The conversation turns to how the institutional church itself defines sacred space, drawing on the U.S. bishops' document Built of Living Stones and its vision of churches as places of encounter with God, not mere gathering spaces. Connors describes the folk phenomenon of "miraculous" roadside Madonnas erupting into full churches in Rome's neglected neighborhoods, and the two reflect on a Ross Douthat/Philip Larkin passage about what a sacred space offers believers and skeptics alike. They close by each describing their own decades-long personal bond with a single Roman church — Waldrop with the Church of the Gesù, Connors with Santa Maria in Vallicella.