August 4, 2017 • 43 mins
There are a lot of things we don’t know about the Vatican: Why did the Popes of yore sit on chairs with holes in the seats? How did Doc Martens become the unofficial walking shoe of John Paul II? And why has no one told you about the Vatican’s top-notch cricket team? We’ve got all these secrets and more. Featuring Jo Piazza.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what will what's that man go? So I was
telling my kids about how my family used to go
on really long car trips when I was young, Like
my mom and dad loved piling us up in the
car and just driving to really cool places. And occasionally
there was an excuse for it, right, like once they
drove us from New Jersey all the way to Quebec City,
just so my dog could drink some holy water, just
(00:20):
so your dog could drink. Yeah, as I'm saying this
out loud, I realized it makes less and less sense.
But our dog was ill at the time, and we'd
adopted him as a pop from this Catholic family, and
even though we aren't Catholic, my mom decides she wanted
to honor his religious traditions. So we drove all the
way up to Santa and de Properate, which is this
stunning basilica in Quebec City where a lot of healing
(00:42):
miracles tend to happen, and we let him laugh up
some holy water there. Your mom is the best. What
a great idea, But I do have to ask did
it work? Did your dog live? Yeah? Well, we all
fell in love with Quebec, so that part worked and uh,
and he did live for a few more years. So
I'm not sure whether that was St Anne's doing or
whether his medication was doing the heavy lifting, but you know,
(01:02):
it did make me curious about the miracles that have
taken place there, And when I started reading online, it
sent me down this massive Catholic rabbit hole of like
saints and pilgrimages. And after a few hours, I can't
tell you how many tabs I had opened about like
the Vatican's official cricket team and how they have received
letters from like both Jefferson Davis and Abe Lincoln. Like
(01:23):
I realized we had to do an episode on like
the Vatican and all the secrets hiding there. So that's
what today's episode is all about. Why don't we dig in?
(01:46):
Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend Man Gueshot Ticketer,
and today we're talking about the secrets of the Vatican.
And this is a topic that Mango and one of
our brilliant researchers, Nolan Brown, have been talking about for
a few weeks. And so after all that research, Mango,
I've got several questions for you But why don't we
start out with this one? Have you ever actually been
(02:06):
to the Vatican. That's a pretty easy one. I have
actually way back when I was in seventh grade, and
I was completely fascinated on my tour there. But you
know what's funny was that when I was researching today's episode,
I decided to look up trip Advisor just to see
what other people thought and what their experiences were. And
one of the things I loved reading was all these
one star reviews of the place. So I just have
(02:28):
to read a few tears for it. This one's titled
Vending Machines. The vending machine worked very well. It's worrying
when this is the first thing you started review with.
The Vatican is by far the most boring place I
have visible. One star. And here's another, highly recommend you
realize what you're getting into before booking a tour. It's
(02:50):
a lot of broken English from guides and a lot
of paintings in art one star. What these people expect?
And how did this become a hobby of ours where
we like going to different places and just eating the
one star reviews on church Advisor. I remember we were
looking at once for I think it was Yellowstone, and
one of them about Yellowstone was just a bigger central
park but with bears. But we're obviously coming from a
(03:12):
very controversial angle that there's plenty to see at the Vatican.
But I do want to clarify for our listeners up front.
I know there's a lot of history on vatty leagues
and sex scandals and whatnot, and of course there's plenty
of discussion around all of those things, but today's show
is really just about the surprising things we didn't realize
about Vatican City and the Vatican both and how it functions,
(03:33):
but also what's hiding behind those walls. Yeah, we're not
trying to knock religion or delve into controversy. We just
want to dig into the fascinating history. All right, Well
let's start with that. Then why why do you think
it's such a fascinating place for us? Well, for me,
part of it's that the Church has played this outsized
role in history. I mean you think about the Crusades
and the early explorers and people like Mendel and Copernicus.
(03:55):
I mean, the Catholic Church is just this constant, recurring
character in our history books. But at the same time,
there's so much that's cloaked in mystery, and as an outsider,
is just completely unnoble when it comes to the rituals
of the Church. What you mean by that, well, I
feel like you read these tiny tidbits and they seem
totally impossible but also maybe true. Like I read this
(04:15):
widely circulated story that when the Pope passes away, the
physician will tap him on the forehead three times with
a special silver hammer just to make sure he's actually dead.
That does sound maybe made up, right, And that's what
I thought too. It's like too good to be true.
But also I'm not a priest, I don't know, so
I looked it up on snopes and they can't tell
whether it's true either. I mean, there actually is a
(04:38):
tiny silver death hammer, and it sits in waiting at
the Vatican, and once the Pope passes away, it actually
does have the special use like first to chamberlain will
call out the deceased pope's name three times, which sounds
a little like the forehead thing, right, And if the
Pope doesn't respond, the hammers used to break the seal
on the Pope's ring, and only then is the room
(04:58):
cordoned off, and that's when they actually start ranging for
the funeral. With all that detail, I mean, I guess
it sounds like there's some truth there. Yeah, according to Snokes,
there probably was a time when the hammer was used
to you know, double check that the pope was dead,
back when people were accidentally buried alive. But you know,
it's a long time since then. Still, I think you
can see what I mean, right, Like, there's so much
(05:18):
old ceremony and tradition that isn't really public knowledge. That
makes it easy for someone like, you know, a writer
like Dan Brown right at the edge of these myths
and make all these things feel plausible. Well, and there's
so many things like that. I remember before we even
talking about this episode, reading some story about those pope
chairs with the holes in them. Did you read? Yeah,
the Holy chairs? All right, So for our listeners that
(05:39):
don't know about these, these are these strange chairs. Was
holes at the center of the seat, and there's this,
I guess, kind of a dubious origin story that accompanies them.
So the legend goes back to whether or not there
was a female pope at one point, and supposedly there
was this very astute pope named John who turned out
to be a Jane, And the story goes that, you know,
she was pregnant and giving birth during a parade, and
(06:01):
then of course because of this, she was stoned to
death when everybody realized she was a woman. And after
that happened, the church made future popes sit in a
chair with a hole in it, so, you know, so
that a physician could reach through the bottom and verify
the pope's manhood. How weird is this so outrageous? Like
why would you need a chair for that? Wait? Wait,
how else would you do a physical? But you see
(06:21):
this story everywhere. I saw one on Scientific American about
Pope Benedict the third and they were doing a check
on him and apparently they all said, thanks be to
God after that check, you know, the verify that he
had testicles. And you know, there's some speculation from historians
that maybe the chair was used to ensure a pope
hadn't been castrated. But it's it's honestly all very murky. Yeah,
(06:41):
and it's it's all kind of like that silver hammer, right,
like these chairs actually do exist. Yeah, Well that you know,
there's plenty of tradition and history that we don't know,
but why don't we start with some of the things
that we do. You know, after all your research, I
think maybe you should give us a little bit of
background on the Vatican. Yeah, yeah, I can definitely do that. Actually,
let me just pull up my notes so on. Viously,
the Vatican City is like the spiritual and governing center
(07:03):
of the Roman Catholic Church. And originally the land was
actually this Marshy area and then apparently it turned into
the CD District. But by Coligula's time in thirty s
D it had totally been gentrified, like there are nice
houses and gardens and whatnot. And today, like the area
is pretty much built around St. Peter's tomb because that's
the area where he was martyred. Vatican spans, if you
(07:26):
think about it, like about a hundred acres or so,
and it's considered a monarchy with about a thousand people
living there, and the pope is at the top of
that obviously, but something I would not have thought about before.
But there's no vice pope, right, yeah, he's he's kind
of alone at the top. I mean, he delegates duties
to various people and councils, but all that stuff you
think about with the three branches of government like legislative, judicial, executive,
(07:46):
like all of that sits with him. Plus he's got
all the spiritual things to deal with. It's a ton
of responsibility. And the funny thing is there's no turning
the job down when you're nominated, Like you can't say
no to God. Well that's true, but I have read
seven real times about all these cardinals that don't want
the job that get really stressed out thinking about it
just because of all of the international responsibility that that
(08:07):
goes with the job. Yeah, I mean, like you've got
to deal with the church's legal stuff and the public relations.
All that falls on your shoulders and it can feel overwhelming.
But you know what's funny is the room the new
pope is scored to after he's just been elected. It
actually has a nickname. It's called the Room of Tears. Yeah,
it's a big job, and most popes need some time
to compose themselves and like deal with the motion after
(08:28):
they've been nominated. And here's something else about that room.
Because no one knows who the next pope is going
to be, the tailors actually have three papal ropes waiting.
There's a small, medium and large. I never really thought
about it, but I guess I just kind of assumed
it was a one fits all kind of thing. But
you know, you're right, no one knows who's going to
be elected. There's actually this great story about Pope Fabian,
(08:50):
who wasn't even a candidate for the pope, but a
dove landed on his shoulder during the election, and so
he got this unanimous vote to be pope. And you know,
I'll have some questions for you out elections and in
just a bit. Yeah, good, because I really want to
talk about like how they send up black smoke and
white smoke, and like when they make a decision. It's
kind of amazing. Yeah, all right, Well, well, let's back
up for just a second and talk about how Vatican
(09:11):
City became its own sovereign state. Obviously we know when
an impact the Roman Catholic Church had on history, but
give me a quick sense of why there are these
hundred acres carved out for it. Yeah, so those hundred
acres are a little fuzzy. I mean, there's a McDonald's
just outside the Vatican border that's actually on Vatican property,
and it's kind of blurry, actually, here. You can order
a new Tela burger and fries in this room. Yeah,
(09:34):
that's kind of an Italy specific thing. And they also
don't allow mixed spaghetti there. That's only a Filipino thing. Okay,
But you know you're right about the Vatican size. I mean,
for a while, and we're talking way back in the
eighteen hundreds, the Pope ruled over a number of papal
states in the region. But when Italy unified as a
country in the late eighteen hundreds, it seized up all
the Vatican's land. And then this really really strange thing happened, right,
(09:58):
and it was completely new to me. Apparently Italy and
the Vatican actually had a cold war. Like I always assumed,
Italy and the Vatican had this super cozy relationship. But
for about sixty years, the Pope refused to acknowledge Italy
as a country or even going to the balcony to
bless people, especially if he thought like Italians were in
the square. And even more than that, the Pope refused
(10:21):
to leave the Vatican. Like Pope Pius the Ninth, preferred
to himself as a prisoner of the grounds. But here's
the craziest part of the story. The person who actually
brokered the peace is Benito Mussolini. Yeah, he delivered a
pack that recognized the Vatican as sovereign and in the deal,
Italy brought back all the land it had taken for
(10:41):
about ninety million dollars or about a billion dollars in
today's money. Well, and obviously Italy and and the Vatican
have a great relationship. Now. I think there's an arrangement
where something like eight percent of Italian income taxes can
be diverted to the Catholic Church if a citizen chooses them,
and any criminals who were sentenced by the Vatican court,
they get moved to an Italian prison. And if a
(11:02):
person loses their Vatican citizenship, which ends when your job
ends there, and if they don't have a country to
go to, they become an Italian citizen by default, which
has to be the weirdest way to get a citizenship. Well.
You know what's interesting though, that while that one billion
dollar amount we were talking about sounds huge, and you
think about all the artwork and all the other things
that are in the Vatican, all the treasure the Vatican
(11:23):
isn't exactly swimming and wealth. The annual operating budget is
about three hundred million dollars that comes in from ties,
but also museum tickets and printing services and all the
souvenirs and those kinds of things. But think about a
place like Harvard. The university's annual budget is something like
ten times that, at about three point seven billion. It
kind of makes the Vaticans proceeds, you know, feel almost
(11:45):
shoe string. Yeah, And while the Vatican could easily put
some of that fancy artwork up on Craigslist to get
some like quick cash, the Vatican has zero intention of
selling anything. As Cardinal Caprio, the budget office once said,
all the artwork belongs to humanity, and the Vatican books
reflect that. In their accounts. All these billions of dollars
of artwork were assigned a value of one lira, which
(12:07):
kind of reminds me of the Academy Awards and how
actors actually have to sign a contract when they win
an oscar, Like if they or their heirs want to
sell the trophy, the most they can sell it for
as a dollar, and they have to offer it to
the Academy first, all right, But in numbers, a dollar
was like two thousand lira which means if you wanted
a fair trade, that'd be like trading a finger of
(12:27):
an oscar for the Sistine Chapels, the Pietas, all the
pope tiaras, plus all the other treasures of the Vatican.
It sounds like a good deal. So I've forgotten about
the Pope's tiras, by the way, So why don't we
talk about the Pope's fashion after little break? Domengo, who
do we have on the line today? So today I've
got a super flimsy excuse for including some old friends
(12:50):
on the show. Okay, when we started doing a part
time Genius, my friends from way back from elementary school,
Tim and Brian Gantscorne wrote me and they were so
kind about the show, and I thought it'd be fun
to them on. And then when we were doing this
show on the Vatican, I thought perfect because they were
both alter boys. But it turned out only Tim was
an ulter boy, and I hadn't messed up in my
(13:10):
memories of it. But welcome Tim and Brian. Thanks, thanks
an honor to be here. So Tim, because I really
don't know much about the church, I want to know, um,
you know, isn't an honor to be an alter boy
and how do you get selected for that position? Well,
when I was a young child, my mother decided that
I needed to be an alter boy and me to
the church and dropped me off and didn't give me
(13:32):
much choice. My older brother was awesome alter boy. I
have three brothers. I'm not sure why half of us
were selected for ball and told to do this and
half of us I didn't have to do it. I'll
have to ask my mother that we'll get her on
the line for the next quiz. All right, well, what
quiz are we playing today? Mango? We're gonna play a
(13:53):
game called Name that Pope. So we'll give you a
pretty long clue and you'll just have to give the
name of the pope we're talking about. We're gonna have
them competing with each other, right, So here's how we
do this. Guys. When we're competing, we have you chime in.
But in order to make sure that we can understand
your chimes, we're going to give you animal noises. So
Brian you get to make the cow noise. You will
(14:14):
be mooing in order to chime in, and Tim you
will get to kaka. Okay, you guys ready, So when
you know the answer, make your noise. Here we go.
Question number one. He was pope before our current pope.
Also a name for a style of eggs poached with
hollandaise sauce. Alright, that was a move, Brian ben addict. Okay,
(14:40):
here we go. Question number two. This pope was only
pope for thirty three days in His name is the same. Wow,
Brian's the all star here. Well, let me finish the
question and I'll let you answer. His name is the
same as two beetles strung together. Who do we have? Brian? Okay?
(15:01):
All right? Question number three. This pope and sat from
four a d. Shares his name with a word you
might plea if you didn't do the crime. All right,
I believe I heard of Coca. Tim, who was it? Okay?
Two to one? Here we go. Number four. This pope
(15:22):
was an academic who reintroduced Europe to the Avacus. He
shares his name with a black and white Looney Tunes
cat and an actor named stallone. Oh, to tie it up,
let's hear it, Tim, Yes, Sylvester the second. I believe right,
that's right. I'm acting like I knew that it was
on the sheet. Here I believe that would be Sylvester
(15:43):
the Second, because yeah, okay, tied up, all right, here
we go. This is the last one for the big
win number five. This pope, known as the Warrior Pope,
shares a name with Caesar, a basketball player named Irving,
and in our drink stand at the mall, just barely
(16:05):
Brian for the win, let's hear it. That's right, and
the Warrior Pope was Julius the Second, who also commissioned
this his team Chapelo. Okay, so, so how have our
contestants done today? Mango? It was obviously very close, but
Brian edged out Tim and uh so first places always
gets a note to your mom or boss, sing your praises,
(16:26):
and because we don't want Tim's mailbox feeling lonely, we're
gonna send him a p plant, just like greg Or
Mendel used to grow. What a great prize. Sometimes it
almost seems better to be runner up on these quizzess. Definitely, well, guys,
congratulations and thanks so much for joining us on Part
Time Genius. Thank you so much. Welcome back to Part
(17:02):
Time Genius now, Mango. I know we both wanted to
talk the Pope's fashion and We've also promised to talk elections.
I know, we promised so much stuff. Plus I don't
think we've given enough details yet to make those one
star reviewers happy. Probably not Well, I was going to
suggest a super quick rundown of the government. Again. You
you guys have done all this research on this. So
here's what I want to do. I'll give you a
department and you tell me a fact that you guys
(17:25):
have pulled up. That sound good? Yeah, and I can
use my notes, right all right, yes, yeah, you're allowed to,
but you have to close your eyes, all right, Okay,
the fire department, So this is easy. Like, I love
that their fire trucks kind of look like short busses.
All right, what about the justice system. There's only one judge,
got no like an actual judge, but he has a
(17:46):
lot of works. Well have I never heard about a
judge that's that's so interesting? Okay? How about how about treasury?
Well there's a coin and stamp department, but unlike the Pope,
they're not infallible. In two thousand thirteen, they issued a
coin that mistakenly spelled Jesus as leases, which instantly boosted
the coins value, and luckily they only sold four before
(18:06):
they discovered that those things are worth so much, they've
only sold four of them. Okay, you must have read
about this because I just thought it was interesting to
think about the space program. Yeah. So you think with
their history with early astronomers that the Church wasn't interested
in telescopes, but they've actually invested in them since the
fifteen hundreds and even today they have this advanced Vatican
telescope at Mount Graham in Arizona, which was built in
(18:27):
the nine nineties. Like it's really an area of interest.
So the Vatican has a telescope in Arizona. Yeah, because
they're interested in the heavens. Oh, that's interesting, all right.
What about the military, Yeah, so, uh, this is easy too. Well,
they've they've been using a small core of the Swiss
Guard since the fourteen hundreds when the Swiss were considered
the best mercenaries in the world. And uh, and they
(18:50):
don't actually do a lot of fighting, like obviously they're
they're just there for ceremonial purposes. They were this like
really flamboyant guard and they do wear plain clothes when
they've got duty to protect the pontiff, but it's highly
selective like they're only a hundred fifty and you've got
to be over five eight and Catholic and male and unmarried.
There are lots of requirements. Yeah, alright, how about athletics.
(19:13):
The Vatican actually has a soccer team and a cricket team.
And the cricket team is really funny because they've they've
only played a few matches, but they did beat a
traveling Dutch team called the Fellowship of Fairly Odd Places.
This Fellowship Fairly Odd Places. That doesn't sound like it
would be a good cricket team. Is this Is this
really a thing? I know, I want the jersey, but
that's actually the name. They play like old school cricket
(19:34):
in places where cricket isn't like traditionally played, so like
Iceland or the Vatican and Dora. But the Vatican actually
trounced them. Oh wow, that's pretty cool. All right. How
about transportation? Okay, so I love this one. There's a
train that comes through and there's only one station, like
it just comes in and then it backs out, and
it's mostly for freight. I mean, sometimes a dignitary will
(19:55):
get on it. But you know, if you're talking about
like the Pope's transportation. He's got this fleet of cars,
like amazing old fancy cars, but because Francis doesn't love
fancy things like, he mostly uses his forward focus and
that's his popemobile, and sometimes he pleads with guards to
let him take the city bus. He actually kind of
sounds like the teenager who's been embarrassed about being driven
(20:17):
around by his parents. But all right, so what about
the Department of Exorcisms was something I saw? Oh, actually,
I've got one more fact about transport that I want
to say. So this is top secret and off limits,
but there's one hollow wall that can be used to
help the pope fleet in case the city's ever sacked,
and it's been used historically and it runs from the
papal apartments to a castle and possibly to other places. Oh.
(20:40):
I thought maybe you were just trying to get around
get the Department of exorcisms here while looking for a fact.
But that's actually really interesting. Okay, but you still have
to do exorcism. Yeah, so you actually hear less about
exorcisms now, But Benedict was obsessed with them, and the
Vatican's chief exorcist, this guy, Father Gabriel m R. He
claimed to have performed twenty th cicisms between two thousand
(21:01):
and two thousand ten. Also, you'll never guess his favorite movie.
What's that? The Exorcist? Actually, I think I could have
guessed that once you said that. All right, I think
I've got one more. How about banking? So this one
we've known for a long time, and it's like my
favorite fact. The Vatican has the world's only a t
M that operates in Latin. That is pretty awesome. All right,
So there's certainly a lot for the pope to think about.
(21:21):
But there's one more thing on the pope's mind, and
that's fashion. So before Frances tried to get out of
wearing fancy duds and going casual, pope fashion was actually
kind of a thing. Yeah, it really was. And Benedict
was kind of a clothes horse. I mean, John Paul
the Second was known for wearing Doc Martin's and brown ones.
Oh yeah, I remember seeing that he and the Doali
Lama actually traded tips on footwear and both wore Doc
(21:43):
Martins for their comfort. Yeah, it's funny, like I think
of Doc Martin's is such a punk brand and nothing
to do with religion. But Benedict he wouldn't be caught
dead and does popes In the olden days they used
to wear red, but he brought the style back of
wearing a red slippers and also the cave with an
ermane for In fact, he was so fashionable that Donna
Tulla Versacci actually designed a line using him his inspiration. Well,
(22:07):
and I know the Church was sensitive about Benedict being
seen as as two fan. Yeah. When a reporter commented
on his red Gucci slippers, the Vatican responded by saying
that Benedict isn't concerned with labels, and here's their statement.
He said he couldn't spot a Gucci from a smoochi.
I'm not sure I could either. Yeah, I'm not that fashionable.
Any other innovations I know Pope John Paul the Second
(22:28):
War rainbow vestments once, yeah, which was a little disastrous
because this artist convinced him that the rainbow represented God's
promise to Noah that there would be all this peace
after the rainstorm. But when the artist later suggested that
maybe it was a gesture of goodwill to the LGBT community,
the Vatican responded that no one has a copyright on rainbows,
and what about those ceremonial tiaras. They're they're so ornate. Yeah. Well,
(22:52):
the only person I could find who was truly envious
of the trs was Napoleon. Like, apparently the crown wears
about seven ounds. But when he designed one and gifted
it to a pope, and he had the thought in
the back of his mind that one day he might
like take that power, he constructed a ten pound t
r I know, which is so Napoleon. It's like a
bowling on your head. Crazy. But back cround is actually
(23:15):
also in the rotation, and they are often worn during
important events, like you know, during the papal coronation. All right,
well that brings us back to the election of the Pope,
as we promised we would get to. I do know,
there's a council and they deliberate forever and they decide
I think under the Sistine Chapel. But tell us a
little bit about the process. Yeah, so's it's kind of amazing.
First off, even if you bought take us to the
(23:36):
Sistine Chapel, like to go on a tour, everything closes
down for the election, so you're out of luck. But
that's where the Council of Cardinals meets, they do a
morning mass, and they take an oath of secrecy, and
then they vote with paper ballots and they deliberate and
it's all super quiet. Well, and that's for good reason,
because I do remember reading that King's used to have
the right to veto the decision of who became pope,
(23:58):
and so they try to influence the elections, and so
the secrecy is really to protect you know, the institution. Yeah,
that's right. And in fact, you can actually be excommunicated
if you leak any details. It's a little like being
on jury duty, Like you can't tweet or read the
paper or make any phone calls. And to prevent leaks,
the Vatican actually brings in porta potties. I mean there's
(24:18):
no I mean they're easy to access, like bathrooms one
floor down, but no one's allowed to leave. Wow. When
it can take days to do this, right, Yeah, which
is why they sent up those smoke signals. That's to
communicate to the public. When the signal is white, they're
just burning ballots, and when it's black they used to
add straw, but now they add chemicals. I also read
(24:38):
that there's a second furnace now too, and I didn't
really understand that, but I guess sometimes the smoke would
come out gray and people would be all confused start
asking questions, so they added a second furnace to make
sure the smoke comes out the right color. Now. Yeah,
so this is the weirdest thing to me, and that's
that at the end of this massive process, the pope
isn't even really declared pope, like his official title is.
(25:00):
I'm going to read this Bishop of Rome, Vicar of
Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme
Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and
Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of
the Vatican City, Servant and sorry, servant of the Servants
of God. You've done. He's got eight titles and none
(25:23):
of them are the Pope, and apparently that comes from
people calling him like the Holy Father or Santa Papa. Also,
I don't know if you remember this, but I remember
being really tickled when I saw this March Madness style
bracket for popes Like this was back when Benedict was
being elected, and I had no idea that betting on
the pope was a thing. Like it's been a thing
(25:43):
since the sixteen hundreds. Apparently the Italian market just goes
crazy for it. Yeah, the Irish sights are all over
it too, I guess not. Not surprisingly, if you put
your money on Francis, you would have made twenty five
to one, Yeah, which is a lot of money. But
you know, all this talk of the pope and we
still haven't gotten into some of the crazy things hiding
in the Vatican archives. All right, well, why don't we
break for a quiz and then we'll dive right into
(26:04):
those juicy stories. Our guest today is the best selling
(26:27):
author and journalist. We got to know her pretty well
in our years at Mental philoss and because we're talking
about secrets of the Vatican today, we wanted to have
her on just because one of her many brilliant books
is titled If Nune's Ruled the World. Ten Sisters on
a Mission. Joe Piazza, welcome to part time Genius. Thanks
for having me. Yeah, of course, So, Joe, Uh, I
(26:47):
know you started out as a Gossap columnist and I
remember you telling me some incredible stories of like baking
injuries to get into hospitals to chase down stories and
I want to know if you could share, like a
funny story or the lens you've gone to to get
a story. I did, indeed. So I was a goss
of commist for the New York Daily News back in
the days when people still read newspapers. It was a
really long time ago, and I was down in Florida
(27:12):
covering the MTV Video Music Awards, and it was that
the year that Signite, the music producer, got shot at
one of these parties. And I decided that I was
going to crack this story wide open, that I was.
I was going to discover who shot Signite. So I
busted into the emergency room by faking appendicitis. I made
(27:34):
it all the way. I made it all the way in.
And I was just young early twentysomething reporter UM trying
to make a name for myself, and busted into the
emergency room, doubled over in in fill Paine and got
so far as that they inserted and I V And
it turns out my big scoop was that Schignight shot himself.
(27:56):
That the safety wasn't done. Um, there wasn't some big
East coast West coast rap war thing going on. It
was It was just some some idiot guy and some
idiot girl who's been stuck in the e er with
an IVY in her arm and a bunch of doctors
asking her about her stomach king. Um. But it was great.
We did get that story and my editors. My editors
(28:20):
never sent me to a Video Music Awards over again,
which I think was a blessing in the sky. So
how did you get out of this situation? You're you're
there with the ivy in your arm, Like, what what
happens next? I ripped? I ripped to help myself, and
I snuck out of the hospital. I mean, I think that.
(28:41):
I think at that point I told myself that I
was in a romantic comedy, um like, and I was
like in a movie and had had this scripted, and
so I was I was accouring, I've got this, ripped
the ivy out just and just snuck out with a
hospital bracelet on, you know, and those things are hard
to get off. I think I had that thing on
(29:01):
for like the next two days. It was kind of
this badge of honor. But it was also pre smartphones
and pre social media, so there was really like otherwise
if this happened now, people would be tweeting from that emergency.
That's what they do when they see a celebrity in there. Um,
but no one I still get to tell this story
like word of mouth. I have no pictures. I would
(29:21):
have video if this happened now. So I kind of
cherished the story because it's something that only I can tell.
I have no evidence. I have no proof. I could
be making it up, like, well, we are going to
get to the romantic comedy that is your life bit.
But I wanted to ask what made you go from
being this incredible journalist to like studying and writing about nuns. Well,
(29:42):
I was burnt out. I was burn I blame Britney
Spears actually, um, And I tell I tried to explain
this to the nuns several times and they're like, Brittaney,
what Brittney, And let me show you this video of
her as a Catholic school girl. So it was it
was very Britney Spears big breakdown. And I was covering that,
(30:03):
the one where she shaved her head and started attacking
with orders with an umbrella, and I was covering that,
And I was covering the two thousand and eight election
and the Elliott Spitzer scandal all at the same time,
and I was burning out on these terrible people. I
was just exhausted by them. And so the Daily News
would pay for me to go back to school and
I'm like, well, what's what's the answer, doe to Britney Spears.
(30:26):
I'm like, Oh, it's religious studies. So I had the
newspaper pay for me to get this masters and religious studies,
and through that I started interviewing nuns from my final thesis.
And I like to say that one nun leads to
another nun like a gateway drug. And I just I
fell into this rabbit hole of the world of nuns
(30:48):
and was hooked right away because their stories just hadn't
been told. I mean, the Vatican really kind of covers
up everything that the nuns do, all of their good
work there. It's it's funny. They're almost ashamed of all
of the good things that the nuns are doing. And
I spent about two years with with these Catholic nuns.
(31:08):
I interviewed hundreds of them, but the stories, uh that
are in the book If Nun's Ruled the World, there's
about ten of them, and they're just they're all these badass,
cool feminist women who changed their little corner of the
world or the big corner of the world in some
cases for for good, just because they wanted to do
to make the world a better place. Well, what's what's
(31:30):
one one of your favorite stories from the book? Um?
I think my favorite story is about the Iron Nune.
This fun blows people away when I when I talked
to them about it. Um. Sister Madonna Boodher started running
when she was in her forties and she's now in
her late eighties and she's done more than forty seven
(31:53):
iron Man races and they call her the Iron Nun.
She's been since the book came out. She been in
a Nike commercial, and she's written, she's written her own
her own book, and she's she's just this feisty little
octogenarian who happens to run iron Men, and she's absolutely incredible. People.
(32:15):
People fall madly in love with her on the race
course because when people start to lag behind, she actually
slows down. She cares less about her time that about
helping everyone else on the race course. She slows down
and sings with them and praise with them sometimes to
try to help them get through the race. Which is
the opposite of everyone else who's doing an iron man's
(32:36):
probably like a subset of the most self obsessed people
in the in the athletic world. And yeah, she's great.
She's the one that got me running. I was I
used to you know, smoke like a pack of cigarette today,
and she got me into running half marathons. So yeah,
she she's one of the one of the most inspiring
sisters that's in the book. Now you've you've just had
(32:57):
a baby, but you've also recently written a book with
your husband and called How to Be Married? So what
what made you take on this project? I did? I
did um mostly because I had no idea how to
be married? Uh. And my way of figuring, my way
of figuring out the world is pretty much just a
report on it and you know, then report back. So
my poor husband is like, you really you have no
(33:19):
idea what you're doing. And I'm like, no, no clue.
So I was a travel editor at the time for Yahoo. Uh.
God God blessed them, and they were sending me all
over the world, and I figured, all right, what if
I could crowdsource marriage advice from hundreds of people as
as I'm going to these different countries, and I was
(33:40):
going to France and Kenya, Tanzania, India, Israel, and I
did like, I got Yahoo pretty much to foot the
bill for me traveling all over and asking for marriage advice,
and it ended up being really interesting. It came out
in April, and since then I get emails from from
when my all of the time who were like, thank you,
(34:02):
because everyone gives you advice about the wedding, about this
one day where you have these tiny past appetizers and
a band who looks like Mumford and sons and people
are sitting on hay Ma else and you spend a
lot of money, but no one talks about the next
fifty years about the actual marriage. And this book talks
about what happens with the actual marriage. So this was
us figuring out how to be married on the fly,
(34:23):
and it's going pretty well because we made a baby
about four weeks ago. I love that we pulled you
out of that to take a quiz with us. That's right,
that's right. So speaking of quizzes, what what quiz do
we have for Joe today? Mango, We're gonna play a
game called where they cell abate? Alright, so here we
go I will reach is involved. We'll reach you a name,
(34:47):
and you have to tell us whether the person was,
in fact sellibate. Here we go, alright. Number one, Isaac Newton,
the physicist and inventor of the cat flap. Isaac Newton
sellibate or not? I kind of want to say celibate.
You're right. Well, while he was interested in the laws
of motion, none of them had to do with the ocean. Right,
all right, one for one for Isaac excellent. Number two
(35:12):
Florence Nightingale. Don't see. I feel like Clarence Nightingale really
could have could have gotten a lot of tail out there.
But I'm gonna say, but she you're not celibate. I'm
going to not celibate. That would have been what I
would have guessed as well. What's the answer, mango, she's celibate? Um? Yeah,
I mean, all these patients fell in love with her,
(35:33):
and she had countless marriage proposals, but but she decided
to stay true and she lived into pretty old age.
Right at wow? Okay, all right, here we go one
out of two. Number three Tesla Nicola, Tesla inventor and
the Thomas Edison rival. I'm gonna say celibate. That's right, correct, right,
(35:56):
maybe because of the heartbreak over the pigeon. We have
all heard the pigeon story, right, fell in love with
a pigeon. All right, Well, you know that's that's the
kind of thing you don't get over. That's very, very true. Okay.
Number four, Laura Ingalls Wilder was not celibate, absolutely right. Okay.
(36:17):
The last one a till of the hun sell it.
You kind of want that to be the answer, but
unfortunately it's I know, I wish full thinking, but he
was not sell of it yet. Twelve wives, twelve wives. Wow, alright,
So how is Joe done today? Mango? So Joe wh
(36:40):
an excellent three for five and Whish entitles her to
the big prize, which is our total admiration. Al right, congratulations,
which is not a box of condoms. But but thank
you so much for being here, Joe. If if if you're listening,
go out and get How to Be Married or her
other book, Fitness Junkie, which is on shelves now. Thanks
(37:00):
for having me, guys, Somyga. At the top of the show,
we talked about the Vaticans one star reviews on trip Advisor,
and you were telling me how much awesomeness is at
(37:21):
the Vatican, So why don't we prove it with some
of our favorite things hiding behind the Vatican doors. Well,
they're the obvious things, right, like the letter of Henry
the eighth cent with his request for an annulment, which
obviously got rejected, and the Pope's letter to excommunicate Martin Luther.
There's awesome historical stuff like that all stored there. But
like I mentioned at the top, I have no idea
(37:43):
what other sort of records were on file. Like there's
a note Michael Angelo sent the Pope letting him know
that the Vatican was three months behind on paying their
guards and if they didn't put me up fast enough.
There was all this talk of like the guards walking
out on their job. Or this is letter from the
Ojibway tribe and ontarry go and it's written on bark
and it comes from seven and just thanking the Pope
(38:04):
for his help. But the details are really sweet, like
they addressed the Pope as the great master of prayer.
He holds the place of Jesus. And while he was
set in May, the date actually says where there is
much grass in the month of the flowers like, I
kind of love that. That is pretty great. And there
are also things like the letters from Lincoln and Jefferson
Davis that you mentioned before during the Civil War, and
(38:26):
they were each trying to get the pope support. But
what's so strange about that is that neither of them
was Catholic. Yeah, the Pope's note back acknowledging Jefferson Davis
and the Confederacy. It was touted as this big win,
like the South treated as like this official documentation that
it was its own nation, And I guess it was
kind of obvious, but I didn't even think about the
paper trail, Like there are all sorts of documents about
(38:49):
the personal affairs of cardinals, both good and bad, from
the nine twenties on, and hundreds of years of annulmen papers.
I mean, that's a ton of records to keep if
you think about this. And there's something like fifty two
miles of shelves there. So browsing is definitely prohibited. But
the so called Secret Archives where all this stuff is housed,
it it actually is open to scholars. Yeah. One funny
(39:10):
thing about the Secret Archives is that it's actually this
mistranslation and there's probably some fun stuff parted there. It
actually translates more is the pope's personal archives. Okay, but
I don't think just a bunch of historical records are
going to impress our trip Advisor friends, So we might
need some more off limits type of things of what
else you got for us. It's funny because I had
all these like cute things lined up, Like Renaissance painters
(39:31):
used to get bored with their motifs that they had
to paint, So like, I know, there's one who had
to paint all these lions, and he did this one
line facing the other ways, sort of like playful, and
so does this whole where's Waldo motif going on? So
there's an erotic fresco that you need to hear about.
All right, I think this might be the one. This
might be what we're looking for. So, you know, there's
all this talk about the Vatican having these giant stacks
(39:53):
and like perverse art and and uh, most of that's
completely bunker really, it's all hogwash, But this one's actually true.
So in fifteen sixteen, the painter Raphael was commissioned to
decorate a cardinal's bathroom, and the cardinal wanted this really
like lusty sex scene filled with pagan creatures, and Raphael
got really into it. It's like totally in a classical style,
(40:14):
but he goes crazy. It's supposedly done like a graphic novel,
and they're like naked nymphs and sadder's and like outrageous
sex scenes. There's a goddess looking in a mirror while
she's wrapped in a guy's legs. It's it's really nuts.
But over the years there's been so much outrage about
it that it's been whitewashed and the space has been
turned into a kitchen and then I think a meeting room,
(40:36):
but there's still portions the peak out and according to
one visitor who saw it, there's a drawing of Pan
who apparently was well, he has this enormous member and
he's also excited. But then someone whited out his member,
so now it looks even more like comically big because
you can't see how large it was. All Right, that
made do the trigger. I think that probably takes it
(40:57):
from a one star to maybe a one and a
half star for somebody's too. But before we sign off,
what do you say we have a little fact off?
All right, here's one about the Sistine Chapel, so michael
Angelo never wanted to paint it. Apparently it was just
painted as a giant sky with stars before and the
(41:18):
gig didn't appeal to him. He only saw himself as
a sculptor. In fact, in his letter to friends, he
complained that he never should have taken on the assignment,
saying I'm not in the right place. I'm not a painter,
but he is a painter. So the reporter who broke
the news about Bendicks stepping down from being Pope actually
got the scoop because she is the only person in
(41:39):
the room who understood his announcement. And that's because he
made it in Latin. All right, Well, the Vatican has
a strong stance against gluten free Eucharus. They'll allow it,
I mean, for people with serious gluten problems, but they
do not like it. Also, adding honey or flavoring to
the bread is severely frowned upon. So, according to the
Definitive Book of Body Language, five University of Texas College
(42:04):
students were arrested at the Vatican for flashing the hook'm
horns side. Apparently it's a sign for cuck holding someone.
In Italy, it's bad idea. All right, well, the Vatican
has announced this position on baptizing aliens. Did you know this.
It's good to have a stance on this. Just to
be clear, they'll happily convert extraterrestrials if they're interested in
becoming Catholics. I love that and I want to sit
(42:25):
in on those confessions. But before we go, I wanted
to give a special shout out to Dolan Brown for
pulling together a ton of research for this episode, and
for all of you out there on Part Time Genius Land,
thank you so much for listening. Thanks again for listening.
(42:51):
Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works
and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do
the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan
McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme
song and does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland
does the exact producer thing. Gave Bluesier is our lead researcher,
with support from the research army including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets the
(43:13):
show to your ears. Good job, Eves if you like
what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe. And if you
really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave
a good review for us. Did you did you forget Jason?
Jason who
Guess what will what's that man go? So I was
telling my kids about how my family used to go
on really long car trips when I was young, Like
my mom and dad loved piling us up in the
car and just driving to really cool places. And occasionally
there was an excuse for it, right, like once they
drove us from New Jersey all the way to Quebec City,
just so my dog could drink some holy water, just
(00:20):
so your dog could drink. Yeah, as I'm saying this
out loud, I realized it makes less and less sense.
But our dog was ill at the time, and we'd
adopted him as a pop from this Catholic family, and
even though we aren't Catholic, my mom decides she wanted
to honor his religious traditions. So we drove all the
way up to Santa and de Properate, which is this
stunning basilica in Quebec City where a lot of healing
(00:42):
miracles tend to happen, and we let him laugh up
some holy water there. Your mom is the best. What
a great idea, But I do have to ask did
it work? Did your dog live? Yeah? Well, we all
fell in love with Quebec, so that part worked and uh,
and he did live for a few more years. So
I'm not sure whether that was St Anne's doing or
whether his medication was doing the heavy lifting, but you know,
(01:02):
it did make me curious about the miracles that have
taken place there, And when I started reading online, it
sent me down this massive Catholic rabbit hole of like
saints and pilgrimages. And after a few hours, I can't
tell you how many tabs I had opened about like
the Vatican's official cricket team and how they have received
letters from like both Jefferson Davis and Abe Lincoln. Like
(01:23):
I realized we had to do an episode on like
the Vatican and all the secrets hiding there. So that's
what today's episode is all about. Why don't we dig in?
(01:46):
Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend Man Gueshot Ticketer,
and today we're talking about the secrets of the Vatican.
And this is a topic that Mango and one of
our brilliant researchers, Nolan Brown, have been talking about for
a few weeks. And so after all that research, Mango,
I've got several questions for you But why don't we
start out with this one? Have you ever actually been
(02:06):
to the Vatican. That's a pretty easy one. I have
actually way back when I was in seventh grade, and
I was completely fascinated on my tour there. But you
know what's funny was that when I was researching today's episode,
I decided to look up trip Advisor just to see
what other people thought and what their experiences were. And
one of the things I loved reading was all these
one star reviews of the place. So I just have
(02:28):
to read a few tears for it. This one's titled
Vending Machines. The vending machine worked very well. It's worrying
when this is the first thing you started review with.
The Vatican is by far the most boring place I
have visible. One star. And here's another, highly recommend you
realize what you're getting into before booking a tour. It's
(02:50):
a lot of broken English from guides and a lot
of paintings in art one star. What these people expect?
And how did this become a hobby of ours where
we like going to different places and just eating the
one star reviews on church Advisor. I remember we were
looking at once for I think it was Yellowstone, and
one of them about Yellowstone was just a bigger central
park but with bears. But we're obviously coming from a
(03:12):
very controversial angle that there's plenty to see at the Vatican.
But I do want to clarify for our listeners up front.
I know there's a lot of history on vatty leagues
and sex scandals and whatnot, and of course there's plenty
of discussion around all of those things, but today's show
is really just about the surprising things we didn't realize
about Vatican City and the Vatican both and how it functions,
(03:33):
but also what's hiding behind those walls. Yeah, we're not
trying to knock religion or delve into controversy. We just
want to dig into the fascinating history. All right, Well
let's start with that. Then why why do you think
it's such a fascinating place for us? Well, for me,
part of it's that the Church has played this outsized
role in history. I mean you think about the Crusades
and the early explorers and people like Mendel and Copernicus.
(03:55):
I mean, the Catholic Church is just this constant, recurring
character in our history books. But at the same time,
there's so much that's cloaked in mystery, and as an outsider,
is just completely unnoble when it comes to the rituals
of the Church. What you mean by that, well, I
feel like you read these tiny tidbits and they seem
totally impossible but also maybe true. Like I read this
(04:15):
widely circulated story that when the Pope passes away, the
physician will tap him on the forehead three times with
a special silver hammer just to make sure he's actually dead.
That does sound maybe made up, right, And that's what
I thought too. It's like too good to be true.
But also I'm not a priest, I don't know, so
I looked it up on snopes and they can't tell
whether it's true either. I mean, there actually is a
(04:38):
tiny silver death hammer, and it sits in waiting at
the Vatican, and once the Pope passes away, it actually
does have the special use like first to chamberlain will
call out the deceased pope's name three times, which sounds
a little like the forehead thing, right, And if the
Pope doesn't respond, the hammers used to break the seal
on the Pope's ring, and only then is the room
(04:58):
cordoned off, and that's when they actually start ranging for
the funeral. With all that detail, I mean, I guess
it sounds like there's some truth there. Yeah, according to Snokes,
there probably was a time when the hammer was used
to you know, double check that the pope was dead,
back when people were accidentally buried alive. But you know,
it's a long time since then. Still, I think you
can see what I mean, right, Like, there's so much
(05:18):
old ceremony and tradition that isn't really public knowledge. That
makes it easy for someone like, you know, a writer
like Dan Brown right at the edge of these myths
and make all these things feel plausible. Well, and there's
so many things like that. I remember before we even
talking about this episode, reading some story about those pope
chairs with the holes in them. Did you read? Yeah,
the Holy chairs? All right, So for our listeners that
(05:39):
don't know about these, these are these strange chairs. Was
holes at the center of the seat, and there's this,
I guess, kind of a dubious origin story that accompanies them.
So the legend goes back to whether or not there
was a female pope at one point, and supposedly there
was this very astute pope named John who turned out
to be a Jane, And the story goes that, you know,
she was pregnant and giving birth during a parade, and
(06:01):
then of course because of this, she was stoned to
death when everybody realized she was a woman. And after
that happened, the church made future popes sit in a
chair with a hole in it, so, you know, so
that a physician could reach through the bottom and verify
the pope's manhood. How weird is this so outrageous? Like
why would you need a chair for that? Wait? Wait,
how else would you do a physical? But you see
(06:21):
this story everywhere. I saw one on Scientific American about
Pope Benedict the third and they were doing a check
on him and apparently they all said, thanks be to
God after that check, you know, the verify that he
had testicles. And you know, there's some speculation from historians
that maybe the chair was used to ensure a pope
hadn't been castrated. But it's it's honestly all very murky. Yeah,
(06:41):
and it's it's all kind of like that silver hammer, right,
like these chairs actually do exist. Yeah, Well that you know,
there's plenty of tradition and history that we don't know,
but why don't we start with some of the things
that we do. You know, after all your research, I
think maybe you should give us a little bit of
background on the Vatican. Yeah, yeah, I can definitely do that. Actually,
let me just pull up my notes so on. Viously,
the Vatican City is like the spiritual and governing center
(07:03):
of the Roman Catholic Church. And originally the land was
actually this Marshy area and then apparently it turned into
the CD District. But by Coligula's time in thirty s
D it had totally been gentrified, like there are nice
houses and gardens and whatnot. And today, like the area
is pretty much built around St. Peter's tomb because that's
the area where he was martyred. Vatican spans, if you
(07:26):
think about it, like about a hundred acres or so,
and it's considered a monarchy with about a thousand people
living there, and the pope is at the top of
that obviously, but something I would not have thought about before.
But there's no vice pope, right, yeah, he's he's kind
of alone at the top. I mean, he delegates duties
to various people and councils, but all that stuff you
think about with the three branches of government like legislative, judicial, executive,
(07:46):
like all of that sits with him. Plus he's got
all the spiritual things to deal with. It's a ton
of responsibility. And the funny thing is there's no turning
the job down when you're nominated, Like you can't say
no to God. Well that's true, but I have read
seven real times about all these cardinals that don't want
the job that get really stressed out thinking about it
just because of all of the international responsibility that that
(08:07):
goes with the job. Yeah, I mean, like you've got
to deal with the church's legal stuff and the public relations.
All that falls on your shoulders and it can feel overwhelming.
But you know what's funny is the room the new
pope is scored to after he's just been elected. It
actually has a nickname. It's called the Room of Tears. Yeah,
it's a big job, and most popes need some time
to compose themselves and like deal with the motion after
(08:28):
they've been nominated. And here's something else about that room.
Because no one knows who the next pope is going
to be, the tailors actually have three papal ropes waiting.
There's a small, medium and large. I never really thought
about it, but I guess I just kind of assumed
it was a one fits all kind of thing. But
you know, you're right, no one knows who's going to
be elected. There's actually this great story about Pope Fabian,
(08:50):
who wasn't even a candidate for the pope, but a
dove landed on his shoulder during the election, and so
he got this unanimous vote to be pope. And you know,
I'll have some questions for you out elections and in
just a bit. Yeah, good, because I really want to
talk about like how they send up black smoke and
white smoke, and like when they make a decision. It's
kind of amazing. Yeah, all right, Well, well, let's back
up for just a second and talk about how Vatican
(09:11):
City became its own sovereign state. Obviously we know when
an impact the Roman Catholic Church had on history, but
give me a quick sense of why there are these
hundred acres carved out for it. Yeah, so those hundred
acres are a little fuzzy. I mean, there's a McDonald's
just outside the Vatican border that's actually on Vatican property,
and it's kind of blurry, actually, here. You can order
a new Tela burger and fries in this room. Yeah,
(09:34):
that's kind of an Italy specific thing. And they also
don't allow mixed spaghetti there. That's only a Filipino thing. Okay,
But you know you're right about the Vatican size. I mean,
for a while, and we're talking way back in the
eighteen hundreds, the Pope ruled over a number of papal
states in the region. But when Italy unified as a
country in the late eighteen hundreds, it seized up all
the Vatican's land. And then this really really strange thing happened, right,
(09:58):
and it was completely new to me. Apparently Italy and
the Vatican actually had a cold war. Like I always assumed,
Italy and the Vatican had this super cozy relationship. But
for about sixty years, the Pope refused to acknowledge Italy
as a country or even going to the balcony to
bless people, especially if he thought like Italians were in
the square. And even more than that, the Pope refused
(10:21):
to leave the Vatican. Like Pope Pius the Ninth, preferred
to himself as a prisoner of the grounds. But here's
the craziest part of the story. The person who actually
brokered the peace is Benito Mussolini. Yeah, he delivered a
pack that recognized the Vatican as sovereign and in the deal,
Italy brought back all the land it had taken for
(10:41):
about ninety million dollars or about a billion dollars in
today's money. Well, and obviously Italy and and the Vatican
have a great relationship. Now. I think there's an arrangement
where something like eight percent of Italian income taxes can
be diverted to the Catholic Church if a citizen chooses them,
and any criminals who were sentenced by the Vatican court,
they get moved to an Italian prison. And if a
(11:02):
person loses their Vatican citizenship, which ends when your job
ends there, and if they don't have a country to
go to, they become an Italian citizen by default, which
has to be the weirdest way to get a citizenship. Well.
You know what's interesting though, that while that one billion
dollar amount we were talking about sounds huge, and you
think about all the artwork and all the other things
that are in the Vatican, all the treasure the Vatican
(11:23):
isn't exactly swimming and wealth. The annual operating budget is
about three hundred million dollars that comes in from ties,
but also museum tickets and printing services and all the
souvenirs and those kinds of things. But think about a
place like Harvard. The university's annual budget is something like
ten times that, at about three point seven billion. It
kind of makes the Vaticans proceeds, you know, feel almost
(11:45):
shoe string. Yeah, And while the Vatican could easily put
some of that fancy artwork up on Craigslist to get
some like quick cash, the Vatican has zero intention of
selling anything. As Cardinal Caprio, the budget office once said,
all the artwork belongs to humanity, and the Vatican books
reflect that. In their accounts. All these billions of dollars
of artwork were assigned a value of one lira, which
(12:07):
kind of reminds me of the Academy Awards and how
actors actually have to sign a contract when they win
an oscar, Like if they or their heirs want to
sell the trophy, the most they can sell it for
as a dollar, and they have to offer it to
the Academy first, all right, But in numbers, a dollar
was like two thousand lira which means if you wanted
a fair trade, that'd be like trading a finger of
(12:27):
an oscar for the Sistine Chapels, the Pietas, all the
pope tiaras, plus all the other treasures of the Vatican.
It sounds like a good deal. So I've forgotten about
the Pope's tiras, by the way, So why don't we
talk about the Pope's fashion after little break? Domengo, who
do we have on the line today? So today I've
got a super flimsy excuse for including some old friends
(12:50):
on the show. Okay, when we started doing a part
time Genius, my friends from way back from elementary school,
Tim and Brian Gantscorne wrote me and they were so
kind about the show, and I thought it'd be fun
to them on. And then when we were doing this
show on the Vatican, I thought perfect because they were
both alter boys. But it turned out only Tim was
an ulter boy, and I hadn't messed up in my
(13:10):
memories of it. But welcome Tim and Brian. Thanks, thanks
an honor to be here. So Tim, because I really
don't know much about the church, I want to know, um,
you know, isn't an honor to be an alter boy
and how do you get selected for that position? Well,
when I was a young child, my mother decided that
I needed to be an alter boy and me to
the church and dropped me off and didn't give me
(13:32):
much choice. My older brother was awesome alter boy. I
have three brothers. I'm not sure why half of us
were selected for ball and told to do this and
half of us I didn't have to do it. I'll
have to ask my mother that we'll get her on
the line for the next quiz. All right, well, what
quiz are we playing today? Mango? We're gonna play a
(13:53):
game called Name that Pope. So we'll give you a
pretty long clue and you'll just have to give the
name of the pope we're talking about. We're gonna have
them competing with each other, right, So here's how we
do this. Guys. When we're competing, we have you chime in.
But in order to make sure that we can understand
your chimes, we're going to give you animal noises. So
Brian you get to make the cow noise. You will
(14:14):
be mooing in order to chime in, and Tim you
will get to kaka. Okay, you guys ready, So when
you know the answer, make your noise. Here we go.
Question number one. He was pope before our current pope.
Also a name for a style of eggs poached with
hollandaise sauce. Alright, that was a move, Brian ben addict. Okay,
(14:40):
here we go. Question number two. This pope was only
pope for thirty three days in His name is the same. Wow,
Brian's the all star here. Well, let me finish the
question and I'll let you answer. His name is the
same as two beetles strung together. Who do we have? Brian? Okay?
(15:01):
All right? Question number three. This pope and sat from
four a d. Shares his name with a word you
might plea if you didn't do the crime. All right,
I believe I heard of Coca. Tim, who was it? Okay?
Two to one? Here we go. Number four. This pope
(15:22):
was an academic who reintroduced Europe to the Avacus. He
shares his name with a black and white Looney Tunes
cat and an actor named stallone. Oh, to tie it up,
let's hear it, Tim, Yes, Sylvester the second. I believe right,
that's right. I'm acting like I knew that it was
on the sheet. Here I believe that would be Sylvester
(15:43):
the Second, because yeah, okay, tied up, all right, here
we go. This is the last one for the big
win number five. This pope, known as the Warrior Pope,
shares a name with Caesar, a basketball player named Irving,
and in our drink stand at the mall, just barely
(16:05):
Brian for the win, let's hear it. That's right, and
the Warrior Pope was Julius the Second, who also commissioned
this his team Chapelo. Okay, so, so how have our
contestants done today? Mango? It was obviously very close, but
Brian edged out Tim and uh so first places always
gets a note to your mom or boss, sing your praises,
(16:26):
and because we don't want Tim's mailbox feeling lonely, we're
gonna send him a p plant, just like greg Or
Mendel used to grow. What a great prize. Sometimes it
almost seems better to be runner up on these quizzess. Definitely, well, guys,
congratulations and thanks so much for joining us on Part
Time Genius. Thank you so much. Welcome back to Part
(17:02):
Time Genius now, Mango. I know we both wanted to
talk the Pope's fashion and We've also promised to talk elections.
I know, we promised so much stuff. Plus I don't
think we've given enough details yet to make those one
star reviewers happy. Probably not Well, I was going to
suggest a super quick rundown of the government. Again. You
you guys have done all this research on this. So
here's what I want to do. I'll give you a
department and you tell me a fact that you guys
(17:25):
have pulled up. That sound good? Yeah, and I can
use my notes, right all right, yes, yeah, you're allowed to,
but you have to close your eyes, all right, Okay,
the fire department, So this is easy. Like, I love
that their fire trucks kind of look like short busses.
All right, what about the justice system. There's only one judge,
got no like an actual judge, but he has a
(17:46):
lot of works. Well have I never heard about a
judge that's that's so interesting? Okay? How about how about treasury?
Well there's a coin and stamp department, but unlike the Pope,
they're not infallible. In two thousand thirteen, they issued a
coin that mistakenly spelled Jesus as leases, which instantly boosted
the coins value, and luckily they only sold four before
(18:06):
they discovered that those things are worth so much, they've
only sold four of them. Okay, you must have read
about this because I just thought it was interesting to
think about the space program. Yeah. So you think with
their history with early astronomers that the Church wasn't interested
in telescopes, but they've actually invested in them since the
fifteen hundreds and even today they have this advanced Vatican
telescope at Mount Graham in Arizona, which was built in
(18:27):
the nine nineties. Like it's really an area of interest.
So the Vatican has a telescope in Arizona. Yeah, because
they're interested in the heavens. Oh, that's interesting, all right.
What about the military, Yeah, so, uh, this is easy too. Well,
they've they've been using a small core of the Swiss
Guard since the fourteen hundreds when the Swiss were considered
the best mercenaries in the world. And uh, and they
(18:50):
don't actually do a lot of fighting, like obviously they're
they're just there for ceremonial purposes. They were this like
really flamboyant guard and they do wear plain clothes when
they've got duty to protect the pontiff, but it's highly
selective like they're only a hundred fifty and you've got
to be over five eight and Catholic and male and unmarried.
There are lots of requirements. Yeah, alright, how about athletics.
(19:13):
The Vatican actually has a soccer team and a cricket team.
And the cricket team is really funny because they've they've
only played a few matches, but they did beat a
traveling Dutch team called the Fellowship of Fairly Odd Places.
This Fellowship Fairly Odd Places. That doesn't sound like it
would be a good cricket team. Is this Is this
really a thing? I know, I want the jersey, but
that's actually the name. They play like old school cricket
(19:34):
in places where cricket isn't like traditionally played, so like
Iceland or the Vatican and Dora. But the Vatican actually
trounced them. Oh wow, that's pretty cool. All right. How
about transportation? Okay, so I love this one. There's a
train that comes through and there's only one station, like
it just comes in and then it backs out, and
it's mostly for freight. I mean, sometimes a dignitary will
(19:55):
get on it. But you know, if you're talking about
like the Pope's transportation. He's got this fleet of cars,
like amazing old fancy cars, but because Francis doesn't love
fancy things like, he mostly uses his forward focus and
that's his popemobile, and sometimes he pleads with guards to
let him take the city bus. He actually kind of
sounds like the teenager who's been embarrassed about being driven
(20:17):
around by his parents. But all right, so what about
the Department of Exorcisms was something I saw? Oh, actually,
I've got one more fact about transport that I want
to say. So this is top secret and off limits,
but there's one hollow wall that can be used to
help the pope fleet in case the city's ever sacked,
and it's been used historically and it runs from the
papal apartments to a castle and possibly to other places. Oh.
(20:40):
I thought maybe you were just trying to get around
get the Department of exorcisms here while looking for a fact.
But that's actually really interesting. Okay, but you still have
to do exorcism. Yeah, so you actually hear less about
exorcisms now, But Benedict was obsessed with them, and the
Vatican's chief exorcist, this guy, Father Gabriel m R. He
claimed to have performed twenty th cicisms between two thousand
(21:01):
and two thousand ten. Also, you'll never guess his favorite movie.
What's that? The Exorcist? Actually, I think I could have
guessed that once you said that. All right, I think
I've got one more. How about banking? So this one
we've known for a long time, and it's like my
favorite fact. The Vatican has the world's only a t
M that operates in Latin. That is pretty awesome. All right,
So there's certainly a lot for the pope to think about.
(21:21):
But there's one more thing on the pope's mind, and
that's fashion. So before Frances tried to get out of
wearing fancy duds and going casual, pope fashion was actually
kind of a thing. Yeah, it really was. And Benedict
was kind of a clothes horse. I mean, John Paul
the Second was known for wearing Doc Martin's and brown ones.
Oh yeah, I remember seeing that he and the Doali
Lama actually traded tips on footwear and both wore Doc
(21:43):
Martins for their comfort. Yeah, it's funny, like I think
of Doc Martin's is such a punk brand and nothing
to do with religion. But Benedict he wouldn't be caught
dead and does popes In the olden days they used
to wear red, but he brought the style back of
wearing a red slippers and also the cave with an
ermane for In fact, he was so fashionable that Donna
Tulla Versacci actually designed a line using him his inspiration. Well,
(22:07):
and I know the Church was sensitive about Benedict being
seen as as two fan. Yeah. When a reporter commented
on his red Gucci slippers, the Vatican responded by saying
that Benedict isn't concerned with labels, and here's their statement.
He said he couldn't spot a Gucci from a smoochi.
I'm not sure I could either. Yeah, I'm not that fashionable.
Any other innovations I know Pope John Paul the Second
(22:28):
War rainbow vestments once, yeah, which was a little disastrous
because this artist convinced him that the rainbow represented God's
promise to Noah that there would be all this peace
after the rainstorm. But when the artist later suggested that
maybe it was a gesture of goodwill to the LGBT community,
the Vatican responded that no one has a copyright on rainbows,
and what about those ceremonial tiaras. They're they're so ornate. Yeah. Well,
(22:52):
the only person I could find who was truly envious
of the trs was Napoleon. Like, apparently the crown wears
about seven ounds. But when he designed one and gifted
it to a pope, and he had the thought in
the back of his mind that one day he might
like take that power, he constructed a ten pound t
r I know, which is so Napoleon. It's like a
bowling on your head. Crazy. But back cround is actually
(23:15):
also in the rotation, and they are often worn during
important events, like you know, during the papal coronation. All right,
well that brings us back to the election of the Pope,
as we promised we would get to. I do know,
there's a council and they deliberate forever and they decide
I think under the Sistine Chapel. But tell us a
little bit about the process. Yeah, so's it's kind of amazing.
First off, even if you bought take us to the
(23:36):
Sistine Chapel, like to go on a tour, everything closes
down for the election, so you're out of luck. But
that's where the Council of Cardinals meets, they do a
morning mass, and they take an oath of secrecy, and
then they vote with paper ballots and they deliberate and
it's all super quiet. Well, and that's for good reason,
because I do remember reading that King's used to have
the right to veto the decision of who became pope,
(23:58):
and so they try to influence the elections, and so
the secrecy is really to protect you know, the institution. Yeah,
that's right. And in fact, you can actually be excommunicated
if you leak any details. It's a little like being
on jury duty, Like you can't tweet or read the
paper or make any phone calls. And to prevent leaks,
the Vatican actually brings in porta potties. I mean there's
(24:18):
no I mean they're easy to access, like bathrooms one
floor down, but no one's allowed to leave. Wow. When
it can take days to do this, right, Yeah, which
is why they sent up those smoke signals. That's to
communicate to the public. When the signal is white, they're
just burning ballots, and when it's black they used to
add straw, but now they add chemicals. I also read
(24:38):
that there's a second furnace now too, and I didn't
really understand that, but I guess sometimes the smoke would
come out gray and people would be all confused start
asking questions, so they added a second furnace to make
sure the smoke comes out the right color. Now. Yeah,
so this is the weirdest thing to me, and that's
that at the end of this massive process, the pope
isn't even really declared pope, like his official title is.
(25:00):
I'm going to read this Bishop of Rome, Vicar of
Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme
Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and
Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of
the Vatican City, Servant and sorry, servant of the Servants
of God. You've done. He's got eight titles and none
(25:23):
of them are the Pope, and apparently that comes from
people calling him like the Holy Father or Santa Papa. Also,
I don't know if you remember this, but I remember
being really tickled when I saw this March Madness style
bracket for popes Like this was back when Benedict was
being elected, and I had no idea that betting on
the pope was a thing. Like it's been a thing
(25:43):
since the sixteen hundreds. Apparently the Italian market just goes
crazy for it. Yeah, the Irish sights are all over
it too, I guess not. Not surprisingly, if you put
your money on Francis, you would have made twenty five
to one, Yeah, which is a lot of money. But
you know, all this talk of the pope and we
still haven't gotten into some of the crazy things hiding
in the Vatican archives. All right, well, why don't we
break for a quiz and then we'll dive right into
(26:04):
those juicy stories. Our guest today is the best selling
(26:27):
author and journalist. We got to know her pretty well
in our years at Mental philoss and because we're talking
about secrets of the Vatican today, we wanted to have
her on just because one of her many brilliant books
is titled If Nune's Ruled the World. Ten Sisters on
a Mission. Joe Piazza, welcome to part time Genius. Thanks
for having me. Yeah, of course, So, Joe, Uh, I
(26:47):
know you started out as a Gossap columnist and I
remember you telling me some incredible stories of like baking
injuries to get into hospitals to chase down stories and
I want to know if you could share, like a
funny story or the lens you've gone to to get
a story. I did, indeed. So I was a goss
of commist for the New York Daily News back in
the days when people still read newspapers. It was a
really long time ago, and I was down in Florida
(27:12):
covering the MTV Video Music Awards, and it was that
the year that Signite, the music producer, got shot at
one of these parties. And I decided that I was
going to crack this story wide open, that I was.
I was going to discover who shot Signite. So I
busted into the emergency room by faking appendicitis. I made
(27:34):
it all the way. I made it all the way in.
And I was just young early twentysomething reporter UM trying
to make a name for myself, and busted into the
emergency room, doubled over in in fill Paine and got
so far as that they inserted and I V And
it turns out my big scoop was that Schignight shot himself.
(27:56):
That the safety wasn't done. Um, there wasn't some big
East coast West coast rap war thing going on. It
was It was just some some idiot guy and some
idiot girl who's been stuck in the e er with
an IVY in her arm and a bunch of doctors
asking her about her stomach king. Um. But it was great.
We did get that story and my editors. My editors
(28:20):
never sent me to a Video Music Awards over again,
which I think was a blessing in the sky. So
how did you get out of this situation? You're you're
there with the ivy in your arm, Like, what what
happens next? I ripped? I ripped to help myself, and
I snuck out of the hospital. I mean, I think that.
(28:41):
I think at that point I told myself that I
was in a romantic comedy, um like, and I was
like in a movie and had had this scripted, and
so I was I was accouring, I've got this, ripped
the ivy out just and just snuck out with a
hospital bracelet on, you know, and those things are hard
to get off. I think I had that thing on
(29:01):
for like the next two days. It was kind of
this badge of honor. But it was also pre smartphones
and pre social media, so there was really like otherwise
if this happened now, people would be tweeting from that emergency.
That's what they do when they see a celebrity in there. Um,
but no one I still get to tell this story
like word of mouth. I have no pictures. I would
(29:21):
have video if this happened now. So I kind of
cherished the story because it's something that only I can tell.
I have no evidence. I have no proof. I could
be making it up, like, well, we are going to
get to the romantic comedy that is your life bit.
But I wanted to ask what made you go from
being this incredible journalist to like studying and writing about nuns. Well,
(29:42):
I was burnt out. I was burn I blame Britney
Spears actually, um, And I tell I tried to explain
this to the nuns several times and they're like, Brittaney,
what Brittney, And let me show you this video of
her as a Catholic school girl. So it was it
was very Britney Spears big breakdown. And I was covering that,
(30:03):
the one where she shaved her head and started attacking
with orders with an umbrella, and I was covering that,
And I was covering the two thousand and eight election
and the Elliott Spitzer scandal all at the same time,
and I was burning out on these terrible people. I
was just exhausted by them. And so the Daily News
would pay for me to go back to school and
I'm like, well, what's what's the answer, doe to Britney Spears.
(30:26):
I'm like, Oh, it's religious studies. So I had the
newspaper pay for me to get this masters and religious studies,
and through that I started interviewing nuns from my final thesis.
And I like to say that one nun leads to
another nun like a gateway drug. And I just I
fell into this rabbit hole of the world of nuns
(30:48):
and was hooked right away because their stories just hadn't
been told. I mean, the Vatican really kind of covers
up everything that the nuns do, all of their good
work there. It's it's funny. They're almost ashamed of all
of the good things that the nuns are doing. And
I spent about two years with with these Catholic nuns.
(31:08):
I interviewed hundreds of them, but the stories, uh that
are in the book If Nun's Ruled the World, there's
about ten of them, and they're just they're all these badass,
cool feminist women who changed their little corner of the
world or the big corner of the world in some
cases for for good, just because they wanted to do
to make the world a better place. Well, what's what's
(31:30):
one one of your favorite stories from the book? Um?
I think my favorite story is about the Iron Nune.
This fun blows people away when I when I talked
to them about it. Um. Sister Madonna Boodher started running
when she was in her forties and she's now in
her late eighties and she's done more than forty seven
(31:53):
iron Man races and they call her the Iron Nun.
She's been since the book came out. She been in
a Nike commercial, and she's written, she's written her own
her own book, and she's she's just this feisty little
octogenarian who happens to run iron Men, and she's absolutely incredible. People.
(32:15):
People fall madly in love with her on the race
course because when people start to lag behind, she actually
slows down. She cares less about her time that about
helping everyone else on the race course. She slows down
and sings with them and praise with them sometimes to
try to help them get through the race. Which is
the opposite of everyone else who's doing an iron man's
(32:36):
probably like a subset of the most self obsessed people
in the in the athletic world. And yeah, she's great.
She's the one that got me running. I was I
used to you know, smoke like a pack of cigarette today,
and she got me into running half marathons. So yeah,
she she's one of the one of the most inspiring
sisters that's in the book. Now you've you've just had
(32:57):
a baby, but you've also recently written a book with
your husband and called How to Be Married? So what
what made you take on this project? I did? I
did um mostly because I had no idea how to
be married? Uh. And my way of figuring, my way
of figuring out the world is pretty much just a
report on it and you know, then report back. So
my poor husband is like, you really you have no
(33:19):
idea what you're doing. And I'm like, no, no clue.
So I was a travel editor at the time for Yahoo. Uh.
God God blessed them, and they were sending me all
over the world, and I figured, all right, what if
I could crowdsource marriage advice from hundreds of people as
as I'm going to these different countries, and I was
(33:40):
going to France and Kenya, Tanzania, India, Israel, and I
did like, I got Yahoo pretty much to foot the
bill for me traveling all over and asking for marriage advice,
and it ended up being really interesting. It came out
in April, and since then I get emails from from
when my all of the time who were like, thank you,
(34:02):
because everyone gives you advice about the wedding, about this
one day where you have these tiny past appetizers and
a band who looks like Mumford and sons and people
are sitting on hay Ma else and you spend a
lot of money, but no one talks about the next
fifty years about the actual marriage. And this book talks
about what happens with the actual marriage. So this was
us figuring out how to be married on the fly,
(34:23):
and it's going pretty well because we made a baby
about four weeks ago. I love that we pulled you
out of that to take a quiz with us. That's right,
that's right. So speaking of quizzes, what what quiz do
we have for Joe today? Mango, We're gonna play a
game called where they cell abate? Alright, so here we
go I will reach is involved. We'll reach you a name,
(34:47):
and you have to tell us whether the person was,
in fact sellibate. Here we go, alright. Number one, Isaac Newton,
the physicist and inventor of the cat flap. Isaac Newton
sellibate or not? I kind of want to say celibate.
You're right. Well, while he was interested in the laws
of motion, none of them had to do with the ocean. Right,
all right, one for one for Isaac excellent. Number two
(35:12):
Florence Nightingale. Don't see. I feel like Clarence Nightingale really
could have could have gotten a lot of tail out there.
But I'm gonna say, but she you're not celibate. I'm
going to not celibate. That would have been what I
would have guessed as well. What's the answer, mango, she's celibate? Um? Yeah,
I mean, all these patients fell in love with her,
(35:33):
and she had countless marriage proposals, but but she decided
to stay true and she lived into pretty old age.
Right at wow? Okay, all right, here we go one
out of two. Number three Tesla Nicola, Tesla inventor and
the Thomas Edison rival. I'm gonna say celibate. That's right, correct, right,
(35:56):
maybe because of the heartbreak over the pigeon. We have
all heard the pigeon story, right, fell in love with
a pigeon. All right, Well, you know that's that's the
kind of thing you don't get over. That's very, very true. Okay.
Number four, Laura Ingalls Wilder was not celibate, absolutely right. Okay.
(36:17):
The last one a till of the hun sell it.
You kind of want that to be the answer, but
unfortunately it's I know, I wish full thinking, but he
was not sell of it yet. Twelve wives, twelve wives. Wow, alright,
So how is Joe done today? Mango? So Joe wh
(36:40):
an excellent three for five and Whish entitles her to
the big prize, which is our total admiration. Al right, congratulations,
which is not a box of condoms. But but thank
you so much for being here, Joe. If if if you're listening,
go out and get How to Be Married or her
other book, Fitness Junkie, which is on shelves now. Thanks
(37:00):
for having me, guys, Somyga. At the top of the show,
we talked about the Vaticans one star reviews on trip Advisor,
and you were telling me how much awesomeness is at
(37:21):
the Vatican, So why don't we prove it with some
of our favorite things hiding behind the Vatican doors. Well,
they're the obvious things, right, like the letter of Henry
the eighth cent with his request for an annulment, which
obviously got rejected, and the Pope's letter to excommunicate Martin Luther.
There's awesome historical stuff like that all stored there. But
like I mentioned at the top, I have no idea
(37:43):
what other sort of records were on file. Like there's
a note Michael Angelo sent the Pope letting him know
that the Vatican was three months behind on paying their
guards and if they didn't put me up fast enough.
There was all this talk of like the guards walking
out on their job. Or this is letter from the
Ojibway tribe and ontarry go and it's written on bark
and it comes from seven and just thanking the Pope
(38:04):
for his help. But the details are really sweet, like
they addressed the Pope as the great master of prayer.
He holds the place of Jesus. And while he was
set in May, the date actually says where there is
much grass in the month of the flowers like, I
kind of love that. That is pretty great. And there
are also things like the letters from Lincoln and Jefferson
Davis that you mentioned before during the Civil War, and
(38:26):
they were each trying to get the pope support. But
what's so strange about that is that neither of them
was Catholic. Yeah, the Pope's note back acknowledging Jefferson Davis
and the Confederacy. It was touted as this big win,
like the South treated as like this official documentation that
it was its own nation, And I guess it was
kind of obvious, but I didn't even think about the
paper trail, Like there are all sorts of documents about
(38:49):
the personal affairs of cardinals, both good and bad, from
the nine twenties on, and hundreds of years of annulmen papers.
I mean, that's a ton of records to keep if
you think about this. And there's something like fifty two
miles of shelves there. So browsing is definitely prohibited. But
the so called Secret Archives where all this stuff is housed,
it it actually is open to scholars. Yeah. One funny
(39:10):
thing about the Secret Archives is that it's actually this
mistranslation and there's probably some fun stuff parted there. It
actually translates more is the pope's personal archives. Okay, but
I don't think just a bunch of historical records are
going to impress our trip Advisor friends, So we might
need some more off limits type of things of what
else you got for us. It's funny because I had
all these like cute things lined up, Like Renaissance painters
(39:31):
used to get bored with their motifs that they had
to paint, So like, I know, there's one who had
to paint all these lions, and he did this one
line facing the other ways, sort of like playful, and
so does this whole where's Waldo motif going on? So
there's an erotic fresco that you need to hear about.
All right, I think this might be the one. This
might be what we're looking for. So, you know, there's
all this talk about the Vatican having these giant stacks
(39:53):
and like perverse art and and uh, most of that's
completely bunker really, it's all hogwash, But this one's actually true.
So in fifteen sixteen, the painter Raphael was commissioned to
decorate a cardinal's bathroom, and the cardinal wanted this really
like lusty sex scene filled with pagan creatures, and Raphael
got really into it. It's like totally in a classical style,
(40:14):
but he goes crazy. It's supposedly done like a graphic novel,
and they're like naked nymphs and sadder's and like outrageous
sex scenes. There's a goddess looking in a mirror while
she's wrapped in a guy's legs. It's it's really nuts.
But over the years there's been so much outrage about
it that it's been whitewashed and the space has been
turned into a kitchen and then I think a meeting room,
(40:36):
but there's still portions the peak out and according to
one visitor who saw it, there's a drawing of Pan
who apparently was well, he has this enormous member and
he's also excited. But then someone whited out his member,
so now it looks even more like comically big because
you can't see how large it was. All Right, that
made do the trigger. I think that probably takes it
(40:57):
from a one star to maybe a one and a
half star for somebody's too. But before we sign off,
what do you say we have a little fact off?
All right, here's one about the Sistine Chapel, so michael
Angelo never wanted to paint it. Apparently it was just
painted as a giant sky with stars before and the
(41:18):
gig didn't appeal to him. He only saw himself as
a sculptor. In fact, in his letter to friends, he
complained that he never should have taken on the assignment,
saying I'm not in the right place. I'm not a painter,
but he is a painter. So the reporter who broke
the news about Bendicks stepping down from being Pope actually
got the scoop because she is the only person in
(41:39):
the room who understood his announcement. And that's because he
made it in Latin. All right, Well, the Vatican has
a strong stance against gluten free Eucharus. They'll allow it,
I mean, for people with serious gluten problems, but they
do not like it. Also, adding honey or flavoring to
the bread is severely frowned upon. So, according to the
Definitive Book of Body Language, five University of Texas College
(42:04):
students were arrested at the Vatican for flashing the hook'm
horns side. Apparently it's a sign for cuck holding someone.
In Italy, it's bad idea. All right, well, the Vatican
has announced this position on baptizing aliens. Did you know this.
It's good to have a stance on this. Just to
be clear, they'll happily convert extraterrestrials if they're interested in
becoming Catholics. I love that and I want to sit
(42:25):
in on those confessions. But before we go, I wanted
to give a special shout out to Dolan Brown for
pulling together a ton of research for this episode, and
for all of you out there on Part Time Genius Land,
thank you so much for listening. Thanks again for listening.
(42:51):
Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works
and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do
the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan
McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme
song and does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland
does the exact producer thing. Gave Bluesier is our lead researcher,
with support from the research army including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets the
(43:13):
show to your ears. Good job, Eves if you like
what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe. And if you
really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave
a good review for us. Did you did you forget Jason?
Jason who
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