Monsignor Hilary Franco is advisor at the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations. He is author of Bishop Sheen,

Mentor, and Friend. He has a new book that chronicles some of the very important events

in the church in the last 60 years and more, to which he was an extraordinary witness. And he now tells many of those

stories in six popes, a son of the church remembers. That is our topic today. Welcome, Monsignor

Franco. Thank you so much, Mark. Thank you, Dr. Mark. It's a pleasure to be here.

This is a vivid memoir of a life lived through the terms of six popes. It begins actually in the

1930s, going back farther in New York City. And you reflect upon life in that place.

What was the status of the church when you were growing up in that neighborhood?

And you might mention an interesting point that your father was told by a priest to go worship down in the basement,

fella. So what would tell us? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, that, yeah, well, that naturally my father

told me, you know, but I was actually in the early 20s, you know, because he had just

arrived from Italy. He was a, he had a degree in journalism, and he wanted to start culturally

a paper for the immigrants. That's why he came to the United States.

What part of Italy just by...

He originally from Calabria, you know, that's, you know, but his family was like,

well-to-do and doing kind of almost in the Paise, it was, they were really, so much so that they still have a,

what they used to call a special kind of chapel in the cemetery, you know, which is made out of granite. So in those days,

it was kind of, but he decided, since he was a socialist at that time, he wanted to be interested,

as a young man after this First World War, in taking care of the people. And actually, I have to tell you that he instilled

this kind of a very important trade of my life, you know, in me, as I saw I was going on, grown up.

And then he came. He didn't. you know, in me as I saw as I was going on, grown up.

And then he came,

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