What are our favorite secrets about the Vatican?

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 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, 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 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?

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

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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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 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

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

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 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

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, 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

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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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, 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, 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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,

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? 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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

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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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. 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 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. 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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.

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 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 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 those juicy stories. Our guest today is the best selling

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 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 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 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. 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 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.

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 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 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, 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, 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. 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 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.

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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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, 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

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, 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, 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.

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 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 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 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

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

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

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 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 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 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 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,

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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

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