are good friends of mine that I don't I don't know why they didn't take this on. Do you have any any idea any theories as to why why why you were first why someone else didn't beat you to it? I think that the the dictator Pope when it came out, the first chapter, of course, was called the St. Galen Mafia. And he did he did such a good job with that, that in a sense it probably made people feel satisfied that most of the story had been told. That's one theory that I have about it, because I was after that book came out, I wrote my first article on the St. Galen Mafia. It was on Martini. It was called The Man Who Was Antipope, and it was in Crisis Magazine. And that article that that was the beginning of this for me, because I started I wrote like six or seven different St. Galen Mafia articles before I even wrote this book. Yeah, I read those. I read those. And the yeah, the the dictator Pope that was by Mark Antonio Colana, right? Who's really I think Sire Henry Sire, I believe, is the member of the Knights of Malta. And and who it by the way Mark Antonio Colana was a major figure in the Battle of Lepanto and in 1571. So it's very interesting that that he that he that he picked that pen name. But yeah, other than that, I can't really think of anything else that anybody really did, right, that stands out other than some articles, perhaps. Exactly. I mean, I know that definitely on the other side, Austin Ivory wrote about the St. Galen Mafia for his book, The Great Reformer. And he of course, for anyone who doesn't know, he's the former spokesman for Connor, sorry, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, who was part of the St. Galen Mafia. So he had an insider's look, and he kind of got himself into trouble saying some things in there that he retracted later on. But aside aside from those those two texts and articles, we that there was a big gap in this area, definitely. So let me back up a little bit more. So you're at Yale, and I could show you on my wall right here. I don't know if I should try there. There's St. Catherine of Siena. So yeah, she she is she's one of my favorite saints. So you did your you did your thesis, your senior thesis on Catherine of Siena? Yes, I did. Yeah. Go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say there was so she had her her dialogue. And it was translated into Middle English. For some nuns in the late 15th century or so. And it was called it was called the Orchard of Zion. And so basically, it was about St. Catherine and her book, but also about its reception in England by medieval nuns and and how it had been rearranged by a by the Middle English translator. So that was kind of the angle that I was that I was taking on that book. Okay. And then then you go to Harvard for your masters. Yeah. And then and so. So what what followed what followed after that? You started writing, I guess, mainly for publications. I think I think this is your first book, correct? This is my first book. Yeah. Yeah. So essentially, I I after I went to Harvard, I got married, had a family. I was just honestly, I was just living my life. And I wasn't writing. I wasn't doing anything outside at all. And then the pontificate of Pope Francis happened. And for the first several years of this pontificate, I was kind of a low information Catholic, even though I love Catholicism. And I find it, I find all of this very stimulating and everything. I just, I was so swept away with, I don't know, the I was so swept away with the feeling of newness when he came in that I just wanted to hear good news about him, basically for several years. So I, I didn't read a lot except for, you know, very kind of fluff pieces about the pontificate. And then for me, the real turning point was when a more Slatica came out. And I started reading the main website I started reading was Crisis Magazine, which would have, it felt like it would have, you know, articles about it almost every day, you know, constantly about it. And I just started catching up on the fact that, you know, there's, there is real controversy going on here. There's confusion. And ever since then, I have just been just kind of riveted to the story of what's going on in this pontificate. And trying to figure him out, right? I mean, that's, that's where I've been. And I defended him publicly for a long time. I did, and I still do, but I wrote a really long piece for Crisis. It was like 5,600 words. And it was something like the politically incorrect Francis 12 shocking statements. And I sent it to John Vella, the editor, right? And Eric Sammons is the editor now. And Michael Warren Davis was between the two. And I sent it to John. And I said, look, you're going to be shocked. And I said, this is 5,600 words in length. But, but, you know, look at it, you might, you might want to see this. And he looked at it, he thought about it. And he said, all right, we're going to run the full thing. And so that was a long defense of Francis going through some of his statements that should horrify liberals and should thrill conservatives. And, and yet ever since, I think that was probably the last piece that I wrote defending him. Because now I'm just like so many other people just completely confused by the guy. And, and I mean, he, he does make really strong statements in defense of, for example, unborn life, right? It's really good and abortion makes really good statements on things like condemning gender ideology and gender theory and, and still condemns even things like same sex marriage. But on the other hand, he does these things privately and the appointments that he makes and the people that he surrounds himself with. And, and I'll tell you, Julia, I just can't figure the guy out. I don't know. And so this goes right into your book. I can't figure out sometimes when the guy is leading, when he's being led. If he's, excuse me for saying this deceiving or being deceived, the guy is really kind of maddening to figure out. And it's, you know, to borrow from a Francis phrase is kind of made a mess of things. And I think for people on both sides ought to feel that way because both sides, whether they, whether a liberal Catholic, conservative Catholic, you have a hard time just knowing what, what the guy really believes. I don't know. Your thoughts on that? I, I think that was extremely well put. I mean, it is a very frustrating task. And I think that kind of early on in the book. So, so for anyone who doesn't, who hasn't read it yet, the book starts with the conclave of 2005 and Bergoglio is the character because he, the mafia is interested in, in getting him elected. And when I was writing that, that, that section, and I had to do kind of like a quick backstory of who is Bergoglio. I put in there, you know, he was an enigma to people because he had had ultra conservative days where he was doing years before he was doing, you know, the kind of conservative things that you were just mentioning, Paul. He was acting, acting like an ultra conservative around novices and in teaching and in piety and doing things that were just kind of a throwback to the pre-conciliar era. And then you, you fast forward and then you get to the time when he's the Archbishop of Buenos Aires and you have one of his friends, the Vatican specialist, Elizabeth Pique saying that people were on his case all the time because he wasn't conservative enough and he was too easy. They thought he was too easy on sexual issues. For me, the defining issue that kind of tells me something I can hold on to about Pope Francis is the fact that according to Sandro Magister and others, he allowed everyone who wanted communion in his area when he was in Argentina to come up and he didn't refuse communion to anyone. And to me, that's kind of the bridge. Magister makes it clear that the St. Galen mafia, according to him, they were watching that and they knew that about him. And that's something that became huge with the Casper proposal in the family sentence. But to me, I just, I don't think that's the mafia necessarily. I don't know. I just think that's where we see Pope Francis being Pope Francis before he is Pope Francis, so to speak. To me, that gets to the heart of who he might be and what his philosophy on things really is. Yeah. In fact, when I did a review of your book for the tan blog, tan direction, that's exactly what I focused on because we had just been through the two visits in November or was it October by same month by Nancy Pelosi to the Vatican and then Joe Biden to the Vatican. And we were wondering what would Pope Francis say to them about communion. And frankly, it's not clear what he said to them. Again, this maddening uncertainty, right? But the one thing that you pointed out in your book, he really sees the Eucharist as sort of medicine for the soul, right? For the sick, for the ailing. So it's not something that he doctrinally holds out as, okay, if you're not worthy to present yourself for communion, if you're in a state of mortal sin and you haven't confessed, you should be denied this. You should be denying yourself he seems to have been doing just the opposite, right? No, you need this then you need this Eucharist more than ever. Of course, the teaching of the church is, but you need to repent, you need to realize that you're sitting, right? You know, you give the medicine to somebody who says, no, father, help me, I am sick, right? And then he says, okay, go and sin no more. And now you can have the Eucharist, but but he doesn't seem to go there. His view is just give it, right? Give it, give it to the Eucharist, give it to them. And that was, that was really eyeopening to me reading, reading that part of your book, precisely at the time that Pelosi and Biden were there at the Vatican. So I could see taking from your book that what did Francis really say to Joe Biden? Well, we don't really know. But I could see him saying what Biden claimed that he said, right? Which it seems like maybe Biden said this sort of tell from the different news reports, but that that you should keep receiving communion as Biden. I could see that as being consistent with where he was in Argentina. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that was, and I remember reading that article that you did for tan direction and thinking that you, you know, you handled it very deftly, weaving in the nuances of it, but also the big picture of, you know, who he was in Argentina, and where he is, where he is now, I think that was, I think it was very illuminating. So, so going back then to him in Argentina, and maybe we should, maybe we should pick up with Benedict, right? And in 2013, that was all really illuminating as well in your book. I did, only after reading your book did you piece it all together. Did I, I see now that I shouldn't have been surprised really that he stepped down, right? This was not a lightning bolt out of the blue, right? And pun intended. The lightning hit the Vatican twice, right? On that day, twice, twice of all things. But, but he had been in many ways, this was kind of anticipated, right? Maybe we shouldn't have been surprised in retrospect or at least knowing what we know now and what you lay out in your book. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that that, that word surprise is, is so interesting because the first chapter ends on Martini. It's, you know, at the end of Benedict has just been elected Pope. And then Martini is talking about the new Pope. And he says, expect beautiful surprises. And I literally have, like sheets of different mafia members giving their little interviews, using the same word surprises, he's going to be a man of surprises. And, and talking about, literally, I think one of them was also talking about the God of surprises as well. So something surprising is going to happen. And then the surprising thing happens that everyone kind of knew was going to be the surprise. It's very, it happens at the very end. It's very interesting. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It's very, very interesting. But a lot of this, when you're in the moment, I remember, I remember when I found out that Benedict was abdicating. And I remember where I was when I found out he was elected Pope. I was, I was still at Yale when he was elected Pope. And I just remember, you know, tears in my eyes just feeling so relieved. And just like he was going to take care of the church and, you know, and be there forever. And then when he abdicated, I just remember that, you know, that being punched in the gut kind of feeling like you're everything has changed. So, so for the average person on the street, you know, it was, it was absolutely shocking. And we're still, we're still trying, you know, there's this part of me that understands part of where it came from this other part of me that still like feels punched in the gut again every time I think about it. So, so I was at, I was at morning mass when I learned about him abdicating. And the priest came in and told us and I was shocked. And I remember when he was chosen in 2005, I had just come into the church, my wife and I, and I remember watching it on TV and same reaction and getting tears in my eyes. And I had been through this with Catholic friends for a decade before I kept saying to them, well, what happens if I convert and you guys end up with a bad pope, right? Or a pope who, who disagrees with all they kept saying, you're not going to get that. That can't happen. The pope like that can't be possible. And so then, so then Ratzinger was chosen and it was complete reassurance. And of course, and the issues that I was concerned about in 2005, I think the church is still good on them today. But still you have this confusion. Who, who is the, the anti Pope? And this is really, this is an anti AN of ANTI, right? But ANTE, right? What's, what's the difference between, I guess it'll be Ante, right? Ante and Ante, but we say anti either way. What's the difference? Explain that. Yeah. So he would be the antecedent, the precursor or preparer for another pope. And that was the leader of the St. Galen mafia, Colonel Carlo Maria Martini. Martini is, Martini is, has always been the real protect. I don't know the heart of this book for me, because he's the one that when I was reading the dictator pope and that first chapter on the St. Galen mafia, he has different portraits of the characters in the mafia. And I got to Martini and read it. And just from his eight paragraphs or so about Martini, I was absolutely fixated on, on wanting to know more about this character and stopped reading and downloaded Martini's book and, and stayed up late at night reading it. So for me, Martini is the heart of, of the story, because this is his dream, the church that we're living in right now, the, the church of Pope Francis. I completely believe it's, it's the dream church of Martini. And it really is, right? I mean, every Catholic ought to know who, who Carlo Maria Martini is. I mean, this is, this is really a stunning story. And, and not only his influence on, on Francis, but I guess going back to, to Benedict the 16th and, and his pontificate, his resignation, seeing all of this, all of this that happened, I think is maybe the most fascinating part of the book. So tell, tell us a little bit more about him. We see from Northern Italy, I think, Milan, I believe. Yeah, he became Archbishop of, of Milan, yes. And he, he was born, I think the same year as Rathsinger. So they were, they were parallel in many ways. Martini, so he grew up in the, the Pre-Consilier Church, of course, and he talks a lot about his memories of things like his, his mom would wake him up early on first Fridays. So he could receive Holy Communion, and then they would celebrate with chocolates later on. So he has all these little memories of that world. But then with, with the Second Vatican Council, for him, it represented a new era and a new prerogative. And he in 1980 becomes the Archbishop of Milan and right around this time, he's beca, he's beginning to make friends with men who are going to be the, the future Mafia members. So he's making friends with De Niels, Cardinal Godfrey De Niels. He's making friends with Cardinal Basil Hume. They are doing meetings in a group called the CCEE. The Council of European Bishops, and- Sounds like some Soviet acronym, by the way. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And he's just kind of growing in, in, in power. And in the early 90s, they start to describe him as this next pope. There was, there was a big article that described him in the London Sunday Times and that kind of language. And basically a couple of things happened to him. The first thing is he was, he became the new president of the CCEE, and John Paul II effectively ousted him from that position. That was in the early 90s. And then he founds in the mid 90s, he founds the St. Gallin Mafia. And our understanding is they wanted Martini to be elected as pope. So it was his vehicle for ascending all the way, all the way to the papacy, really. And then he gets Parkinson's disease. And it becomes more and more, you know, he, he reveals it in, I believe, 2002. And then by 2005, he's taking a cane to the conclave. There's no hope that he's going to be pope, but he's like the pope maker or the anti-pope already. So that kind of brings us right up to the, yeah, right up to the conclave. And that's right when John Paul II is dying of Parkinson's too. Yes. In 2005. So, so you, okay, so you right here on page 178, Martini said to Benedict, this was in June 2012, the Curia is not going to change. You have no choice but to leave. You imagine this? And looking the pope in the eye, according to Martini's confessor, father Savano Fausti, Fausti, if all things right, you know, Fausti in the bargain, right? The time for resignation, Martini told Benedict, is now. Nothing can be done here anymore. I mean, it's just amazing. Tomorrow, except the papacy with my, with my votes, Martini has said to have told rats and you're in 2005. You accept, since you have been in the Curia for years, you're intelligent and honest, try and reform the Curia. And if not, you leave, you leave. And so apparently by June 2012, he was basically telling him, you should leave, right? And, and, and this is quite interesting too. So you go through this on page 179, Pope Benedict actually expected that the conclave would pick not Bergoglio, but Scola, right? Who was, who I believe, and you go through the votes here, or at least what some have reported the votes to be from the conclave. And I think Scola, was it Angelo, was that his first name? He was, he was in the lead. He probably should have, he probably should have been the next pope, the Italian. And, but they, but the, the St. Gallen mafia crew, that group, got Bergoglio, right? Just enough votes to kind of get notice. And then in the second round, maybe he doubled the total, right? And the third round, maybe tripled the total. You take us through that a little bit. Yeah. I think that the book talks a little bit about how Scola had, he had some weaknesses. So that was part of the story of, of what happened. But really the, the, I think the St. Gallen mafia alumni, they had learned their lesson from the last conclave. And this is what Austin Ivory, again, pretty much comes out and says they knew that they needed to get Bergoglio in the first conclave according to reports in 2005. He only got maybe 10 votes. And then I think in this, in this second conclave in 2013, he got 26 votes on the first try. So he went from getting 10 on the first try to 26 on the first try. So they, they really, and they had a meeting that, that the, you know, the book talks about where they tallied how many people were planning to vote Bergoglio. And they counted 25. So they, they were so well organized that they knew within one vote, how many people were going to vote for him. And then it just, and a lot of it, you know, I wrote down, I'm just kind of collecting what we know from what other people have said. But how much of this is, you know, like the iceberg theory where it's like, you can only see part of it. And then the rest of it is just submerged. There's so much of this story of this book. This is just what is available in the public documents that I can cite in a, in a professional scholarly way. There's so much hidden or that's implied or that you can kind of deduce, but not fully know for certain that that's just lying there in a subterranean way. Essentially. Well, and you write on page 101. This is an interview that Pope Benedict later did with Peter Seawald who does, did so many interviews with him. And he said of the, of the choice of Bergoglio as Pope Seawald asked Benedict, were you expecting someone else? Benedict said, certainly yes. Not anyone in particular, but another yes. And then Seawald said, Berglio is not among them. However, and Benedict, no, I did not think he was among the more likely candidates. Although they say he was one of the favorites at the last conclave next to you. That is true, said Benedict. But I thought that has passed. That has passed. One person not surprised as you write right before this on the same page was a carnal McCarrick who boasted to CNN. Many of us had thought of it beforehand, the election of Bergoglio, that this might happen. So I was not totally surprised. I was delighted. I was delighted. Yes. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. So the, all right. So the actual Saint Gal and Mafia, and I can't believe we're already almost 40 minutes into this, this discussion. So here they are, right? It's Cardinals, Carlo Maria Martini, Godfrey De Niels, Walter Casper. You mentioned before Cormac, Murphy O'Connor, and Achille Silvestrini, who was a kind of very, I hate doing, I hate politicizing this stuff and putting people in Canada, camps of left and right, but he was very, very left of center. In fact, one friend of mine, I won't say what he said about him, but I'll probably get quoted and cause trouble. I don't need to, but he was very much on the left. So that is, he got Martini, De Niels, Casper, Murphy O'Connor, Silvestrini. So that's five right there. Are those five kind of the core then of what we consider the Saint Gal and Mafia? Am I missing somebody? No, I don't think so. I kind of, those are the names that keep popping up as kind of the core groups. So I, and they all had enough material for me to be able to devote different chapters to them as well. So for our purposes, we kind of pick them as the core, but there were definitely rotating members. You know, people, there were people who weren't cardinals yet. They were just bishops and maybe they would come for a couple of years and then rotate out and everything. So it's very, a lot of that part is still, still shadowy and nebulous. So you clearly think that the Martini is the most significant, which he clearly is. Silvestrini joined the mafia in 2003, meaning he plotted with them for approximately two and a half years. From January 2003, the time of the group's annual meeting to April 2005, the time of the conclave. So he stands out, Martini stands out. The, and also then Martini is, is the anti-pope as well, right? No, ANTE. Also standing out here, Casper. Wow. And I mean, Casper probably more than any of these other figures really emerged with Amoris Letizia, right? And, and the proposals at the Synod that took place. And I guess, what was it now? Maybe 2014, 2015, where we're still trying to figure out what was Francis doing there, right? Was, what was he forwarding? What did he believe? Was he, was he representing himself? And, and, and Denil's too. Denil's is really striking. What can you say about, about, about any, any of those figures? Maybe Denil's, maybe Casper. Denil's kind of shows us the, the really dark side of, of the mafia, because he, for anyone who doesn't know, he, he's a Belgian and I think around 2010 or so, he was recorded on tape trying to silence a sexual abuse victim and the victim had been abused by his own uncle from the age of five to 18, I believe. And really disturbing. Really disturbing. It's, yes, it's incredibly disturbing. And this uncle was, became a bishop and became a protégé of Denil's. And Denil's, when you actually read, and I tried to put in some of the transcripts in the actual book for people to read, but you, you hear, you know, the man talking about like, he's saying to Denil's like, why are you always defending my abuser? I, I thought I was coming here to get support and help. And you always take his side, things like that. And so it, it should have left him in disgrace. It was so horrible. And yet Denil's, there's this sermon that he has in his biography. And I alluded to it in the book, where he, he literally, he compares his trials. So what he had to suffer from the sexual abuse fallout was his good Friday. And Easter came, he said, because Pope Francis came. And so he, he literally is, is speaking in multiple ways of a resurrection that he had at Pope Francis' hands. And we all, most of the people watching this will have already known about, you know, the pictures of Denil's out the night that Pope Francis is elected Pope. And he's standing there and he's kind of folding his hands in satisfaction. He's got this little sliver of a smile on his face and everything. And it's just, it just speaks of how this group, they, they were in the shadows. And he just, he was there out in the open, right, right there. And shortly after Pope Francis was elected, he started making more and more statements openly in favor of gay marriage. He had secretly written a letter to a Belgian politician years before congratulating him on a piece of legislation that, that was, that was a pro-gay legislation. And now he's out in the open just being quoted in the papers about it. So that to me, it just, when you really think about it and the figure of Denil's, you know, it's just enough to kind of give you goosebumps a little bit. And it seems that so many of them want that. They, they want this kind of secularity. You quote Casper saying, just as it is forbidden to clone others, it is not possible to clone Pope John Paul II. Let's not search for someone who is too scared of doubt and secularity in the modern world, right? Actually, I want a pope who's scared of secularity in the modern world, right? That's exactly, exactly what I want. Martini, same kind of thing. This is on page 58. He said, the life did not begin immediately with fertilization, but rather sometime later. He said, quote, I maintain that respect must be granted to every person who, perhaps after much reflection and suffering, follows her own conscience, even if she decides to do something that I do not feel that I can approve of, meaning abortion. And so later he reiterated the church's task was not to dispense prohibitions, but to form consciences and teach discernment. And yeah, so they're, they're all kind of like this. And you've said a number of times. In fact, this goes into my next question. This is a conversation. This is Theodore McCarrick and Murphy O'Connor. A day after that dinner on March 2nd, the Italian papers quoted an anonymous Cardinal is saying, quote, four years of Bergoglio will be enough to change things. Four years. Murphy O'Connor would later repeat that exact slogan adding, but pray to God, we have them for much longer than that. Well, you have, right? 2013 to 2017 would have been four years. You've got at least another four beyond that. McCarrick said he could do it, you know. No, this is what the Italian said. And then McCarrick asked, what could he do? He Bergoglio could reform the church. If we give him five years, he could put us back on target. But so that gets to my question, Julia. What, what is the goal? What do they want to reform? What, you know, we heard all about this phrase, right? Reform the curia. We must reform the curia. Like it's like, it was looking back at this now is like, who cares about the curia? I mean, if all of this happened because of that, whatever that might be, was it worth it? You know, I'd rather have, you know, more clear understanding of doctrine and church teaching. But what, you know, what, what are the goals of, of the Saint Galen mafia, of this, of this core, of this handful of individuals? What do they want to do? What did they want to do? What they want to do? There are a couple of places where we have a pretty clear understanding, you know, straight from, from their own mouths of what they want to do. There was this famous speech that Martini gave in 1999 that delineated some of these goals, but he gave a, he was still kind of speaking in code. You can, you can decode what he's saying. But it's really later on, he spoke to of all people, Eugenio Scalfari, who speaks frequently to Pope Francis and there it has these controversial. And we never know what's really said in those conversations either, right? They're complete history every time. Yeah. Exactly. So, so Martini gave an interview to Scalfari and I want to say maybe it's, maybe it's around 2008 or so. But he basically, Scalfari asked him, okay, what are the most important issues in order? And then Martini says, the divorce is number one. Number two is, I want to say it's the selection of bishops. Number three is priestly celibacy. Number four is the role of the laity. Number five is the relationship between politics and the church or politics and morality. So divorced, the, the, the Casper proposal for communion for those, for the civilly divorced and remarried. We've, we've got that in this pontificate. We had the Amazon Synod where we were talking about the ordination of married men that covers number three, priestly celibacy. And then the relationship between church and, and politics is kind of omnipresent here. We were just talking about, you know, Joe Biden and Pelosi and communion and things like that. That's definitely present here. But I think if I had to add to the list, I think what happened with Tradicionis Custodis, the just clamping down on the traditional Latin mass, that's something I don't really cover in the book. Just because it, Tradicionis Custodis ended up coming out after my book was, was done editing and everything. But I, I've written pieces before where I've said, okay, we can look back and trace what the mafia was doing. And that's, that was also presaged by the mafia as well. Yeah. In fact, could you say maybe a retrospect that a kind of binding sort of glue that holds all these guys together sort of anti-tradition? Right? Yes. You know, the, the understanding, you know, we need to jump into modernity. We, you know, we need to become more secular. And, and I think you say a number of times too, the whole synodality idea, right, of, of giving local bishops more control, which is exactly what somebody like Denil's would have wanted. The current group of Germans, you know, the bad Germans currently, what they, what they've wanted to do. And I think you've probably written about this in crisis the last couple of years, I have others have, even Francis seems a little bit shocked by some of what the Germans want to do, right? They seem to be getting so out of control and unhinged and maybe going in directions that he didn't expect. But, but this is one of my beefs with Francis. He appoints these people and embraces them. And, you know, they are from the kind of far left liberal reformist wing of the church. He's, that seems to be the people he's comfortable being around, even if he doesn't seem to always agree with them. And yet, when he appoints them and they do the things that they do, then maybe he seems surprised by it. And, and, and so that's what this is leading to. And I, and I think this is probably, it's probably what the St. Galen Mafia Corps wanted. I almost called him cabal. But, you know, I think that that's probably, it's probably where they wanted to go. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree. And I think the issue with Pope Francis and the Germans is interesting because I remember a couple years ago, the Vatican expert, Edward Penton, who does phenomenal work, he, he did a report where he said, you know, basically just came right, came right out and said like that there were different Germans who were pushing him to pushing Pope Francis to go faster than he was going on certain things. And I think that issue of pacing is so important. My, my, as you know, I, I, I called the second half of my book time. And I have a chapter that is also called time. And then I have a chapter that is called patience. Because I think the issue of, of time is, you know, Pope Francis says time is greater than space. The idea is, and as opaque as that sounds, and just kind of out there, time is greater than space is basically saying, it's, it's, it's another way of saying that give something time, give it some patience, go incrementally, and you don't have to dominate spaces in the beginning. You don't have to have everything done in the beginning. You have to have faith in time. And so to me, I am just perpetually fascinated by what the pacing issue that they have here, because we were talking about five years and Austin Ivory was saying that he said at one point that Pope Francis had a five-year plan that he thought would take seven years. So a five-year plan that takes seven years brings you up to 2020. And, and we don't know yet if that five-year plan that would, that needed seven years, if it needed a couple more years, so maybe it's a nine-year plan now, or what exactly, we don't know quite what it is. But they are literally like, they're thinking in these types of terms of years and how much, how much time do we need. So I definitely see that as kind of an obsession with them. Yeah. And the fact that we don't know what the plan really is has a very kind of deceptive quality to it. And I think that's what really troubles me that, you know, the church shouldn't be like that. Everybody should know what the church believes, what the Pope believes, what the Pope wants to do. The idea, and we saw it at that first synod on the family where he seems to be telling some of his guys, no, that's too, that's too much. Pull back, slow down, slow down. You shouldn't do that. That has a kind of deceiving nature to it. You know, just go fight for what you believe and put it out there, unless you're afraid to put out what you really believe, which I guess they are. So a lot of times these goals and what reform even means is just so unclear. And in the process, it's just, again, to borrow from Pope Francis, it's made a mess of things. Yeah. So you close this with the section on Indeed Time, and you quote the Italian historian Roberto De Mattei, who just did a great book on Pope Pius V through Sophia Institute Press. And he says here, we are living, and you quote a Latin phrase, motus infine velochior, I don't know if I said that right, motion accelerates toward the end. Time passes more swiftly at a period's close. And here you quote Roberto de Mattei, we are living through an historical hour, which is not necessarily the end of times, but certainly the end of a civilization and the termination of an epoch and epic in the life of the church. I mean, that's pretty, what does that all mean? And you conclude, for a clock wound up with its inexorable ticking and the revel, for a clock wound up with its inexorable ticking, and the revolutionaries had to hurry. And really, that's what they are, right, they really are revolutionaries. For some dreams like martinis are finally as fleeting as lightning, destined to FNS while somewhere in the Sistine Chapel, the Christ of the last judgment gazes on. So that's pretty strong ending. Tell us what you mean by that, unpack that for us. When I thought about kind of like dominant images, so again, I'm an English major, I'm a literature person, like symbols, themes, I've written short stories before. So I've, these kinds of things are really important to me. And I tried to write this in a way where it's, it's like, like a term paper and it's got footnotes, but it's also kind of like reading a novel, you know, and it's got characters, symbolism, that sort of thing. So I thought about it and we keep hearing about the Christ in the Sistine Chapel, the Christ of the last judgment fresco. And he's kind of, you keep hearing about him, but you kind of don't know what he's doing, or it doesn't really become clear. And then I think at the end, the dominant image that I wanted to leave people with was this idea that, okay, so we're obsessed with time, the revolutionaries are obsessed with time, but they only have an hour or they have this limited period that they can work with. I don't know what it corresponds to in earthly terms. I don't know, I just know that it's limited and they know that it's limited. That's why they're constantly anxious. They can't go too fast. They know that they can't be like the Germans and they can't catapult everything into schism or chaos or anything like that. But they also know that they can't go too slow. So they have to find the right amount of time and they have to find the right opportunities. And at the end of the day, though, like at the last judgment, at the real last judgment, we will look back on this and we will think about how this was a finite period of chaos in the church and the Christ of the last judgment was in control all along. And I don't know quite how he's going, we don't know the details about how he's going to get us out of this, but we are going to get out of it at some point. So I wanted to just kind of evoke some of those larger feelings and a larger context for what's going on. That's very good. So it's a very optimistic, actually, right? Conclusion. So you don't go into this, but who will succeed Francis? I mean, you don't go through the number of people, the cardinals that he's appointed that can vote in the next conclave, the ones that have passed that were under Benedict and John Paul II. By the way, wouldn't it be shocking if Francis dies before Benedict XVI does? I mean, with the way that all of this is going and he's gotten eight years, he's going on nine, they thought they only needed five, maybe six or seven at the most. So, you know, they've gotten more time than they thought. And even then for whatever reform or goals that it was that they can't tell us about, I don't know if they've really gotten them. I think they've just gotten is, again, a mess of things that's left a lot of people on all sides confused and frustrated. But who's the next pope? What do you think? Where does this go next? I really don't know. I know that there was recently an article in the National Catholic Register that was talking about Colonel Zuppi as basically he would be someone who is absolutely committed to finishing what Pope Francis started. So, he would be in his image. If he can get the votes. Yeah, what they were talking about in a kind of coded way was they were talking about different groups that were backing him and already making themselves known. And you always wonder with that, well, if everyone already knows about this, is he going to be successful or is he just the one that everyone thinks is going to win? And there's going to be a dark horse elsewhere. So, I don't quite know. I go back and forth on how much hope we have for the pendulum swinging the other way. But I think we probably most likely we're going to get someone, whether we know his name now or he's more unknown. I think we're probably going to get someone in the image of Francis and someone probably who has some kind of group, even if it's not the mafia, some kind of group were working for him in some sense, trying to build up hype and get the votes and do that sort of thing. Which is not how it's supposed to go. It's not how it's supposed to operate. John Paul II even explicitly forbade that. All right. Well, this has been great. So, tell us, do you have, are you going to do another book? Do you have plans for another book? Maybe on Catherine or Sienna? I would love to do another book at some point. I'm just like, I feel like my brain is so pride from kind of all the different, all the work that I've done that I can't even, I don't even know what I would do. You need the right topic, right? Something like this that really inspires you. And you wonder, why hasn't anyone written a book on this, right? And at that point, as an author, I've been through this. Sometimes you think, well, I guess maybe I'm supposed to do it, right? Yeah, exactly. So, I don't know if it's, if it's going to be something like, some people have kind of thrown the idea like maybe if I wrote kind of like a part two of the St. Gallin Mafia or like something that's a companion or something. It's always the possibility or I could do something totally different, you know, a different historical figure or Fatima or something, something just, you know, a different time period as well. So, I'm not sure. Wait till the, wait till lightning strikes the Vatican twice again. Yes. That'll do it. So, do you have a website? Yeah. It's just Julia Maloney.com. Okay. All right. So, people can follow you there and also your writings for crisis. And you write for Lifesite News too, I believe, right? Sometimes. Yes. Sometimes I write for them as well. And I also write for One Peter Five. Yes. Yes. I'm pretty, and I'm pretty active on Twitter as well. I'm Julia Maloney one on Twitter. Okay. All right. And Steve Cunningham will put that up on the screen as well as, you know, your book, the St. Gallin Mafia. So, this has been great. Thanks so much for doing this. Really appreciate it. And God bless your work. Keep it up. Thank you so much. I appreciate it so much. And thanks everybody for joining us. We'll do another one of these podcasts again in a few weeks. We do, we do want about once every month on average. So, we will talk to you again soon. Go to the Tan Books website, especially now at Christmas time and load up. Give away some of these books for Christmas. These are, I can't think of better Christmas presents than some of the books in the Tan Books catalog. So, everybody take care. God bless and we'll see you again next time.