This Valentine’s Day, Maggie and Bob invite you to trade the usual chocolates and roses for something a little more eternal. In this episode, they dive into the romantic — and often misunderstood — world of love, marriage, and the Vatican, mixing history, surprising facts, and a healthy dose of humor. From papal blessings to legendary Vatican weddings, our hosts explore how faith, tradition, and romance collide, proving that Saint Valentine’s feast is about much more than hearts… it’s about commitment, meaning, and a love story that aims to last forever.

Listen also this episodes on Vatican daily life

Shopping Behind the Vatican Walls

Letters to the Pope: Inside the World’s Smallest, Most Extraordinary Post Office

How to Land a Job in the Vatican (Yes, Really)

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit borgopio.substack.com

As the Winter Olympics light up screens once again, Maggie and Bob—your hosts at the Borgo Pio Podcast—settle into their usual corner near the Vatican to do what they’ve perfected over the years: talk sports with conviction, curiosity, and a touch of holy irreverence. Between curling stones, figure-skating loops, and beers shared with the locals, they explore a question that resurfaces every four years like clockwork: could the Vatican ever have its own Olympic team? From Swiss Guards to quiet athletic ambitions, Maggie and Bob invite you to join the conversation where faith, sport, and good humor meet.

Listen this episodes on Vatican daily life

Shopping Behind the Vatican Walls

Letters to the Pope: Inside the World’s Smallest, Most Extraordinary Post Office

How to Land a Job in the Vatican (Yes, Really)

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit borgopio.substack.com

In this episode, Maggie and Bob sit down to untangle one of the most complicated — and revealing — legal sagas the Vatican has ever faced. With their trademark mix of clarity, curiosity, and a touch of irreverent respect, they walk listeners through the Becciu case, explaining why what looks like an internal Church affair has become a stress test for Vatican justice itself. It’s not just about one cardinal, they argue, but about how power is exercised — and restrained — at the very heart of the Church.

In case you missed it, listen here.

Silicon Valley vs. Leo XIV

The Vatican and the Shepherds in the Cloud

Turning Bricks into Blessings

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit borgopio.substack.com

This week Maggie and Bob explore a growing clash between Silicon Valley’s gospel of speed and disruption and a radically different question coming from Rome: not what can we build? but what should we become?

In case you miss them listen also:

19,000 Churches Burned: The Crisis Nobody Wants to See

Vatican Black Ink, White Smoke

Behind St. Peter’s Dome 2025

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit borgopio.substack.com

When Maggie first read that more than 19,000 churches had been burned in Nigeria, she thought it had to be a mistake; Bob, scrolling through headlines filled with celebrity scandals and market news, realized he had never seen that number before. In this episode, the Borgo Pio’s hosts confront a crisis that rarely makes front-page news but deeply unsettles the Vatican, precisely because it unfolds in near silence: the systematic violence against Christian communities, the quiet diplomatic struggle of the Holy See, and the uncomfortable question of why global outrage so often arrives late—or not at all. This is not a story about politics. It is about burned churches, shattered lives, and what it says about us that we so easily look away.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit borgopio.substack.com

This week, Maggie and Bob take a closer look at the Vatican’s suddenly improved finances, asking how years of deficits turned into a surplus almost overnight. They unpack what’s really behind the black ink, why a cleaner balance sheet doesn’t necessarily mean a healthier system, and how Pope Leo XIV’s decision to quietly dismantle a questionable fundraising commission may be the clearest signal yet that real reform is still very much a work in progress.

And in a few days stars the first Leo XIV’s Consistory. Listen here our podcast on this relevant meeting

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit borgopio.substack.com

After the Jubilee confetti has finally settled and Rome has gone back to pretending January isn’t cold, Pope Leo XIV makes his first unmistakably personal move: an extraordinary consistory. Not a photo-op. Not a footnote. A moment.

Today, Maggie and Bob unpack why this meeting of cardinals matters far more than it sounds, why Leo waited until after the Jubilee to act, and why — quietly, calmly, and with a very Augustinian patience — this Pope may be rewriting the rules of Vatican governance without raising his voice.

Think less thunderbolt, more tectonic shift. Welcome to the consistory after the Jubilee.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit borgopio.substack.com

Maggie, Bob, and the rest of our small but happily overworked team walk you through the news, surprises, and quiet shifts defining this extraordinary Vatican year. Join us at our virtual table—part newsroom, part Roman kitchen—while we unpack what’s happening behind the scenes and why 2025 is turning out to be one for our digital adventure.

Here you’re the list of episodes listed in today’s podcast.

1- Holy Returns

2- The Vatican and the Shepherds in the Cloud

3- Deepfake Pope Crisis

4- Justice and Pope Leo Crossroads

5- Church Money, Uncovered

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit borgopio.substack.com

Maggie and Bob have a rule: “If you want to understand a place, check where the locals shop… and where they fill the tank.” Following their advice, today we slip behind the Vatican’s guarded gates to explore its discreet shopping world: the supermarket with mythic status, the tucked-away electronics corners, the quietly chic fashion shelves, and of course, the famously inexpensive Vatican gasoline. It’s the everyday life of the smallest state on earth. Hidden in plain sight.

You’re invited to listen more episodes.

A Papal Help for your Christmas wish list

Holy Neighbors

The Vatican and the Shepherds in the Cloud

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit borgopio.substack.com

Need ideas for Christmas gifts? In this episode, we take you inside the quiet, book-lined corners of the Vatican to explore a delightful question: what do popes read for pleasure? From dystopian classics to unexpected novels tucked between encyclicals, we uncover the stories behind the stories that shaped Francis, Benedict XVI, John Paul II — and now Leo XIV. With their trademark mix of curiosity, humor, and warmth, Maggie and Bob show that even the busiest men in white make time for a good book.

Want more about the Vatican? Take a look to this text posts:

The Pope’s New Portfolio

The Jubilee That’s Making Rome Reborn

How Real Estate Is Saving the Holy See

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit borgopio.substack.com