Vatican Insider

Today, we revisit a piece Joan did on the Vatican Observatory. Enjoy the show!

Welcome to Vatican Insider on another scorcher of a weekend in Italy and throughout Europe with temps in many places hitting triple digits. Yesterday on my blog, Joan’s Rome, I posted some links to some pretty amazing stories about the heatwave as well as something that might make you laugh – HUMOR DURING A HEATWAVE. I want to tell you about the Special I’ve prepared for what is normally the inter...

It was a very big and important week here, especially with the presentation on Monday May 25 of Pope Leo’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas. I’ll look at that, of course, but now just a line about my special guests in the interview segment – Frank and Mary Frost, film producers whom I met not long ago in Rome at the screening of one of their premier documentaries “Teilhard, Visionary Scientist...

Anyone in Rome with even a remote link to the Church – people working in the Vatican, the Roman Curia, our seminary here in Rome, etc – will have at some point crossed paths with Ashley and John! They have wonderful individual stories but together, as a couple, their story is the Truth and Beauty Project. So tune in this weekend to learn about immersion in Truth and Beauty!

Welcome to Vatican Insider at an exciting time for Pope Leo as we follow him in Africa on his third international apostolic trip, traveling in Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. He returns to Rome on April 23. After the news summary, stay tuned for my special guest this week in the interview segment – Andreas Widmer, an Associate Professor of Practice in Entrepreneurship at CUA’s (th...

This week, in what is normally the interview segment of Vatican Insider, I bring you on a pilgrimage with the Via Lucis! After the news segment, stay tuned for the special story about the Via Lucis, the Way of Light, basically a post-Easter journey through 14 stations of light, the light that fills our life because of the Resurrection.

Welcome to Vatican Insider on this Palm Sunday weekend. A beautiful, solemn Holy Week now awaits us – just a week away from the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior! After the news highlights of the week, Nigeria came to us in Rome because my guest in the interview segment is Bishop Emmanul Badejo of Oyo, Nigeria, a friend of many years. My first interview with him was all ab...

In this week’s interview segment, I share Part II of my conversation with two amazing men, Craig Johring and Danny Leger, who are truly doing the Lord’s work of caring for the least of our brethren through HOPE OF THE POOR.

Welcome to Vatican Insider on this Valentine’s Day weekend, half way through this 28-day month, the shortest month of the year! This weekend in the interview segment, I feature two amazing men, Craig Johring and Danny Leger, who are truly doing the Lord’s work of caring for the least of our brethren through “Hope Of The Poor”.

in this week’s Vatican Insider American seminarians Patrick Ernst and Nicholas Monnin of the diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend in Indiana. Both are in their second year of studies at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. We met last fall over dinner at my home with their ordinary, Bishop Kevin Rhoades. (Originally aired on 2/16/24)

In place of an interview segment this weekend on Vatican Insider, I’ve prepared a Special – a fact-filled, fun-filled feature I’m calling DID YOU KNOW THAT …? I’m going to focus on some interesting tidbits about St. Peter’s Basilica. We’ll look at the basilica’s dome, bronze markings on its floor and a statue of the apostle, saint and pope for whom the church is named. Join me!

Join me again this week on Vatican Insider for a very special treat when Kathleeen Jagger, president of Newman University in Wichita, Kansas, returns to VI in Part II of our conversation as we further explore Newman University today. In particular, we talk about the mission of education as seen by Cardinal John Henry Newman, proclaimed last November 1st as Doctor of the Church and co-patron with S...

Join me this week on Vatican Insider for a very special treat as my guest in the interview segment is Kathleeen Jagger, president of Newman University in Wichita, Kansas. We met when she was in Rome last November for the Jubilee of Education and for the November 1st declaration of Cardinal John Henry Newman as a Doctor of the Church and co-patron with St. Thomas Aquinas of the Church’s education m...

Welcome back to Vatican Insider on this second weekend of our brand NewYear! And what a week it was! Tuesday, January 6, the Church celebrated the feast of the Epiphany and the closing of the final Holy Door at St. Peter’s basilica, thus ending the Jubilee of Hope. The American couple you met last week on the interview segment, Craig and Laura Schlattmann are my guests again this week in Part II o...

Welcome to Vatican Insider on this first weekend of our brand NewYear! My guests this weekend can tell you all you need to know about that door ad many other things linked to the 2025 Jubilee of Hope because they spent this past year in Rome. I’m talking about Craig and Laura Schlattmann, an American couple who came to Italy for a year as volunteers for the Jubilee of Hope and who are also active...

As you’ll hear me say at the start of this Christmastime Special, I want to welcome you to Vatican Insider on this festive weekend between Christmas and San Silvestro, New Year’s Day! A time of rejoicing over the birth of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and a time to look forward with hope to a New Year that often allows us to “start over.”

Welcome to Vatican Insider on this final weekend of Advent! I know that in these days we’re all getting our homes ready for guests and shared meals and telling stories around a Christmas tree and Nativity scene but we are also getting ready, in a prayerful and joy-filled fashion, to welcome our Lord and Savior on December 25! Christmas is thus special and that is exactly what I offer you this week...

Welcome to Vatican Insider on this third weekend of Advent, when we mark Gaudete Sunday, a reminder of the joy that comes with the anticipation of Christ’s birth. Join me in the interview segment for Part II of my conversation with Patrick Reilly, a friend of many years and founder in 1993 of the Cardinal Newman Society.

Welcome to Vatican Insider on this first weekend of December 2025. My guest in the interview segment is Patrick Reilly, a friend of many years and founder in 1993 of the Newman Society. We spoke when he was in Rome for the November 1 declaration by Pope Leo of Cardinal John Henry Newman as doctor of the Church.

In this edition of Vatican Insider we present the second part of The Kingship of Christ interview. My guests are Aidan Gallagher, head of EWTN Ireland, and Jesuit Fr. Bernard McCuckian, principal narrator of “The Kingship of Christ,” a documentary produced by EWTN Ireland. Other protagonists of this 4-part documentary on Christ the King that premiered November 18 in the Vatican’s filmoteca or film...

Welcome to a new edition of Vatican Insider on this penultimate weekend in November! My guests in the interview segment this weekend are Aidan Gallagher, head of EWTN Ireland, and Jesuit Fr. Bernard McCuckian, principal narrator of “The Kingship of Christ,” a documentary produced by EWTN Ireland. Other protagonists of this 4-part documentary on Christ the King that premiered November 18 in the Vat...

In part II of our conversation, my special guests are Marlene Watkins, founder of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospitality – North American Volunteers, and Bishop Douglas Lucia of Syracuse, New York, who is the chaplain for the group. Don't miss on this special edition of Vatican Insider.

My special guests this week in the interview segment are Marlene Watkins, founder of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospitality – North American Volunteers and Bishop Douglas Lucia of Syracuse, New York, who is the chaplain for the group. Join us!

Stay tuned for Part II of my conversation with Jesuit Fr. Thomas Merkel, president of the D.C.-based Gregorian University Foundation. This was established in 1972 with the aim of supporting Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University through raising much-­needed funds for scholarships, academic chairs, libraries and capital improvements.

Some big news stories this week to tell you about but now I want you to know that my guest in the interview segment is Fr. Thomas Merkel, president of the D.C.-based Gregorian University Foundation that was instituted in 1972 with the mission to support the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, through raising much­-needed funds for scholarships, academic chairs, libraries and capital improveme...