Monsignor Karel Kasteel arrived in Rome in 1956, when Pope Pius XII was still pope and the Second Vatican Council was years away. Seventy years later, he has seen almost everything.
Monsignor Kasteel worked inside the Roman Curia, assisted the secretary general of the Second Vatican Council, helped organize the 2005 conclave that elected Benedict XVI, and knew figures including Mother Teresa.
At 92, he also has a perspective on the Vatican that very few people alive can match.
In this week’s episode, Kasteel reflects on what outsiders misunderstand about the Vatican, why he rejects the idea that it is fundamentally a place of secrets and wrongdoing, what really happens inside a conclave, and how the Church has changed across eight pontificates.
He also speaks candidly about tensions between Pope Francis and the Roman Curia, the unfinished legacy of Vatican II, Pope Leo XIV’s priorities and some of the Vatican’s most persistent legends.
In this episode:
What outsiders misunderstand about the Vatican
What Rome was like when he arrived in 1956
What it was like to witness the announcement and unfolding of Vatican II
How he helped organize the 2005 conclave that elected Benedict XVI
Why tensions emerged between Pope Francis and the Roman Curia
What he believes Pope Leo XIV is trying to accomplish
Whether Pope John Paul I died of natural causes
Why, after 70 years, Kasteel believes continuity matters more than change
His larger conclusion is one of continuity: popes come and go, controversies flare and fade, and the Church changes with the world around it. But the institution, he argues, endures — and much of what sustains it remains invisible to those looking in from the outside.
Episode note: Archival images from the Filmoteca Vaticana. For more archival footage from the Second Vatican Council, watch our full-length documentary, Voices of Vatican II: