A longform history podcast thoughtfully exploring the moments that brought the Catholic Church to the brink, and how She prevailed.
Rome Has Spoken
A geopolitical history of the cataclysmic events that shaped the First Vatican Council and the Dogma of Papal Infallibly.
To answer the question, why we are examining a church council, is Papal Infallibility – declared a dogma of the faith during the first Vatican council. What might surprise you, and what certainly surprised me, was how controversial this dogma was – and always had been. In fact, many of the world’s most prominent theologians, almost all of the Catholic princes, and at least 25% of the Church bishops felt the Gates of Hell had either prevailed or come dangerously close at Vatican I. It also – and there’s no getting around this – changed the trajectory of the Church Hierarchy in ways that no one ever expected, and in ways we take for granted today. This appears to be mostly forgotten history, and the perfect type of subject for this podcast.
The Christ Nation
The story of this Christ-nation begins over a thousand years ago with the conversion of this agrarian people and ends in the offices of the most powerful people in the world. The pope, representing a Vatican at peak world-wide influence, and the president of the United States, at peak geopolitical consequence, when at any moment the world might well end in nuclear war – the central, significant, centrifugal, geopolitical, spiritual focus of all these energies lay withing the meager borders and daily struggles of this eastern European nation that sought, century after century to simply be itself. To exist according to its designs. To be free. To be Catholic. To be Poland.
The Business of the Cross
The Crusades, these Christian holy wars emblazoned into modern consciousness are explicit Catholic history. Therefore, as Catholics, we must reckon with them. In this historical narrative I attempt to answer two surprisingly difficult questions: What were the Crusades and why did they happen?
Welcome to the Gates of Hell Podcast.
About the Host
I am a hobbyist history podcaster who enjoys learning more about the human experience through the study of the past.
I recently took a hiatus from my biographical history podcast, Written in Blood, to focus more on stories that resonated with my Catholic Faith. The Gates of Hell is the result of that endeavor.
-Stephen DiJulius
