Soy chicana with many many years of catholic school. So I knew about Bishop Romero, the nuns and the priests but I still did not know the whole history of the civil war and the US role in it. Mil gracias for the history lessons I didn’t know I needed. I especially loved the first person accounts and interview with your family. They should be very proud of you.

If you’re an American, you need to understand current events and issues through the lenses of not only North America history but LatinAmerican history. This podcast is a great start.

Great historical storytelling

I finished the second season about LLDM and it was great! Absolutely loved all of the different points of views and the story telling. I remember hearing about this from the news and definitely was not as sympathetic with the adults who now I see how bad it truly was there.

I really loved this series. I shed a tear a few times. Just like Jasmine, I grew up in the U.S. with parents who left El Salvador. I too have family and in-laws deeply affected by the civil rights war. We recently took a big family trip and one of my in-laws who never went due to her parents fear of El Salvador got to see a whole new country. I told her the history I knew, and it peaked her interest into learning more about her background. At the same time I found this podcast and shared with her and I have myself have been doing a little bit of research of where we came from. It’s a beautiful podcast and I highly recommend.

Excellent podcast series, insightful and keeps you listening.

Supposed to be Sacred Scandal not Salvador history and a history about her family all in all a good story but for another podcast

I listened to the entire series and boy season 3 is a must listen! The balance of the narrator, scholars, victims and survivors had a very natural flow. The writing was excellent. Thank you for this investigative journalism that gives us so much insight and hope.

I visited El Salvador last year for two weeks and while I learned so much on the trip about the civil war while I was there, I wish I had this season of the podcast back then. I’m enraptured by the storytelling that encompasses political reckoning with personal impact. I highly recommend this to everyone!

Thank you for this podcast. It’s journalism at its finest. It reminds me of the History class in college. Detailed, interesting, heartbreaking. Keep up the great work Jasmine!

Season 3 has me in tears! Completely engulfed, the host keeps you well informed throughout the story. It’s disturbing knowing so much history has been covered up. The interviews with victims is heartbreaking and hearing the pain in their voices can’t imagine being the host.

Binged through first 3 episodes and am hooked with the story. Such a sad story but really interesting to learn. Seems like history keeps repeating itself over and over again

This podcast is comprehensive, informational, and educational.

New season sounds interesting - want to see where it goes

Loved the first episode of the new season! Excited to hear the whole series

I live in Phoenix., Arizona and I’ve always passed by this church in my area and I just had this dread filling that something was not right with this church. Throughout the years, I see that the church has built this huge and beautiful church in the community but still having this feeling. The Church was supposedly built by volunteers which I doubt. The area is not amazing but when you pass by and look inside, it’s not your average church.

This podcast is so beautifully done. Excellent writing and a painfully honest telling of a disgusting truth. I binged this over 24 hours and I’m struck by all of it. Most of all, by the bravery of the women and men who literally risked their lives to try and stop this from happening to others. You are doing God’s real work. Thank you.

This is a compelling true crime podcast, but each episode feels about 10 mins long and the rest is full of so many ads. Really frustrating.

I highly recommend this pod cast. Well written and executed. This story exposed the intricacies of a cult and the control involved.

This podcast is so well done. Detailed, precise and compassionate presentation exposing this “church” for exactly what it is. I binged the entire second season in just a few days. High control groups are so insidious and this podcast definitely does a deep dive in how manipulative and dangerous they are. Thank you so much for all the hard work of everyone involved. My heart and support is with all of the victims. May you all find healing.

The storytelling drifts from the title and journalistic intent to stream of consciousness, opinions and casual conversation and pre interview filler that it’s odd they kept in editing. Then there will be an abrupt sharing something related to the case before transitioning to advertising. I really enjoy programming on the My Cultura Network, this threw me off. There is a lot of time given to anecdotes and recollection about the minutia of and it eats up the time. Initially there isn’t a strong through-line in the editing were the root story that listener develop context and foundation connected to the title by introducing timelines and referencing It jumps back-and-forth between lengthy banter infused with dramatic music transitions, then returns to the story The time splits between personal narratives and opinions about detail and objective history and timelines. The series description gives a clear synopsis, the tone flips back and forth between sensational streaming series formula, and straight presentation of facts. I do appreciate that this move me to go look for an article or investigation from a reputable periodical Melanie Bartley does a solid job building a timeline, giving context and clearly presenting facts. If you persist through the filler it gets more cohesive.

Season 1 is SO GOOD. I listen to a lot of podcasts, specifically a lot of true crime. This pod continues to be interesting throughout all episodes and it becomes really topical with world events. I love how the hosts share their conflicting thoughts and opinions about people they interview, it’s very relatable. 10/10 would recommend.

I’m always looking for podcasts that peak my interest. Came across this podcast while listening to jenicka riveras podcast over comfort! And I’m definitely going to listen to both seasons

Thank you for this. Very informative and helpful information.

I was just hired as a second grade teacher at an elementary school in the Chicago area. In my 24 years of teaching, I have never come across any type of religious sect or cult such as LLDM. However, they have a location directly across from my new school! I don’t know if it’s active or even open, but it looks like it could be with a fresh coat of paint. I would like to contact you and find out more information or even see if there’s anything I can do or should do to reach out to my administration about this. Will you please provide contact information? Thank you for making such an informative, high-quality podcast.

I might have enjoyed this podcast but I was interrupted 3 times by ads - with no transition - in the first 15-20 minutes. It really takes you out of the story. Hopefully they can find a better network or ad partner.

While I was enjoying the first episode’s story, I can’t abide the Pfizer ads. After Pfizer’s role in poisoning us during COVID, they are Satan’s handmaiden.

It’s a complicated story to tell and these young ladies did an exceptional job laying out all the details in an objective way. They took time to talk with many direct and indirect “witnesses” who added context to the story. I love that they admitted, as they learned more about the case and people involved, that their opinion and perspectives changed. In the end, they admit that they (and we) may never know, the truth of what happened. Excellently told with honesty and integrity.

Greatest podcast ever. These girls know how to tell a STORY

The story was well researched and a sad and tragic tale, but I ended it disturbed that the hosts seemed way too personally involved with the murderer, and I never felt there was any adequate explanation as to why he took out his trauma and anger on his victim. When all is said and done, he committed an extremely violent and horrific murder of a defenseless woman. The podcast seems a bit too forgiving of him. Also the ads on this one are particularly annoying and repetitive.

Hear it on your Alexa and it won’t play any ads! It’s totally worth it. What an amazing podcast. The hosts are so easy to listen to and the story is something out of a movie. The SOUNDTRACK! I actually went to the Spotify and downloaded the whole thing. It’s beautiful. Nice job ladies.

I just finished the season and I NEED MORE! I’m so impressed that these two non-journalists were driven enough to fly to Ukraine of all places to get to the bottom of this case. Entertaining, informative, so well researched and human! I love that they respected all sides and didn’t come across as biased. I would listen to anything Paula and Melanie make, please make more!

I listen to a lot of true crime and investigative journalism. I downloaded this show for a long car ride and listened to it on the drive. First critique I have is, it’s very. Very. Slow. The pacing honestly drags. I played most of the show at 2x speed, because otherwise it barely kept my attention. It’s easy to tell that the hosts are amateur podcasters for a number of reasons, but one I noticed right off the bat: while there’s an equal mix of narration and interview, the content of the two overlaps too much. The podcast would be much improved if every piece were told either by narration (with interview soundbytes) or through interviews (with minimal narrative interruption). The bigger problem here is, Sacred Scandal just felt under-edited. This show probably should have been told in 4-6 half-hour episodes, but lack of editing bloated it to 10 hours. Too much content that wasn’t properly cut down = storytelling that isn’t as engaging as it could be. My next major critique would be the way the content was organized. I couldn’t tell how the story was supposed to build suspense or intrigue - the murder was “solved” in ep two, and every episode afterward felt like backtracking. This may not make sense, but my best description is that the story was told like someone started a sentence (and backtracked to put something after that in parentheses (and another parenthetical digression))….and never got to the end of the sentence. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the masterful storytelling of podcasts like Radiolab and This American Life, but I definitely feel like Sacred Scandal would be better if it were reorganized and ruthlessly re-edited. On to my next major issue: I don’t think these people should have been telling this story. At least, not alone. Not like this. The two hosts are clearly invested and therefore biased. If you step back and listen with an open mind, it does seem like Mike may have lied until he himself believed what he was saying. Maybe some of it was true, but he had to make sense of his actions somehow. Still, the podcast doesn’t even consider this possibility until the last episode! I understand that they’ve built a friendship, that it’s hard to believe their friend could have done something so awful without just cause. But they have experts saying he lied, they have no evidence of his claims, they have confirmation that he was severely mentally ill (and drunk) at the time of the murder. And they still can’t consider that he could misrepresent the situation. They even admit that Mike “can be a little manipulative,” that he accused his father of rape then later retracted the accusation, and that while dealing with him they often forget that he is a confessed murderer. I don’t want to be too hard on the hosts, but I do think it’s clear they made this podcast more to make excuses for their friend than to uncover absolute truth. No matter what they’ve convinced themselves, they aren’t trying to see the whole picture or get to the bottom of how and why this all happened. They’re trying to justify how someone they’ve grown to care about could have committed a horrific murder. I think at the very least they should have had a third host who was further removed from the situation to help balance it out and play devil’s advocate. There were times in the podcast when I was dying for someone to jump in and say, “Hey, let’s be reasonable here. Maybe..” If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, go listen to the interview with the priest and the following conversation. When they accused him afterward of being sketchy, dancing around questions, refusing to answer what they were asking, I was baffled. I didn’t hear any of that. I heard a man who was trying to be direct and clear in his responses, getting understandably frustrated. The hosts were worried that people may think they were “too soft” on the priest, but honestly? If anything, I think they were too hard on them. They came into the conversation determined to not believe him, they were sure Mike was telling the truth and everyone else was lying, and they sounded very accusatory in the recording. They weren’t trying to find the truth. They were trying to get a confession. And honestly, even this would have been ok if they were aware of their own biases. I don’t say this because I don’t believe pedophilic sex abuse doesn’t happen in the Catholic Church; it clearly does, and if anything, I thought it was weird for that to be treated like a shocking surprise in the context of this story. I’m just saying, they didn’t even pretend to consider that in this situation, it’s possible the guy who stabbed a nun 90+ times may have been untruthful about his experiences and motivations. I guess my real issue here was, this didn’t feel like I was being told a story. It didn’t feel like investigative journalism. It felt like listening to a pair of Mike Kopel apologists explain why their friend the killer is actually a great guy and this wasn’t his fault. They’ve advertised as a murder mystery because that’s the story they’ve convinced themselves they’re telling. Still, I did listen to the whole thing and it wasn’t the worst podcast ever, so…overall, I’ll give it two stars.

I’m kinda disappointed with how they interacted with the killer and accused child abuser. But it was still a pretty good story.

Only go to episode 4, it seems as though it will focus on the suspect a fail to release there is a victim. Interviews with the suspect will focus on how his terrible life made him him kill and therefore he is not responsible for his actions. More focus on the suspect forgetting about the victim.

Someone else mentioned this seems it was written by like the ppl who fall in love with prisoners and I agree, it’s a little disturbing… this was an extremely violent murder and the narrators present it as if we’re going to find out that it was….justified? Sooo much time spent listening to them interview what sounds like a sociopath. How he became a sociopath IS interesting and a very sad story, but the way he is presented as if he’s a nice guy who had a rough life and made a mistake is pretty off putting.

Started off interesting but then it seemed like these two women were almost smitten by the killer and nearly glorified him half the time. Mike stabbed a woman 92 times. Then they actually said there is so much more to him than this “single act.” Their interviews seemed to coddle him and butt-kiss, I found the whole thing strange and unnerving, like fan-girls writing in to prisoners.

It took a couple of episodes, but this really grabbed me. The complexity of the situation was explored very objectively. The bonus episode really added some additonal context and information. Very well done!

As a former Holy Cross alum and classmate of Paula, chills and goosebumps seriously. Well developed and shared. A story that needed to be shared and given justice by one of the ones impacted. Proud of you!

This story is interesting but the two screeching, overacted ads that run every few minutes make it almost unbearable to listen to. Someone needs to tell the people in those ads that their ‘character’ isn’t compelling, it’s off-putting. What a pity. Maybe the narrators could read the ads in even voices. Who are those ad people anyhow? Not so famous we need for them to deliver that content, I’m sure.

Well researched and presented, and a good mix of narrations and interview clips. Very interesting story. But too many and really intrusive adverts! Almost made me quit listening, but just fast forwarded past the ads to preserve my sanity.

Very interesting story and well told, but significantly more commercials than most podcasts.

This is a compelling story, and a great listen… but wayyyyy too many commercials. Half as many would still be a lot.

Podcasters here did their research, presented the storyline in a comprehensive way, staying honest to their mission of informing on all angles.

Fix ittttt. Great show.

I’m really enjoying this podcast. The hosts have done an excellent job.

Don’t waste your time. It’s so slow that it moves backwards.

With 24 minute episodes, it’s disruptive to hear an ad every 3 minutes. I don’t know if it’s a great story or a podcast put on by Statefarm.

This is one of the best podcasts I’ve heard. I binged all the episodes in a two day period. It wasn’t gory or overly dramatic and they took the time to get as many perspectives as possibly could. Even visiting Ukraine to get all sides of possible motives of everyone involved. Excellent editing for keeping me listening. I look forward to hearing more on this story and hope all of those in Ukraine currently are safe.

I’m from Miami and can’t believe I never heard of this murder. Love the way these girls are telling the story. Congrats!