History of the Papacy
500 episodes listed below
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This show will detail the biographies and interesting facts of the Papacy of Rome. It will start in the beginning, but will not go straight through. There will be many side tracks and detours along the way. We will investigate the backstreets of the Papacy where the tour normally doesn't go. Support this show
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Steve Guerra connects papal and Church history to immigration, slavery, archaeology, local institutions, and the pressures shaping American Catholic life.
Steve Guerra follows Church history outward from Rome, tracing how doctrine, institutions, and religious identity meet politics and everyday life.
A Buffalo priest's basketball court is your unexpected doorway into Steve Guerra's Catholic history.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A measured look at how First Temple restoration frames Hezekiah's uneasy stand between Judah's spiritual identity and Assyrian power.
Judah's First Temple is treated as more than a sacred building here. It becomes a structure under pressure from time, neglect, political instability, and empire.
A thoughtful discussion of biblical texts, ancient daily life, and the material traces archaeology can read.
Biblical Archaeology Review gives Steve Guerra and Gary Stevens a useful frame for trying a podcast-style reaction format, with the hosts using one article to ask what archaeology can reveal about ordinary ancient life.
A wide-ranging conversation about Rome's political afterlife and its place in Catholic history.
The Roman Empire comes through as a political language that keeps returning, from Caesar and the Gracchi brothers to Cold War Berlin, wartime Rome, and the Catholic Church.
A church conflict that helped push American politics toward an early third-party movement.
This episode traces anti-Masonry from Catholic hostility into early U.S. politics, where secret societies, elite influence, and public suspicion collided.
A Catholic immigration story told through moving borders, Protestant labels, and the rough business of the early American frontier.
History of the Papacy follows Catholic life in the pre-Civil War United States as immigration and nativism reshape the story from the outside in.
A broad, well-anchored opening that traces Catholic roots in North America before the Revolution.
Steve Guerra opens the new history series by stepping back before the Revolution and tracing how Catholic life first took root in North America. He moves from Greenland and the Caribbean to Tristan de Luna y Arellano in Pensacola, then to the first mass at St.
Early American Catholicism is set against a nation still figuring itself out.
This episode puts early American Catholicism in the middle of a country still figuring itself out. It moves from revolutionary confidence and migration into new territory to the growing distrust of institutions, then circles back through Whitefield and Edwards, whose preaching…
A dense but clarifying look at Catholic life in the United States when slavery and politics would not stay apart.
The episode stays with the entanglement of slavery, immigration, Catholic life, and antebellum politics instead of sorting them into neat compartments. That choice gives it real force.
Serious sermons for patient Bible listeners.
Thomistic lectures for patient, serious listeners.
Movie reviews for mindful Christian viewers.
Reformed apologetics with a sharp public edge.
Applied theology without easy exits.
Biblical doctrine with coffee-table clarity.
Steve Guerra and John Fagent connect Buffalo's Catholic history to immigration, politics, and city growth, starting with the Buffalo Presidential Center and its 2021 move into the downtown central library.
This episode explores how the Catholic Church grew alongside the early United States, examining westward expansion, the transformative Erie Canal, and the religious fervor of the Great Awakenings.
Host Steve Guerra interviews Paul McCarthy, author of 'Don't Lose Your Dignity,' about his uncle Monsignor Leo McCarthy, a Catholic priest who spent 20 years coaching and mentoring youth in Buffalo's violent, impoverished East Side.
This episode details the final days and destruction of Solomon's Temple by the Neo-Babylonian Empire under King Nebuchadnezzar.
This episode explores the surprising story of Philip Ludwell III, a wealthy Virginia aristocrat who converted to Orthodox Christianity in colonial America, tracing his family's legacy through multiple generations and connections to Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
This episode explores how Catholic populations became part of the United States through territorial expansion and immigration waves.
Host Steve Guerra introduces a new series on the history of the Catholic Church in the United States, tracing its origins from early European explorations through the American Revolution and setting the stage for the period leading to the Civil War.
This episode examines the complex, often contradictory role of Catholicism in antebellum America, focusing on how slavery, immigration, nativism, and political allegiance created a tangled knot that defies simple moral narratives.
Steve Guerra opens with the news that Leo XIV is the new pope, and the Chicago connection gives the conversation its obvious hook.
This episode explores the Catholic Church's profound crisis and transformation during the late 18th and 19th centuries, as it faced the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, Napoleon, and liberal revolutions.
This episode explores the rise of anti-Masonry in early America, focusing on how opposition to secret societies like the Freemasons led to the formation of the Anti-Masonic Party, America's first significant third party.
This episode explores how English colonial religious attitudes, shaped by the Reformation and anti-Catholic sentiment, intersected with the American Revolution and the early formation of the Catholic Church in what would become the United States.
Host Steve Guerra interviews local historian John Fagent about the Burned Over District, a religious phenomenon in 1820s-30s Western New York that grew out of the Second Great Awakening.
Host Steve Guerra interviews history professor Andrew Hartman about his new book, 'Karl Marx in America,' exploring Marx's surprising impact on 19th-century U.S.
A teaser episode discussing the life and traditionalist views of a pope during the Vatican II era.
A teaser episode promoting the History of the Papacy podcast, featuring an anecdote about visiting troubled boys at Father Baker's orphanage.
A host updates listeners on upcoming episodes about Catholic history in early America and thanks Patreon supporters.
A teaser episode promoting the History of the Papacy podcast, which explores the biographies and historical context of the Popes of Rome.
A teaser episode introducing the History of the Papacy podcast, with a sample segment on Irish immigration and the Potato Famine.
Hilkiah finds "the book of the law of Moses," and Huldah confirms it is genuine.
The hosts react to a Biblical Archaeology Review article about how archaeology illuminates the Bible.
Aldo Cazullo, author of The Never-Ending Empire, The Infinite Impact of Ancient Rome, argues with Steve Guerra that Rome still shapes the United States through symbols, language, and political ideas.
This episode explores a speculative scenario where the Marcionite heresy had won in early Christianity, examining the potential alternate history of the church.
This episode discusses the symbolism of yeast in Passover and connects ancient traditions to modern practices, as part of a series on Papal history.
Host Steve Guerra interviews Gil Kidron about the layers of Passover and Easter in a historical context.