Dr. Cristina Gagliano (née Rosetti) was a functional atheist finishing a religion PhD when she walked into St. Peter's Basilica, stood in front of a marble wall listing every pope in order, and thought: I don't think I've ever believed anything more in my whole life. That was ten years ago this Easter.

In this wide-ranging conversation about disenchantment—what it means to live in a world without angels and demons, charms and superstitions—Cristina and Katie talk about what the West traded away when we stopped believing the world was full of wonder, why so many people who leave church end up associating with New Age movements, and what it might mean to "re-enchant" your worldview with faith.

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Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Cristina Gagliano's Faith Journey
02:23 Cristina's Early Christian Background and Cultural Christianity
04:48 Encounter with Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Movement
09:16 Crisis of Faith and the Search for Meaning
11:14 The Concept of Conscious Annihilation and Existential Dread
15:38 Discovering Mormonism and Its Fascination
19:36 Visiting St. Peter's Basilica and the Turning Point
20:55 Converting to Catholicism and Its Impact on Cristina
23:13 The Role of Tradition and Ritual in Faith
29:25 Disenchantment, Re-enchantment, and Modern Spirituality
34:33 The Search for Deep Myths and Stories in Secular Movements
35:21 Why People Turn Away from or Toward Religious Traditions
42:31 What Faith After Faith Looks Like for Cristina
43:35 Final Reflections: The Human Restlessness and the Search for Rest in God

Resources

• Cristina M. Rosetti, Joseph White Musser: A Mormon Fundamentalist. Introductions to Mormon Thought. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2024.
• Claire Hoffman, Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025.
• Richard Lyman Bushman with Jed Woodworth, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
• Philip Benedict, Christ's Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
• Émile Durkheim, Suicide: A Study in Sociology (1897). Trans. John A. Spaulding and George Simpson. New York: Free Press, 1951.
• St. John of Damascus, On Holy Images, First Apology. Trans. Mary H. Allies. London: Thomas Baker, 1898.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1.
• Augustine, Confessions, Book I.1.
• Peter Beinart, "Breaking Faith," The Atlantic, April 2017.