Interchange · GIA Publications

Believe Women

March 9, 2026·1 hr 7 min·4 clips

Natalie explains how predators exploit an eighteen-year-old’s desire to belong in a trusted church environment.

1. Interchange’s “Believe Women” examines music, Catholic worship, survivor testimony, and institutional responsibility after sexual abuse. 2. Host Kate Williams interviews Natalie Pucillo, a Loyola University Chicago Master of Divinity student, church musician, and AWAKE Survivor Resource Intern. 3. The episode asks what Catholic communities should do when survivors describe harm but institutions demand courtroom proof before acting. 4. Pucillo grew up in the Baltimore suburbs and attended Catholic school throughout her childhood. 5. Her first faith memory involved singing and dancing in the pews with a preschool friend to “Though the Mountains May Fall.” 6. She joined choir in third grade, band in fourth grade, chose a high school for its band program, and became a clarinetist. 7. Pucillo earned a music-performance degree and entered professional music ministry after serving churches during high school and college. 8. She says communal singing matters because texts, tunes, bodies, and voices become prayer rather than remaining marks on a page. 9. At age twenty-three or twenty-four, Pucillo entered Loyola’s Master of Divinity program intending to become a better music minister. 10. A theology-of-suffering course and a nuclear-security course with Dr. David Dalt redirected her attention toward trauma and healing. 11. Pucillo says refusing to name the composer can protect survivors from hearing a trauma-linked name while preserving their authority over their own stories. 12. She recalls attending a 2015 music ministry event in St. Paul after knowing the composer mainly as a name in a hymnal. 13. At eighteen, she noticed adults and young people treating “Papa Bear” as a normal title and immediately felt “ew.” 14. Pucillo argues that wanting belonging, affirmation, and recognition was natural, while manipulating those needs was the abuse-enabling act. 15. She says survivors may be harmed again when reporting to churches, police, journalists, or legal systems produces disbelief or weak community support. 16. Williams and Pucillo discuss the request to remove the composer’s music from churches so congregations can worship without emotional and spiritual danger. 17. Pucillo describes “innocent until proven guilty” as a standard that can implicitly treat survivors as liars until institutions accept their accounts. 18. She argues that Catholic abuse frameworks must include women victims, nuns, lay ministers, and other church leaders beyond priests abusing adolescent boys. 19. Best for listeners examining Catholic worship, survivor advocacy, trauma, and institutional accountability. 20. Likely to skip for listeners seeking music-performance technique or a light, non-personal conversation.

As heard by us

A careful episode on belonging, abuse, and the adult responsibility to make room for truth and healing.

Interchange examines the uneasy overlap between belonging and harm through Natalie Pucillo's account of surviving abuse by a lay minister. Her background in Catholic liturgy, sacramental theology, ecclesiology, and trauma-informed pastoral practice gives the episode a steady…

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Why you'd press play

For when church belonging feels complicated and you need a serious conversation about safety, truth, and healing.

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