Transcript
debatablediscussions: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Debatable Discussions podcast. You join us for another very exciting episode today as we're joined by yet another guest whom Diane will introduce.
df: So today we're joined by Dr. Ambrogio Caiani who is an academic at the moment at the University of Kent, a senior lecturer in modern European history. and who's written several books.
df: uh relating to the catholic church his latest being flirting with evil the catholic church in the age of total war and globalization Some of his other books include Losing a Kingdom, Gaining the World,
df: catholic church in the age of revolution and democracy and to kidnap a pope. Ambroju, thank you so much for coming. And...
Ambrogio Caiani: It's a great pleasure to be here.
Ambrogio Caiani: Thank you for inviting me.
df: Before we start we'll talk a bit about the sort of news of the catholic church today but before we start could you Just let our audience know how you've managed to. sort of craft your academic career and what sort of hoops you had to jump through to. Get to where you are now. with a couple books published.
Ambrogio Caiani: Well... I had to put it, I've always had a... the good fortune of having a passion for history. i started an undergraduate career at the University of York.
Ambrogio Caiani: I didn't do too badly there. And. Tim Blanning, who was then... professor of European history at Cambridge, took me on as a PhD candidate. And I was very lucky with my PhD examiners.
Ambrogio Caiani: sort of right place right time when there were jobs still going in the academic world I had temporary jobs at the University of Greenwich in York and Oxford before finding my permanent home. at the University of Kent. 12 years ago.
Ambrogio Caiani: My key focus has always been. the French Revolution and Napoleon. But one of the things that I didn't think when I started... doing differential evolution. in the early 2000s would be that I would become a religious historian.
Ambrogio Caiani: but you know until the 1960s religion was everywhere in ubiquitous I'm a cradle Catholic myself. So I've got more than a passing interest in religion and still a practicing liberal Catholic today. So that's a bit sort of my trajectory.
Ambrogio Caiani: in a few seconds
debatablediscussions: Are there any challenges you find being a religious historian? Perhaps... as you mentioned there, you're a Catholic. How do you sort of account for, let's say, biases or approaching perhaps religious history with the sensitivity, which is so important in that it deals with the supernatural?
Ambrogio Caiani: I think that's a brilliant question well to be honest the biggest challenge is that most of my students and a lot of the people around me have no religious background.
Ambrogio Caiani: and you know that i'd say until the 1980s 1990s you could expect some knowledge of the bible of christian iconography of basic theology Nowadays, there's very little of that. So I try my best.
Ambrogio Caiani: to Give. an academic answer to this i don't when i teach or when i write write as a person of faith I write as an academic. I'll make one exception in this. This most recent book...
Ambrogio Caiani: Has a problem. I was born in the 1980s So I can remember. that context. So I must admit my objectivity has... been slightly more perilous or difficult.
Ambrogio Caiani: when I'm dealing with lived memory and experiences I've lived in. For instance, I didn't live during the Napoleonic Empire, so I find the distance there easier in terms of having objectivity.
Ambrogio Caiani: but being around in the 1980s and 1990s that's more difficult supernatural you know I consider myself... inspired by the Catholic Enlightenment, where we privilege.
Ambrogio Caiani: the morality the natural law associated with Catholicism. The more miraculous, let's say, hocus -pocus side isn't my Catholic tradition.
Ambrogio Caiani: If I can put it like that.
df: And now moving on to... the sort of recent news of the catholic church so ambrogio for our listeners who who know where What has happened recently at the Vatican surrounding the... Uh... Catholic Society of St Pius X.
df: And... if you could sort of explain the context and the effects of that.
Ambrogio Caiani: So in the 1960s, the Catholic Church, to everyone's surprise, went through a process of renewal called Vatican II. basically an opening up to modernity as an opportunity.
Ambrogio Caiani: rather than a manifest evil. And maybe the most obvious change was a different liturgy. i .e. that Mass was going to be celebrated facing the congregation rather than ad orientum at the altar.
Ambrogio Caiani: that the mask would be in the vernacular. Also, the abandonment of ideas that other fates are the manifest work of the devil. And. that religious freedom within political states should be fostered, and that the Jews did not kill Christ, that they were not guilty of deicide. So a progressive mission.
Ambrogio Caiani: And about 20 to 30 percent of the bishops present at the Second Vatican Council disagreed with these outcomes. And the most famous was Marcel Lefebvre.
Ambrogio Caiani: who in response founded the Society of St Pius X. Who was Pius X? Probably the most reactionary pope. in the history of the Catholic Church. who imposed an anti -modernist oath on all clergy that they had to deny modernity. if they wanted to be Catholic priests, that they had to fight it and combat it.
Ambrogio Caiani: So Lefebvre. walked in this light. Now generally, In popular culture, we believe that Lefebvre wanted the Latin mass. If he'd only wanted the Latin Master, it wouldn't really be much of a problem.
Ambrogio Caiani: But... Lefebvre and his followers see other religions. as manifestations of the demonic or the satanic. that Catholicism is the only one true faith and that other religions I'll...
Ambrogio Caiani: illusions and and terrible and therefore they want the church to stop dialogue logging they hate ecumenism And in the 1980s, and most recently a few months ago...
Ambrogio Caiani: They consecrated bishops against the wishes of the Pope. and they have now been excommunicated for a second time. Although they've appealed the excommunication and now it's on hold.
Ambrogio Caiani: In a nutshell.
debatablediscussions: Oh wow, so there's a lot of people politics going on, clearly. thinking about This connection with politics and the Pope to the present day Recently, I'm sure many of our listeners know that Pope Leo XIV published his
debatablediscussions: published this sort of a perhaps you could say sort of essay. a sort of script on AI What do you think about this connection between Pope? between the Pope and politics.
debatablediscussions: Do you think the Pope should be issuing political statements? Or do you think it's perhaps the role of the... of the church and the pope to stay within religion.
debatablediscussions: Yeah.
Ambrogio Caiani: That's a very very important question. So Leo XIV is the first pope since Urban Deity to have scientific training. His undergraduate degree was in mathematics.
Ambrogio Caiani: And this document called an encyclical, an open letter. is actually more about ethics. then politics, but it has political ramifications. Because I think it's...
Ambrogio Caiani: Brilliant, because everybody says it's the AI encyclical Magnifico Manitas. and to an extent it is. But it's not just saying that AI... is a bad thing. They're major helps.
Ambrogio Caiani: with AI as a tool that it could make human life easier, calculations faster, that it could bring progress and benefits to human existence. But where he takes issue is with the transhumanist or post -humanist moment in which human beings are seen as a mere tool.
Ambrogio Caiani: or something to be transcended. and that their individuality and dignity. is not respected. And therefore, he's against the big AI giants. What is it?
Ambrogio Caiani: anthropogenic is it in the u .s or peter teal all of these
debatablediscussions: Yeah, anthropic, yeah.
Ambrogio Caiani: Anthropic. Thank you.
debatablediscussions: They're right.
Ambrogio Caiani: You can tell I'm a historian, not an IT buff. And he's basically saying that anything that denies people living. or the means to live, you know. that a lot of people are losing jobs because of AI, that people are ending up...
Ambrogio Caiani: Disassociating from communities, ending up isolated. in their homes or in their flats. And I think it's a legitimate criticism. So if the Pope deals with this. I think it's great.
Ambrogio Caiani: If the Pope starts having Catholic parties or supporting dictators, that's where it gets more problematic. But saying that there are problems with AI? I think there are.
df: So keeping on this sort of... theme of the Pope's intervention. Could you talk about the backlash from more traditional Catholic movements?
df: surrounding Pope Leo and surrounding this excommunication. I've read recently that Catholicism I think is one of the most... quickly growing religions of the world when it comes to young men especially.
df: who are sort of looking towards more traditionalist, conservative. So. society. what why do you think that's happening and sort of what what's the backlash and effects being.
Ambrogio Caiani: Yeah, I mean... In Christian regrowth, it does seem that Catholicism is the fastest growing, but I think we're still set. to be overtaken by Islam in 2050. That will become the largest religion in the world.
Ambrogio Caiani: But... You know, my coaches. Here in the UK seem fuller. There are more baptisms and confirmations at Easter. It... Seems to be linked with a nostalgia for the old type of masculinity, men being men as well, a number of...
Ambrogio Caiani: Podcasters. seem to be advocating this, and it seems. to be attractive, it's also... linked the sort of populist movement. so when The SSPX bishops were consecrated a few months ago.
Ambrogio Caiani: An Italian general called Venace, who's now the key... rival to Maloney. In Italy. attended the consecration. So a lot of I think of these traditional Catholics of these resurgent movements are very compromised, if I can put it like that.
Ambrogio Caiani: in wanting to be pro -Trump, pro -Maloney, maybe... pro Bardella or Le Pen, God knows who's going to stand for the French presidential elections.
Ambrogio Caiani: The only one they don't seem to really have much time for is Farage, but who knows, that might change. in time but there is an extreme right -wing unholy alliance emerging. I think it's not so much in reaction to Pope Leo as much as the fact that Pope Leo has not disowned many of the progressive reforms of Francis about gays, divorcees, transgender people.
Ambrogio Caiani: that Leo has said. Let us... have a church that's open rather than a shrinking church made of perfect people. And the traditionalists really hate that. And some of them are really odd. For instance... Francis.
Ambrogio Caiani: got rid of The bishop of Tyler, Texas, Strickland, who was a vaccine denier who denied Francis as the legitimate pope. And Strickland is one of the big cheerleaders for Trump.
Ambrogio Caiani: So yeah, there is a lot of... let's say right -wing infiltration of... traditionalist Catholic movements.
debatablediscussions: To what extent do you dislike that as a Catholic? Do you... think that people should be joining the church because they're in consensus with the supernatural, with the deity of Christianity, rather than being attracted by the image of Catholicism, which to some may endorse.
debatablediscussions: as you said there these perhaps more traditional values Should the Catholic Church almost resist this if people are joining it for the image of it? not for the supernatural element.
Ambrogio Caiani: yeah but for me It's ultimately... the person about whom all the Gospels are about. You know, I'm a liberal Catholic.
debatablediscussions: yeah yeah
Ambrogio Caiani: And when I look at Jesus Christ... And I'm talking to you here as a person of faith, not a historian. His messages of clemency. of helping the poor. uh you know his meetings with mary magdalene cast you the first stone who am i to judge That seems the best of Christianity. And also...
Ambrogio Caiani: The hope and the resurrection, the immortality of the soul, they're the right reasons for joining Catholicism. But if you like fancy. priestly sort of chasables. or copes or bejeweled gloves of of bishops.
Ambrogio Caiani: then there's something wrong. If it's Latin incantations you want.
debatablediscussions: Yeah.
Ambrogio Caiani: I don't know, maybe... uh join some sort of weird reenactment groups or whatever but that i don't think is the faith the faith is about Redemption. ultimately oh we all hope i guess in some form of redemption even if you're secular
df: And how do you see this? sort of split in the Catholic Church playing out in the next 10, 15, 20 years. Do you see? it getting more and more pronounced and maybe sort of even being a sort of schism between the traditionalists and more the progressives or do you see actually That.
df: These are just some French people who are going to be largely ignored.
Ambrogio Caiani: That's a very very interesting question. I don't think... If I'm a betting man. that we're going to get. a real Catholic church emerging in which they elect their own pope. There are a set of vacantist movements who have elected their own pope, but they're tiny numbers and really eccentric. So I don't think we're going to have...
Ambrogio Caiani: a new reformation or a major schism you know one like in the medieval ages when there were two or three popes sitting in different places My sense? Where the real question is...
Ambrogio Caiani: is what's going to happen after Trump, what's going to happen after the Nacho Maloney. Are these movements going to disappear into irrelevance? Or are they going to become the political teeth of...
Ambrogio Caiani: continuing populist sort of movements. and that My crystal ball is very opaque, but it's a possibility that they could become. The.
Ambrogio Caiani: armed or politicized branch. of Catholicism in the Western world. I get the sense that Leo is a moderate and he's not going to rock the boat in one direction or the other too much.
Ambrogio Caiani: so i don't think This is going to spiral out of control, or at least I hope not.
debatablediscussions: What? of following on from this, what do you think would be the major challenges or obstacles for the Catholic Church in... the 21st century or in the next hundred years.
debatablediscussions: Will it perhaps be these political issues? that we sort of discussed, which will divide the church. What do you think? will almost be the separating lines or obstacles that the Catholic Church will encounter.
Ambrogio Caiani: So. I think one of the biggest challenges in the immediate future. is that the Vatican has a secret deal with China. in which it's pretty clear. that the Chinese Communist Party has a veto on Catholic bishops. This almost takes us back to the regalianism of the Middle Ages.
Ambrogio Caiani: And whether this cozy arrangement with Xi is going to profit the church or not, I have no idea. i guess the church not being politicized or captured by ultra conservatives is a challenge But the real challenge, and this is one that I almost find difficult to articulate.
Ambrogio Caiani: If you look at Germany and Europe and parts of America, even to an extent Latin America, you have people like me, liberal Catholics. who I'll... not unsympathetic to women priests, married clergy.
Ambrogio Caiani: to Maybe the church helping more with its social teaching than looking too much at what happens in the bedroom. So that's one half of the church, I would say. And then. in Asia, Africa, and again, parts of Latin America.
Ambrogio Caiani: you have traditionalists not of the lefebvrist mould but who believe in traditional gender roles. in the intrinsic evil of homosexuality.
Ambrogio Caiani: in a hierarchical church. in not making compromises with modernity. So I think for Leo... The real headache is moving forward without losing one half of the church or the other.
Ambrogio Caiani: I guess. for want of a better word, keeping East and West or North and South together. is the biggest challenge which will face Leo, a bit like Anglicanism. has faced since Mullally's become Archbishop.
df: How On this deal with China, I find it really interesting. So... how what's the sort of evidence and what are the sort of signs that actually the chinese communist party is is blocking some bishops and What what type of bishops are they? Are they sort of...
df: in favour of and what sort of bishops are they not in favour of?
Ambrogio Caiani: well compliant bishops is the easy answer who will say yes and who will not condemn what the Chinese Communist Party does behind the scenes against democracy, against ethnic minorities. They want non -critical. uh bishops and Former bishops who had been appointed against the communist parties were bishops and cardinals.
Ambrogio Caiani: activist Catholics. are in prison. which is, I think, a sign that The Communist Party has a very, very pliant vision of what...
Ambrogio Caiani: the catholic church to do so i must admit i'm very very worried about this deal But it's secret. Amina. I can guess what the content is, but I might completely be wrong. I suspect it's not far from the conquered ads that had existed.
Ambrogio Caiani: in the 20th 19th century or going back to the middle ages in which the church in return for freedom of worship. property rights and various other things abdicates its ability to criticize the regime.
Ambrogio Caiani: And that's not good.
debatablediscussions: Yeah, I found that really interesting as you're saying that this control that the Chinese Communist Party has over Catholicism in China, which sounds fascinating. Do you think... It almost works the other way.
debatablediscussions: we've been speaking about the role of the Catholic Church. controlling politics do you think it could almost work the other way in which it's not governments controlling religion but religion controlling politics are there any countries where religion has been perhaps a major voting line or a major a sort of major force for political change or for the election of a government.
Ambrogio Caiani: I think more in the past than recently, I think the child sex abuse scandal since the 1990s have...
debatablediscussions: Yeah.
Ambrogio Caiani: deeply damaged the church's political authority but you know in 1948, the first Italian democratic elections. The Christian Democratic Party, which was the Catholic Party, had the slogan, remember that in the ballot box, God can see you, but Stalin can't. to keep them away from voting for communists.
Ambrogio Caiani: And, you know, from Chile. to South Korea. to the Philippines, the Catholic Church has been a force for good in 20th century politics.
Ambrogio Caiani: earlier in Italy, Portugal. And Spain and Germany, it's made some rather... dodgy accommodations with fascism.
Ambrogio Caiani: Even in Ireland, I mean... Island. at moments veered between being a liberal democracy and theocracy in rather disconcerting ways. I grew up in Ireland, and when I was one years old...
Ambrogio Caiani: A referendum was successfully brought in by the church. to make. the banning of abortion a constitutional article. to add it to the constitution.
Ambrogio Caiani: And a few years ago, that was removed. So Catholicism until I would say the 1990s. exerted huge political pressure. on governments, on political parties.
Ambrogio Caiani: but much less so recently.
df: Moving back now, sort of a couple hundred years ago Nada. I'd like to ask you about the Catholic Church's sort of... history you've written a number of books surrounding the french revolution and catholicism How would you say the role of the church has evolved? changed and how was it? before what was the sort of
df: What were the priorities of the church in the 17th and 18th century and how have they evolved and why?
Ambrogio Caiani: Boom. Before. modernity you had the alliance of throne and altar The church was an equal partner with the state. Church law was state law.
Ambrogio Caiani: State law was also enforced by the church. The church collected taxes. It was a branch of government. What we have gradually been getting is the separation of church and state.
Ambrogio Caiani: and also an acceptance that the Catholic Church is one church amongst many. religious pluralism. and that people can vote in conscience. The papacy went from being a supervisory authority over secular governments at least in europe never globally to now being I guess.
Ambrogio Caiani: You would say. having moral authority. an institution that can comment or critique things that are going on in the world well
Ambrogio Caiani: genocide, famine, that it has become much more of a moral. than a political authority that the church uses its prestige to attempt to solve global crises.
Ambrogio Caiani: rather than impose theocratic single government, although I guess, ironically, the papacy, at least in the Vatican City, is one of the last remaining theocracies on earth.
debatablediscussions: Following on from that, Do you think theocracy is an effective form of governance?
Ambrogio Caiani: No.
debatablediscussions: Yeah.
Ambrogio Caiani: I mean, sorry to give you a very brief answer.
debatablediscussions: Yeah. No.
Ambrogio Caiani: I've studied the unification of Italy. And one of the slogans you would always see on the walls of... Papal States. cities.
Ambrogio Caiani: governed directly by the play papers. death to the government of infamous priests. They really didn't like him or enjoy them. And also priests have a lot to do. They have to sort of pray for souls and ensure the salvation of the community. They're too busy to be collecting taxes.
Ambrogio Caiani: or doing anything else. So I think. Let priests be priests and politicians be politicians.
Ambrogio Caiani: So no, I'm not a fan of theocracy.
debatablediscussions: I agree.
Ambrogio Caiani: I'm glad.
debatablediscussions: Yeah.
Ambrogio Caiani: I've never had an argument with somebody who supports theocracy. That would be quite interesting.
df: I'm sure maybe there's someone listening in the comments who'd be happy to engage.
debatablediscussions: Sit.
Ambrogio Caiani: Fantastic.
df: If you are, do leave us a comment and we'll contact you. Bye. Now, we're heading towards the end. I'd like to ask... Which... Pope. for you. is is one of or which popes are the most sort of eccentric and interesting and for young people who are sort of interested in the catholic church but don't even know where to start.
df: what books and what time periods would you recommend them to read and find an interest in?
Ambrogio Caiani: Oh, I mean... Probably the best survey in English is Eamon Duffy's Saints and Sinners, and he writes gloriously well. Unfortunately, in English there isn't much, but Pius IX, the Pope who rejected almost everything, but it was a mass of contradictions.
Ambrogio Caiani: And despite being so reactionary, he was actually quite a clubbable and fun guy. He couldn't stop from sort of humming Verdi tunes whenever Italy won a victory against him, because he was also Italian, but at the same time the head of the Universal Church. So he was really torn.
Ambrogio Caiani: But. How to put it, my heroes are sort of liberal popes, you know, Leo XIII, John XXIII, Paul VI, and maybe Francis and Leo XIV now.
Ambrogio Caiani: who have been popes who've not wanted to fight the world. but understand it in its own terms. And then there's a great British saint, the most recent British saint.
Ambrogio Caiani: John Henry Newman, who said that the church should be able to incorporate development or change. as an important way of looking at this.
Ambrogio Caiani: I mean... If you want something very good on the 20th century and the papacy, John Pollard. is a superb scholar. in English. We need more good biographies in English of popes.
debatablediscussions: You mentioned Pope Francis, obviously. who recently died not too long ago. One of my teachers was a huge Pope Francis fan. Can you explain why? he had such why people were so attracted to him in terms of his politic not his politics but his leadership of the church Why was he so popular?
Ambrogio Caiani: Bye. I think we'd had three. problematic decades before. I have to be careful because John Paul II If you don't accept that St Peter had the longest reign, because nobody actually knows how long St Peter reigned as pontiff.
Ambrogio Caiani: He had the second longest pontificate after Pius IX. And... this has its advantages and disadvantages you know full marks on the collapse of communism,
Ambrogio Caiani: Full marks on personalism, that human beings are worthy of respect, not for what they achieve or what they do, but because they are human beings. But... child sex abuse, sexual ethics, other things.
Ambrogio Caiani: less wholesome. But also he was very ill towards the end of his pontificate and doesn't seem to have been in charge. Benedict XVI. Resumption of the Latin Mass, Brilliant Vestments.
Ambrogio Caiani: A great intellectual, but not a very warm and relatable figure. Whereas, I have to say I've got. Maybe it's because I'm Italian. I've got an affinity with Latin Americans. When Francis emerged... on the balcony of the central lodge of St. Peter's and said, Buona sera.
Ambrogio Caiani: Good evening. That's not very people language. That's what your uncle would say. so he was a great communicator and he sort of said what was in people's minds. He also got angry. Sometimes, you know, in the crowd, people would shake his hands too hard or pull him and he'd sort of say, don't do that. You're hurting me.
Ambrogio Caiani: So he's very human. in that but also Although I wouldn't say he made major reforms. He let people speak their mind. And also he admitted when he made mistakes.
Ambrogio Caiani: For instance, in Chile, He said there wasn't a sex abuse problem. And then he sort of had to slam into reverse and say, I was completely wrong. So there's a humanity that's actually, he reminds me in some ways of the original Saint Peter.
Ambrogio Caiani: which is one of the things that you constantly see in the gospels that he wasn't perfect he sometimes spoke nonsense and was sort of corrected by Christ. So what? I like his humanity a lot.
Ambrogio Caiani: but also that He allowed progressives to speak after three decades when they were generally excommunicated or had their teaching licenses revoked.
df: And now for the last question. I can see you've got a lot of books in the background. In your sort of research throughout your career, what's the most surprising fact? that you've ever found about the Catholic Church.
df: from now or from 500 years ago, but what's one thing that's stuck with you?
Ambrogio Caiani: Oh, there are so many, but something I wasn't expecting, which shows that I'm not a 20th century historian. I didn't realize that. The Catholic Church had its own espionage network to find modernists or heretics in the early 20th century.
Ambrogio Caiani: And. the sodality of St. Pius V. I don't know why reactionary is always like. popes called pious but ultimately this was to send around information about suspected modernists and heretics so that the Vatican could prosecute them and excommunicate them.
Ambrogio Caiani: And the reason we know about this so much is that... When... The German Imperial Army invaded Belgium in 1914. There was an agent, a Belgian notary or lawyer, whose papers were confiscated by the German government, who discovered this massive network. entirely discovered this due to the First World War. So that was one of the more surprising facts that I wasn't aware of.
Ambrogio Caiani: If you want a more funny one... Pies to 12th. was somebody who considered himself to be an expert in medicine, and he wanted, when he got ill, towards the end of his pontificate.
Ambrogio Caiani: to choose the latest technique. And he came. in contact with a Swiss physician called Nihas. who claim to have discovered the secret of cell regeneration.
Ambrogio Caiani: So the Pope was injected with monkey glands, sheep's brains. and various other Animal matter. And perhaps unsurprisingly, towards the end of his pontificate, he kept seeing Jesus at side of his bed.
df: Right.
Ambrogio Caiani: For the pious, this is confirmation bias For others, we wonder what Niehaus had in his injections.
debatablediscussions: And I think with that we'll conclude the episode. Thank you very much Ambrosio for joining us today. It's been an excellent discussion and I think we've all learnt. me and Diane and the listeners so much.
debatablediscussions: Do also buy Ambrosio's latest book, Flirting With Evil. After having listened to this for the last half hour, you've no excuse not to. so Do you get that? And thank you for coming on.
Ambrogio Caiani: Thank you so much.
df: Thank you.
Ambrogio Caiani: It's been a real pleasure.
debatablediscussions: Thank you, and we'll see you next week.
