00;00;00;16 - 00;00;21;03
Michael Hagan
Hello and welcome to the Providence College podcast. I'm Michael Hagan from the Class of 2015, and I'm joined by producer Chris Judge of the class of 2005. In this episode, we'll be speaking with Cath Catherine Lamontagne, a lecturer in social studies at Boston University who has lived and worked abroad in the United Kingdom, including a position with the Royal household at Buckingham Palace.

00;00;21;13 - 00;00;32;10
Michael Hagan
While in the UK, she was also president of the Providence College London Alumni Club, and she currently sits on the National Alumni Association Council. Catherine, we're so excited to have you. Thanks for joining us.

00;00;32;22 - 00;00;35;28
Kathryn LaMontagne
Thanks. It's so great to be here. I've been loving listening to the podcast.

00;00;36;09 - 00;00;49;12
Michael Hagan
Oh, wonderful. Love to hear it. So you indicated that you wanted to begin talking about your PC experience a little bit. So tell us a little bit about your path and your path to and your experience at Providence College.

00;00;49;12 - 00;01;11;02
Kathryn LaMontagne
Oh, absolutely. So I am actually a double friar, so I'm a one and then I'm o3g So I have a real special affinity to Providence College. I am from the local area of about from about 20 minutes away in Westport, Mass. Which is also where Father Sicard is from. And we're both from North Westport, which is really wonderful.

00;01;11;15 - 00;01;31;26
Kathryn LaMontagne
But, you know, often when a school is down the street from where you grow up, you think, Oh, it's just down the street. And my mom really said, No, no, you have to go look at P.S.. I just have a good feeling about it. I went to a Catholic high school in Fall River. Bishop Connelly High School is a Jesuit high school, and there are so many people from my high school that were at PC with, oh, there's so many people from high school there.

00;01;31;26 - 00;01;54;13
Kathryn LaMontagne
And Joe Brumm, who is one of, I think, the most famous, who I love to see alumni, his sons were at my high school at the same time. But anyway, so I just thought, oh gosh. And as soon as I stepped on that campus for my first tour, it was like I was home and in a home I didn't know that I missed or needed.

00;01;54;27 - 00;02;15;17
Kathryn LaMontagne
And from that moment on, every time I could find something to said, Hey, you want to go out for the weekend, I would go up to PC for the weekend. And you know, my love affair with PC basically began when I was 16 years old on that first college tour, and it was wonderful. And I had a fantastic time as an undergrad, which is why I end up doing graduate school there.

00;02;16;00 - 00;02;21;09
Kathryn LaMontagne
And yeah, it was it was it was great. I love to talk more about some of those individual classes, if you like.

00;02;21;23 - 00;02;28;21
Michael Hagan
Yeah, absolutely. So who were some of the most formative professors or some of the most influential classes that you took while you were at Providence College?

00;02;29;16 - 00;02;57;03
Kathryn LaMontagne
You know, I often think back to so I was in the honors program my first year. I didn't stay in the honors program, but just knowing that there was a place where I was celebrated, that my intellect was a was a desirable thing, and I met so many other like minded students. That was a fantastic experience. But then when I my second year, when I was in Concord regular, so Dr. O'Malley was just such a star.

00;02;57;03 - 00;03;22;29
Kathryn LaMontagne
I loved him. And his perspective on Irish history. British history kind of got those juices flowing for me a little bit. But then I also had had as a freshman, I had the public service course with Joe Cammarano, who I still have a friendship with, and I just learned so much from him about your faith, about dedication, about service.

00;03;23;17 - 00;03;50;09
Kathryn LaMontagne
And then also Margaret Manchester. Dr. Manchester I think I majored in Dr. Manchester. Technically, gender studies just shows her work. Being a woman that was in the position that she was in. It was inspiring for me. But I did end up as a humanities major. I wasn't a history major. I had been I came in as a policy major and I ended up as humanities.

00;03;50;20 - 00;04;01;09
Kathryn LaMontagne
I still teach served to this day, so I can't say enough about serve. Yeah, it was a wonderful experience that I learned so much while I was there and got to study abroad.

00;04;02;07 - 00;04;32;07
Michael Hagan
Wonderful. I'm glad that you mentioned Dr. O'Malley. One of my favorite experiences working at the college was actually interviewing Dr. O'Malley about the Irish history of Providence and how his own family history kind of figured into that. And naturally, as you might expect, he had a lot to say. And and he walked me down each branch of his family tree, recalling, you know, what address people lived at, what was around it at the time where things used to be, you know, typical Rhode Island stuff.

00;04;32;07 - 00;04;50;05
Kathryn LaMontagne
But that was for his topic. And, you know, his subject area. And I'm think that Richard Grace, too, when I had him in graduate school for the first time and the same kind of feeling, but for British history, I can remember him singing songs that were British songs. Oh, gosh, this is how exciting. How great a.

00;04;50;28 - 00;05;19;05
Michael Hagan
Funny story about Dr. Grace. I took his modern British history class the year before I went abroad, and I actually studied abroad my whole junior year in the UK. And I had, you know, sat a final exam spring semester before going abroad and my modern British history class and I never got the blue book back. But then my senior year, Dr. Grace approaches me as I was going through some desk drawers and I found this blue book from when you took my modern British history class two years ago.

00;05;19;11 - 00;05;31;15
Michael Hagan
And it was wild experience, you know, having just lived in the country for a year, going back and reading, you know, making inclusions about it from a year before and just seeing, you know, the contrast between what I do that and what I had learned since.

00;05;32;05 - 00;05;36;05
Kathryn LaMontagne
So I have that feeling myself. Michael I have to say.

00;05;36;05 - 00;05;56;03
Michael Hagan
So you're a scholar of modern British and Irish history, and one of your particular focuses is on the experience of Catholic women in the UK. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you landed on this research interest and if there are any roots that go back to your undergraduate days at Providence College?

00;05;56;14 - 00;06;18;18
Kathryn LaMontagne
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. So I think one of the things that was so important to me at P.S. and had kind of grown out of where I went to high school was I had a Jesuit education and then to to the Dominican perspective, it was it was made me contemplate how different in one faith that there are different ways of experiencing the same moment.

00;06;18;18 - 00;06;44;16
Kathryn LaMontagne
And I had gone to public school before that. So I hadn't I think because I was of a certain age that I could really extrapolate that there were differences and think about them. So that was happening and I took a course on Catholic social thought that was probably the single most important course that I took at sea, because it has informed almost all of my academic work since then.

00;06;44;25 - 00;07;07;09
Kathryn LaMontagne
If I had not had that grounding and encyclicals and how encyclicals work motu proprio ex cathedra statements, I wouldn't have been able to do the academic work that I do now. So that was incredibly important. And when I did my study abroad though, I so I studied abroad in Canada because my my was humanities, my focus was Canadian American Studies.

00;07;07;09 - 00;07;29;05
Kathryn LaMontagne
So I did a semester at Laval in Quebec and then I did a semester in Newfoundland and in Newfoundland. I was the only American there. I took all Newfoundland studies classes, religion, folklore, but I wanted to know more about them, so I had to spend a ton of time in the archives at the university, and it was there that I became the scholar that I am today because I needed to know.

00;07;29;05 - 00;07;51;10
Kathryn LaMontagne
I wanted to know, and I had to do really hard work to get there. And while I was there, I did a really intense research paper on the Sisters of Mercy, and then I did another one on the Salvation Army and religious history became such a focus for me that I went on to do when I came back to PC to work on Pujan and his architecture, his conversion on the English martyrs.

00;07;51;10 - 00;08;20;10
Kathryn LaMontagne
And in England. And I think I had had, because I had gone to public school before, I had enough of a kind of I could look down on it from above and see where I could make connections that were really powerful. So yeah, I did that. And then later on I ended up doing a master's degree in London and I wrote my dissertation on the graffiti that was left by the women prisoners at Kilmainham Jail during the Civil War.

00;08;20;27 - 00;08;42;21
Kathryn LaMontagne
So again, that was another kind of Catholic study that I did. And when I decided that I was going to do my Ph.D., I actually thought I was going to write it on the Jewish community in Britain. But kind of after a year doing the work, I thought, no, no, no. You know, this is really where my passion is, is with Catholicism, so why not follow that path?

00;08;42;21 - 00;08;54;26
Michael Hagan
How have lessons and experiences from your undergraduate years at Providence College proven valuable in your career, whether as a scholar at B.U. or as an employee of the royal household?

00;08;55;27 - 00;09;25;08
Kathryn LaMontagne
Well, I think particularly when I teach you know, I teach A B, you and B U is a massive, massive place. And I teach the program that I teach on is very much like Civ. Its team taught. I teach the social sciences. So I'm teaching politics, history, economics mostly. And I think the fact that I am actually doing something that I experience every day for two years is certainly a statement.

00;09;25;15 - 00;09;47;04
Kathryn LaMontagne
You know that in support of how I learned. But then also, of course, I'm adding new primary sources all the time. But that foundational experience and then how I manage smaller class from the discussion sections, I want my students that are in a massive research university to have a small liberal arts education. So I am able to do that at the College of General Studies.

00;09;47;04 - 00;09;49;09
Kathryn LaMontagne
It's it's kind of perfect in every way.

00;09;50;06 - 00;10;11;01
Michael Hagan
Yeah, that's wonderful. So we've we've followed your career from from arriving at Providence College to studying abroad in Canada to graduating to doing a graduate degree to going overseas for a master's. So we've got you to the U.K. So tell us the story of how you got from there into Buckingham Palace.

00;10;11;20 - 00;10;32;13
Kathryn LaMontagne
Okay. So so when I graduated B.C, I did a master's degree. I end up traveling. I lived abroad for a very long time. I lived and had work visas throughout the globe. And then I so I did my master's, their masters, great PC in history, and then I did another master's degree in London at University of London in cultural memory.

00;10;32;13 - 00;10;59;02
Kathryn LaMontagne
That's where I did the work on Kilmainham Jail. And then I, of course, met someone while I was in London and fell in love. But I had to return back to Boston because I was going to start my Ph.D. at you. And I. It was very hard being in a long distance relationship. So as part of my Ph.D. work, I was able to get over to be in London.

00;10;59;02 - 00;11;27;05
Kathryn LaMontagne
We've got a beautiful campus there in South Kensington, and I was able to dovetail the PhD work into this new wife, Abby London and also with my now husband. So that was part of the London gave me a job. I worked in the library there. I ran a program that I now teach on in London every summer, and it was, I think, a very roundabout route to get where I am.

00;11;27;05 - 00;11;45;06
Kathryn LaMontagne
But basically, like I had free time and my, you know, I was only teaching like 6 hours a week. I was doing my research the other days was very isolating. So again, archive. It's very hard being at diocesan archives and odd places and I'm a really social person, so I needed something else that was getting me out there.

00;11;46;02 - 00;11;49;07
Kathryn LaMontagne
So I applied for a job at Buckingham Palace and I got it.

00;11;50;24 - 00;11;57;17
Michael Hagan
That's great. So. So what exactly is the royal household? How vast of an operation does that term refer to?

00;11;58;11 - 00;12;19;28
Kathryn LaMontagne
So there are five different branches that constitute how that how it's run. I worked in the bit that's called the Royal Collection. In the Royal collection, kind of handles the more musicological, the tours, things like that. So it is vast. It's when I started there, it was in the summer. It's especially vast in the summer because that's when you have the state opening.

00;12;21;10 - 00;12;43;25
Kathryn LaMontagne
Well, everything's open, but Buckingham Palace is open. The royal Mews, where the Queen's horses and carriages are kept. That's open year round and the Queen's gallery is open year round. So that's where I started and that's where I stayed. I was also able to do tours in the garden of Buckingham Palace, then later on in the palace during Christmas openings and things like that.

00;12;43;25 - 00;12;59;00
Kathryn LaMontagne
So yeah, it was great. A lot of opportunities being in Windsor as well in St James's. So for a historian of British history, it's pretty much perfect to be able to walk around the inner bowels of these buildings that you've only read about. It's, it's perfect.

00;12;59;25 - 00;13;11;10
Michael Hagan
As a history. A lot of myself, I am intensely jealous, I have to admit. So I've got to ask, I'm sure you've been asked this a million times, but did you ever meet the queen?

00;13;11;23 - 00;13;35;07
Kathryn LaMontagne
Yes, of course. Yes, on a few occasions. Certainly the one that everyone does is that when you get your Christmas present at the end of the year, you wait in a big queue and then you do your very deep long curtsy. You have a word with her, she hands you your present, talk to Prince Philip, etc., etc.. And it's as you can imagine, it's in the state rooms of the palace.

00;13;35;16 - 00;14;00;27
Kathryn LaMontagne
And I can remember thinking like, don't be nervous, don't be nervous. And then as soon as I walked away from speaking with her and Prince Philip, that first time, I went out on the hallway and I actually just burst into tears because it was just such a feeling of making history like that. I met someone who was so incredibly important historically that I had interacted with her, but also that, I mean, I was an immigrant to Britain.

00;14;00;27 - 00;14;12;04
Kathryn LaMontagne
I immigrated there. I'm a naturalized British citizen, and I don't think that many naturalized citizens have the opportunity to meet the head of state of their country. It was phenomenal.

00;14;12;19 - 00;14;36;15
Michael Hagan
Can Yeah, I mean, from from a historical perspective, I mean, this is somebody that Churchill bowed to. I mean, this it's her tenure is is it's remarkable. So speaking of her long reign, on the occasion of the queen's platinum Jubilee last summer marking 70 years on the throne, you wrote an article describing the celebratory mood in the UK.

00;14;36;15 - 00;14;52;09
Michael Hagan
Can you describe that mood a little more and comment on the late Queen's relationship with the British public, both generally in the particular moment of the Jubilee? I'm sorry, both in the particular the particular moment of the Jubilee and in general over the course of her reign.

00;14;53;01 - 00;15;10;23
Kathryn LaMontagne
So when I worked there in 2012, that was also a jubilee year and for many of us we thought, Oh, this might be the Jubilee, because you just never quite obviously no one ever quite knew. And there's so many celebrations you know, we had balls in Buckingham Palace, there were garden parties, but it was also the year that the Olympics were in London.

00;15;10;23 - 00;15;36;02
Kathryn LaMontagne
And the whole feeling in London was electric. But the lead up to it was, oh, gosh, it's going to be a bother. There's going to be so much going on because the British public can tend to be like that. But then once it happens, everybody was so on board. So it was interesting to see that in this iteration this year when I was over, that there was a real a real sense of, oh, this really might be it.

00;15;36;29 - 00;15;55;00
Kathryn LaMontagne
Let's make sure that we show the queen how incredibly grateful we are for her in this moment. And then when she wasn't there for some of the events that did kind of cause a ripple of anxiety. But so it's kind of like there are two different things going on. Like you were excited, but you were nervous, but you were grateful and it wasn't the same.

00;15;55;08 - 00;16;16;07
Kathryn LaMontagne
It wasn't the same as in 2012. And I think because of her advanced age also, you know, the economic concerns in the EU were very much and have been in the forefront of people's minds all of last year. So, yeah, I think it was an interesting moment and I'm I'm very glad that I was there for that party rather than the mourning later on in the year.

00;16;17;17 - 00;16;24;05
Michael Hagan
In what ways was Britain a different country when the Queen ascended to the throne in 1952, then when she died this past year?

00;16;25;11 - 00;16;46;04
Kathryn LaMontagne
Well, I mean, I can answer that as a historian, rather, and on a social and cultural historian. And often we look at that moment at the end of the Second World War when, you know, Churchill's out of office, he gives the speech, talks about the special relationship and the kind of handing over the keys to America basically for, you know, democracy, etc., etc..

00;16;46;28 - 00;17;14;16
Kathryn LaMontagne
But as a British historian, we think about 56. We think the Suez crisis, she is on the throne. And that's kind of like the death knell, really colonial. There's decolonization which was needing to happen anyway. So she kind of took on this Victorian like the, you know, the Victorian era had ended, but it was the end of that idea of we are the best, we are British, we are, you know, and, and gosh, it's been a long time.

00;17;14;16 - 00;17;35;25
Kathryn LaMontagne
I mean that was a long reign. And Britain is not the Britain that it was by any stretch of the imagination. Some, you know, it's much more diverse. People have access to incredible social services. It's it's a wonderful place, but it's also a place that still kind of building this new identity, their you know, their post-colonial identity. In many ways, I would argue.

00;17;36;12 - 00;17;57;23
Michael Hagan
Even so, I want to return a little bit. I jumped ahead. I was too excited to ask about the queen. I want to return to your role within the royal household. So working in the royal Collection, what kinds of you know, what's what's in the royal collection? What kinds of art and artifacts were you working with? Were you handling the items?

00;17;57;23 - 00;18;03;03
Michael Hagan
Were you writing about them? What kind of work is goes into the Royal collection?

00;18;03;24 - 00;18;28;03
Kathryn LaMontagne
So I can tell you I was one of the front. I was in a front facing role. The Royal Collection was very interested in that 2012 year because there was there were so many tourists coming in from across the globe that people who had a background in public history were certainly desired. And I had been I worked at the Breakers and in Marble House in Newport and had often, you know, I had had a number, a number of roles in hospitality.

00;18;28;08 - 00;18;51;29
Kathryn LaMontagne
So I had the smiling face. I could speak French, I could speak Portuguese. So I was kind of on the front line of welcoming guests, taking tours, giving tours, tours in different languages, specialty tours. I wasn't a curator at all. I was very much in the front facing roles, which was great for me because I get to be social and that was all I wanted.

00;18;52;16 - 00;18;57;17
Michael Hagan
Right? Right. So what was one or two of your favorite experiences working in the royal household?

00;18;58;09 - 00;19;20;21
Kathryn LaMontagne
Do you know? I've made some incredible lifelong friends there that in many ways it wasn't really about the place, it was about the people that I met and have. You know, you share a love of history and you get to be with people that also love that. But I think probably the the moment I there's two moments I was proudest of in retrospect.

00;19;20;21 - 00;19;40;12
Kathryn LaMontagne
The first one was my mother came over to visit and we got to see the changing of the guard from in the palace. And she turned to me and she said every moment of having you as my child has been worth it for this. And I think that was it was very truthful, actually, because I haven't always been easy.

00;19;40;25 - 00;20;08;02
Kathryn LaMontagne
And and then for myself, though, a moment where I had to kind of pinch myself was during the Christmas openings where folks would come through. And then we have to escort them out through the front door and then all the way to the gates and there's there was a key. And I got to lock up the front door of Buckingham Palace at the end of the night and in my stocking feet, because, you know, you've worked all day, you've been on your feet and just standing there and my socks, my shoes off and Buckingham Palace is pretty cool thing.

00;20;08;02 - 00;20;26;13
Michael Hagan
I think that is awesome. So you mentioned Christmas a couple of times and of course, one of the traditions that the monarchy has in Britain is a delivering a Christmas message from from the from the monarch to the public. Every year we're recording before the holidays right now. But when this airs, it will likely be after the holidays.

00;20;26;13 - 00;20;37;25
Michael Hagan
By then, King Charles will have given his first Christmas message. Can you say a little bit about the significance of the Christmas message and other occasions when the sovereign speaks personally and directly to the public?

00;20;38;15 - 00;21;05;21
Kathryn LaMontagne
So my husband is is from London, from outside London, and just nearby Kent. And one of the most wonderful things is that pause during Christmas Day and the Christmas celebrations to listen to the monarch's Christmas message. And even if you are a royalist or you're not royalist, often most families will stop and listen and sometimes they can be uplifting.

00;21;05;21 - 00;21;34;01
Kathryn LaMontagne
Sometimes there's a bit of sorrow. But, you know, Her Majesty was the head of the Church of England and her faith, her Christian faith was so incredibly important to her that it was nice to have that reminder for everyone that the holiday was, in fact, about Jesus. And I. I look forward still to that part of the day where we can pause and reflect and and listen to the speech.

00;21;34;01 - 00;21;37;15
Kathryn LaMontagne
My son, he's six. He knows that's that's a big part of the day.

00;21;39;06 - 00;21;54;12
Michael Hagan
So the monarchy itself is, you know, this living symbol of continuity in Britain. But are there any significant ways in which King Charles, his reign could be different from the late queen's, aside from the fact that it likely won't run for 70 years?

00;21;54;12 - 00;22;26;15
Kathryn LaMontagne
I mean, I think there's going to be a number of ways that it's going to be different. It has to be different because our times demand it to be different. And I think we've already seen work being done and more work needing to be done, particularly in regards to racism and prejudice. I understanding of diversity that exists within Britain that that needs to be attended to, I think as a matter of urgency further, you know, he has always been interested in climate change.

00;22;26;15 - 00;23;00;20
Kathryn LaMontagne
We see that Prince William is taking up this mantle with his recent visit to Boston. And even though he's not meant to have an IT, King Charles is not meant to have an opinion per say. But because we've seen him for so many years as having an opinion, I think we know and he is going to be in his own way, making efforts for these interests to continue on preservation, architecture being another one in a way that his mom didn't and his mom couldn't because his mom was still or his mum was still very much raised in that sense of duty.

00;23;00;20 - 00;23;19;06
Kathryn LaMontagne
We stay quiet. We don't say anything. We need to just be the head of state. And that is really how a constitutional monarchy can function for as long as it has by the monarch and keeping their opinions to themselves. So hopefully he will learn how to balance that for himself as long as his reign may or may be.

00;23;20;12 - 00;23;27;00
Michael Hagan
Is there anything that you wish more people knew about the monarchy or any common misconceptions about it that need to be corrected?

00;23;28;10 - 00;23;58;06
Kathryn LaMontagne
So I do think the Americans, particularly li, have a sense of the monarchy that is been predicated through the media. Maybe People magazine, things like that. And it becomes really about they're just some other famous family and they're not really just some other famous family. They are about. They represent an important historical tradition. They represent, again, as we said, that continuity.

00;23;58;17 - 00;24;26;10
Kathryn LaMontagne
But there's something more that's there. There's stability that comes out of the royal family. There is a romance to it for Americans. But I think that people need to know more historically, things that are historically accurate and not just kind of say like things like, Oh, KING the King George the third. He was the tyranny of King George that people need to know a little bit more about who they are and what they really were advocating for, for good or for bad.

00;24;26;10 - 00;24;34;04
Kathryn LaMontagne
Right? Because they're not all just wonderful people that we should be putting on a pedestal. But to do that extra work and not just, oh, they're on the cover of a magazine.

00;24;35;03 - 00;24;57;21
Michael Hagan
So I want to turn to your book, your forthcoming book. As mentioned, you're a scholar of modern Britain and Ireland and of religious history and of gender, among other topics. And these all kind of come together in your forthcoming book that the title is Pious Transgressors Reconsidering Catholic Womanhood in Edwardian Britain. Can you tell us a little bit about this project?

00;24;58;10 - 00;25;25;17
Kathryn LaMontagne
So this project came out of my my Ph.D. dissertation as most academics for books do. And I when I was thinking about my topic and as I was working on the topic and and developing an idea, I'd always been really interested by converts and who converted because in England the position of Roman Catholics had been really problematic for a very long time since Henry the eighth and the present Reformation.

00;25;25;18 - 00;25;46;29
Kathryn LaMontagne
We have moments like 1829 where we have Catholic Catholic emancipation. So I think that for me, I wanted to kind of figure out what was the place of Catholics. And it actually there were key moments where on Ash Wednesday people would come up to me and they would try to like, move my ashes off. And there's somebody that's from the Rhode Island, southeastern New England area.

00;25;46;29 - 00;26;06;15
Kathryn LaMontagne
Like, this is not something that would ever have happened to me because, you know, everybody has their ashes. So I wanted to know more about my church Anglicanism, about Catholicism more broadly in England, and how Catholics understood themselves. So I go to church on Sundays in different churches throughout London, and the communities were also vastly different as well.

00;26;06;15 - 00;26;36;22
Kathryn LaMontagne
I just wanted to know more. I'm just one of those people that I observe stuff and I want to know. So I start doing my research and I ended up with four figures for case studies. Radcliff Hall and Naval Baton Margaret Fletcher, who founded the Catholic Women's League, and she advocated for bringing middle class women into the Catholic Church in Britain because it had really been just elite women or really working class or poverty stricken precariat class women in the North and Liverpool, Manchester.

00;26;37;12 - 00;26;55;27
Kathryn LaMontagne
And then my fourth figure is Maude Peter, who was a leader in the Catholic modernist movement, which was a very scandalous moment in the history of the Catholic Church. But I didn't know so much about. But I knew, and that's the one that really took me down into all the encyclicals, you know, So glad for my background knowledge from PC.

00;26;55;28 - 00;27;14;23
Kathryn LaMontagne
I can't even tell you. And yeah, so I found these these characters, these figures, and they were all so pious. So they weren't they were transgressive in one part of their life, but in other parts of their lives they would have been conservative and trying witchcraft. So they weren't just one thing. They weren't just, Oh, I'm radical about everything.

00;27;15;00 - 00;27;44;26
Kathryn LaMontagne
And I thought that was something really interesting to discover to play with more. And then the kind of the thesis that came out of all of that was that there's a lot of flexibility in the Catholic Church, that it doesn't need to be one thing for one person, and each of us find our own ways of living our faith and simultaneous to this, this idea of lived faith, loved religion, had really gotten traction.

00;27;44;26 - 00;28;09;12
Kathryn LaMontagne
And the sociological survey, as sociological areas through Nancy Ammerman of be you and in Catholic English studies this I have lived Catholicism the past two years. It's just blow it up. It's huge. Durham has a program on it. Swank Each with that idea as well. What material culture did these women have in their house? Things that showed them to be culturally Catholic?

00;28;09;19 - 00;28;29;16
Kathryn LaMontagne
You know, it's not necessarily about did you go to church every Sunday? It's about what are these other things that you're doing? Who are you talking to? What members of the hierarchy you're you're interacting with? Are they mostly Jesuits? Are they somebody else or are you going to the continent on your holiday? So all of these things kind of came into play when thinking about this idea of pious transgressors.

00;28;30;03 - 00;28;59;04
Michael Hagan
Can you comment a little more on Catholic identity and experience in Britain? And I ask because, you know, in the United States and in the Northeast, especially, Roman Catholics represent a sizable plurality or in some areas, an outright majority of Christians. How does the experience in Britain of being a religious minority and for centuries following the English Reformation, a persecuted one, how does that make the Catholic experience different in Britain as opposed to, say, in New England today or historically?

00;28;59;19 - 00;29;16;15
Kathryn LaMontagne
Well, you know, I think that's interesting. There's kind of like a twofold answer to that. I mean, the first one would be when I'm thinking about my case study, is that I chose I chose Catholic lay women. I, I mean, that was a very purposeful choice because there's a lot of work that's done on religious sisters, nuns and their work.

00;29;16;21 - 00;29;39;24
Kathryn LaMontagne
But the actual lay women who when I go to church, wherever I have been to church, I see a lot of lay women there with their families, often without their husbands or their spouses. And I thought, gosh, this is kind of a side that is completely overlooked. But in the British context, there's been a ton written in Irish studies in American Catholic history about this, but not in the British context.

00;29;40;12 - 00;30;04;20
Kathryn LaMontagne
So I think when you start looking for the lacuna is right, like where are these absences? And that was a clear absence that I saw in the English context that I hadn't experienced in my own actual life, right? So it was more obvious for me to see it. And when you are suddenly in a minority culture after having been in a majority, it's a it's a it's actually a great experience for people to have, right.

00;30;04;20 - 00;30;24;23
Kathryn LaMontagne
Because it makes you truly think about who you are and how you are that person. What do you do to hang on to yourself? And as an immigrant as well, you know, who am I as an American? What American things am I going to continue to do? And my Catholicism is something that you can be Catholic wherever you are in the world.

00;30;24;23 - 00;30;41;10
Kathryn LaMontagne
There's always going to be a Catholic church. You can walk in to engage with that part of yourself. It's not as easy to just kind of walk around and be like, Oh, maybe that's another American or that's another American. But you knew that you when you were at church, at least for an hour, you could be with people who were like you in that respect.

00;30;41;28 - 00;31;07;10
Kathryn LaMontagne
But I think more broadly, you know, churchgoing has declined and it certainly declined even more over COVID. But I think that if people self-identify still as Catholic, if there are certain traditions or things or objects that they have in their homes, that for me, that's still sufficient to be able to understand yourself in that faith. I don't think we need to tell people, you need to do this, this and this all the time.

00;31;07;10 - 00;31;20;10
Kathryn LaMontagne
You know, obviously there are certain things that you do like transubstantiation that's like you have to. But other other things, I feel like there is just a flexibility that has always been there. And I want to remind people that that is important, that there's space for everybody.

00;31;21;23 - 00;31;34;14
Michael Hagan
Absolutely. So you among many hats that you've worn, you were an adjunct instructor at Providence College for some time. Did you say that you taught serve or still teach server?

00;31;35;06 - 00;31;38;01
Kathryn LaMontagne
So I jumped in for one semester at one semester.

00;31;38;01 - 00;31;38;10
Michael Hagan
Okay.

00;31;39;13 - 00;31;42;09
Kathryn LaMontagne
And what did you teach the class?

00;31;42;09 - 00;31;48;00
Michael Hagan
Sorry. British history. Fascinating. So it was that undergraduates are SC or it was.

00;31;48;05 - 00;32;05;23
Kathryn LaMontagne
It was two undergrads. It was a 300 level class and it was so fun. So Professor Russo is also one of my neighbors in Northwest Paw, and we ran into each other. They needed somebody to fill in and I had just moved back and I was so happy to get to be at P.S. It was such a wonderful experience.

00;32;06;10 - 00;32;41;14
Kathryn LaMontagne
The students were great. I was so impressed with the college and how it had retained so many of the things that I loved about it, but the things that it had needed to work on back in 2001 and 2003, it had clearly been working on and there was a space in my course for me to be able to talk about queer Catholics, which I don't think had really been there 20 years ago, or a comfort with be able to acknowledge all these different kind of different areas and perspectives and really talk about race in a very important way in that class as it relates to empire and colonization.

00;32;41;14 - 00;33;05;15
Kathryn LaMontagne
So yeah, it was great experience. I loved the students. I felt such a connection with them. And yeah, we were at PC every Monday. My son plays hockey for a team that always practices at PC. They've had some games there, so it's just nice to see that that that connection and the continuity from then to now and to know that I'm keeping it going in my own family is really is really wonderful.

00;33;06;26 - 00;33;15;13
Michael Hagan
You said growing up in Westport, you said you mentioned that you've known Father Sicard your whole life. Any any funny memories of him? Early memories, anything we're sharing?

00;33;16;25 - 00;33;36;17
Kathryn LaMontagne
Actually, a sister lives in my house I grew up in, which I think is really wonderful. But I do remember mostly that was his mom. His mom. I remember seeing her at Mass every week, so Father Sicard would already have been off in the world while I was when I was young. But his his certainly his mom was always a figure in church.

00;33;36;17 - 00;34;04;22
Kathryn LaMontagne
There were always these women, older women that I can remember feeling comforted that they were there and in their worship. And I never really thought about it until just now. But seeing all these lay women and how they manage their family life and their faith and all the other things, because everybody was volunteering all the time, it sticks with you of this work that needs to be done to help the faith become stronger and to continue.

00;34;06;02 - 00;34;10;07
Kathryn LaMontagne
So Father's cards. Mom, That's my answer.

00;34;10;07 - 00;34;15;17
Michael Hagan
What advice would you offer to students who aspire to jobs or or whole careers abroad?

00;34;16;29 - 00;34;38;05
Kathryn LaMontagne
You know, I just did a talk a couple of weeks ago with the International Business Club and with Bobby about living abroad, and it ends up being a wonderful chat with them. And I give them the examples of some of the other folks that I graduated with that have gone on to live and work abroad. Mike de Castro has gone on to work for the IOC.

00;34;38;05 - 00;34;56;29
Kathryn LaMontagne
He is my year. Danielle Petit works for the Gates Foundation. She has really important work in terms of bringing sanitation to countries like Sierra Leone and Cambodia. And I just I see, you know, you don't have to get a job in finance and wait for your job to transport you. If you want this for yourself, you want to have your eyes open to the world around you.

00;34;56;29 - 00;35;20;00
Kathryn LaMontagne
Do it yourself, like just make it happen. And I got lots of little work visas. I did, you know, study abroad whenever I could, however I could. And it has changed entire life in many ways, for good and for bad. You know, it's tricky to have half your life in one country and half your life in the other, to always kind of wonder like, oh, you know, to not be able to go on vacation places because you've got to go to the home country.

00;35;21;03 - 00;35;46;24
Kathryn LaMontagne
But when I teach and I can teach effectively and powerfully about New Zealand, about Australia, Gibraltar, about all these places that the British Empire has affected negatively or positively, depending on what side you're on, I look at these places I can talk about it and and that is something that is an intangible gift that my students get from me, that I can speak with authority.

00;35;46;24 - 00;35;57;10
Michael Hagan
All right. Well, Katherine, I could continue to ask you questions for probably another 3 hours, but we are going to wrap it up. Thank you so much for joining us today. This has been really fascinating.

00;35;57;24 - 00;36;18;02
Kathryn LaMontagne
It's such a pleasure. I'm always happy to do anything I can with the PC family. And, you know, again, like I said, the podcasts have been incredible. I have been moved to tears by some of the podcasts that I listened to, and it's such a wonderful honor to be able to be thought of as on par with some of the amazing alums that you've already interviewed and students who are just doing such impressive work.

00;36;18;02 - 00;36;19;27
Kathryn LaMontagne
So thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate it.

00;36;20;13 - 00;36;40;28
Michael Hagan
All right. Well, with that endorsement, it's a perfectly appropriate time to say subscribe to the Providence College podcast and all the usual places, including iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play and Spotify, as well as your smart speaker, if you like. What if you like what you hear, please review and share with others. Thanks for listening and go Friars.