Jesuitical
Welcome to Jesuitical, a podcast for young Catholics hosted by two young, lay editors at America—Zac Davis and Ashley McKinless. Each episode features a guest who offers a unique perspective on faith, culture or current events. We also bring you some of the top (and maybe more obscure) Catholic news of the week. And we'll ask: Where do we find God in all this?
Episodes
September 29, 2023 • 46 mins
This week on Jesuitical, Zac and Ashley are joined by Chris Hadley, S.J., to talk about the oft-overshadowed third person of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit. Father Hadley, an associate professor of systematic theology at Santa Clara University, uses his expertise in pneumatology to guide us through a great discussion about:
How Catholics understand the Spirit, from biblical times to today
Signs of the Holy Spirit at work in the wor...
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September 22, 2023 • 47 mins
This week on Jesuitical, Zac and Ashley are talking about the migrant crisis in New York City and the work Catholics are doing to respond. They are joined by Richard Slizeski, the senior vice president for mission at Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens. They talk to him about:
Migrants’ often harrowing experiences coming to the United States
What’s missing in the political debates around the migrant crisis in New York
How Cat...
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September 15, 2023 • 54 mins
This week, Zac and Ashley are talking about the psychological care that seminarians (i.e., priests-in-training) receive as part of their formation. They are joined by Maribel Laguna, the founder and owner of Cor Sacrum Counseling and Consulting. They talk to Maribel about:
The Catholic Church’s relationship with psychology and counseling, historically and today
The unique challenges seminarians are facing
The type of psychologic...
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September 8, 2023 • 56 mins
On the season premier of Jesuitical’s seventh season, Zac and Ashley talk with their friend and colleague James Martin, S.J., who is out with a brand new book, Come Forth: The Promise of Jesus's Greatest Miracle. They ask Father Martin:
If Jesus actually raised Lazarus from the dead (and do Catholic have to believe it)
What Mary, Martha and Lazarus can teach us about friendship
And how we can all come forth into new life in our ...
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August 19, 2023 • 9 mins
We have a great summer bonus episode, all about baseball! To listen to the full episode, become a patron of Jesuitical!
This is the first season with a pitch clock in Major League Baseball, which was implemented to try to speed up the game and appeal to younger viewers. But to some longtime baseball fans the rule change feels gimmicky and disrespectful to the grand tradition of America's pastime.
If the debate sounds familiar, that...
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June 30, 2023 • 57 mins
On the season finale of “Jesuitical,” Zac and producer Sebastian Gomes talk with Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J., who leads the Vatican’s department for social justice and human development. (Ashley was out of the country at the time of the interview). Cardinal Czerny is also the co-author of the new book Siblings All, Sign of the Times: The Social Teaching of Pope Francis. We talk to him about:
The disputed legacy of Vatican II
Ho...
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June 23, 2023 • 63 mins
This week on Jesuitical, Ashley and Zac chat with Bryan McCarthy, who teaches philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, Greensburg, and is the author of a new paper, “Christianity and Psychedelic Medicine: A Pastoral Approach.” They discuss:
What the church teaches about drugs and intoxication
How psychedelic drugs are being used in therapeutic settings, and how Christians should respond
Bryan’s own religious experiences whil...
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June 16, 2023 • 45 mins
Earlier this year, Pope Francis called most Catholic homilies “a disaster.” Well, we’re doing something about it. This week, Ashley and Zac welcome Ricardo da Silva, S.J., their colleague and the host of the brand new podcast from America Media, “Preach: The Catholic Homilies Podcast.”
“Preach” releases weekly and features a diverse cast of the finest Catholic preachers. On each episode, preachers open up their hearts and minds, sh...
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June 9, 2023 • 43 mins
This week on “Jesuitical,” Zac and Ashley chat with Linda K. Wertheimer, a journalist and the author of the book Faith Ed: Teaching about Religion in an Age of Intolerance. In a recent article in The New Republic, Linda explores renewed efforts in some parts of the country to get prayer back into public schools. They discuss:
Linda’s experience of being the only Jewish student in a public school with weekly Christian Bible classes...
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June 2, 2023 • 51 mins
This week, Ashley and Zac are joined by Bishop John Dolan of the Diocese of Phoenix to talk about losing several members of his family to suicide, a groundbreaking new mental health ministry in his diocese and how the church can better support those struggling with mental health issues.
They are also joined by America colleague James Martin, S.J., who serves as a consultor for the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication. They discus...
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May 26, 2023 • 42 mins
This week, Jesuitical is joined by Sister Donna Dodge, the president of the Sisters of Charity of New York, which recently decided to embark on a “path to completion,” meaning the over 200-year-old congregation will no longer accept new vocations (though their ministry continues). We discuss:
How religious life has changed since Sister Donna joined in 1966
How the sisters discerned that it was time to let go—and how their charism...
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May 19, 2023 • 30 mins
“Can we consider Toni Morrison a Catholic novelist,” Nadra Nittle asked in an article for America in 2017. Since Morrison’s passing in 2019, Nadra has been exploring that question in more depth, and the result is her new book: Toni Morrison's Spiritual Vision: Faith, Folktales, and Feminism in Her Life and Literature, out this month from Fortress Press.
This week, Zac reintroduces this popular interview with Nadra Nittle from 2021 ...
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May 12, 2023 • 48 mins
This week, Jesuitical is joined by Pete Davis to talk about his new documentary “Join or Die,” “a film about why you should join a club — and why the fate of America depends on it.” They discuss:
Why Americans join fewer clubs and associations than they used to
Why churches are suffering the same fate
The work of Robert Putnam in his groundbreaking book, Bowling Alone
During Signs of the Times, Zac highlights a new transcript...
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May 5, 2023 • 59 mins
This week on Jesuitical, we’re joined by Luke Russert, the author of the new memoir Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself. Luke is the son of Tim Russert, the legendary host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and served as an NBC News correspondent from 2008 to 2016. We talk to Luke about:
What it was like to lose his father and hero Tim Russert the year he graduated from college
Why he decided to leave a successful caree...
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May 2, 2023 • 13 mins
Everything is on the table: immigration and racism, women's ordination, abortion, sexual abuse, pornography, gender identity and dating apps. We’ve never seen a conversation with the pope like this. In Hulu’s “The Pope: Answers,” Francis sits with a group of 20 to 25-year-olds to discuss their most profound questions and struggles with faith and the church’s teachings. The young people also get practical, asking if the pope gets a ...
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April 28, 2023 • 62 mins
This week, Jesuitical is joined by Sam Sawyer, S.J., the new editor in chief of America Media to talk about:
How Sam went from working as a software developer to joining the Jesuits
The Catholic Church’s approach to technology, and what A.I. and ChatGPT have in store for it
His latest essay in America: “Catholicism, authentic communion and the way out of our polarization trap”
And during Signs of the Times, Ashley and Zac di...
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April 21, 2023 • 57 mins
Let’s face it: talking about climate change can feel depressing and futile. It seems like every few years there’s a new dire report, another agreement signed, and little progress is made. This week’s guest, Dorothy Fortenberry, is a writer and executive producer of “Extrapolations,” a new show from Apple TV+ that aims to shake us from our complacency by showing us what the world might look like in 10, 20, 30 years if we stay on our...
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April 14, 2023 • 72 mins
This week, Jesuitical chats with Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I., spiritual master and the author of many books, including “The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality.” Ashley and Zac talk to Father Rolheiser about the importance and universality of spiritual energy, sex, isolation and the differences between therapy and spirituality.
During “Signs of the Times,” the team is joined by Michael O’Louglin to unpack an FBI memo...
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April 7, 2023 • 35 mins
For this special triduum edition of Jesuitical, we’re doing something a little different. Instead of a regular interview, we’re sharing an episode from the America Media podcast “Imagine: A Guide to Jesuit Prayer,” by our friend and colleague Tucker Redding, S.J. In this episode, Tucker guides us through an imaginative prayer focusing on the Way of the Cross, the time between Jesus’ trial under Pontius Pilate and his crucifixion.
I...
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March 31, 2023 • 54 mins
Before Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, B.V.M., captured the heart of America during Loyola Chicago’s Cinderella run to the Final Four in 2018, she was Zac’s hero and mentor while he was attending Loyola. To be fair, she had been many things to many people in 100 years of life. Sister Jean is out with a new book (written with help from ace basketball writer Seth Davis) titled Wake Up With Purpose!: What I’ve Learned in My First Hundred...
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