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?
251
Live from Australia: How young Catholics are ch...
This week, Jesuitical is coming to you live from Australia. We’ve mastered driving on the left side of the road (sort of); we got up close and personal with a kangaroo; and even though Ashley tried to leave me to drown in the Great Barrier Reef, we...
37 min
252
How the New Wave Feminists are changing the con...
In 2004, Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa founded , a pro-life feminist organization dedicated to changing the divisive language surrounding the abortion debate. New Wave works to give women the support and resources needed to make motherhood a feasible...
35 min
253
The Catholic Church has a leadership problem. L...
The Catholic Church, according to this week’s guest, is facing not one but two crises. The first is the sexual abuse of children and its cover-up; the second is a complete break down of trust in church leadership. Kerry Alys Robinson has been...
43 min
254
Sister Helen Prejean fought the death penalty—a...
Sister Helen Prejean has been the face of the anti-death penalty movement for decades. A member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, Sister Helen has been accompanying inmates on death row and lobbying against capital punishment in the United...
40 min
255
Thinking about your death will make you a bette...
“Reflecting on death is not a morbid affair,” believes Sister Theresa Aletheia, “it is a healthy and often healing practice that helps us accept the inevitable with hope.” Sister Theresa is a self-proclaimed #MediaNun with the Daughters of...
34 min
256
Juan Carlos Cruz: the survivor who changed the ...
Juan Carlos Cruz was abused by the notorious predator Fernando Karadima, a Chilean Catholic priest. For years, the Catholic Church in Chile disregarded the abuse allegations against the powerful cleric. One cardinal even told Juan Carlos it was hard...
36 min
257
Catholic women are leaving the church. This gro...
The Catholic Church is failing to engage Catholic women. of Catholic women published by America earlier this year found that 26 percent rarely or never attend Mass; 27 percent only attend a few times a year; and 67 percent of Catholic women have...
30 min
258
How Catholics influence U.S. politics Ep. 83
Stephen P. Millies is the author of Good Intentions: A History of Catholic Voters’ Road from Roe to Trump. In his book, Stephen analyzes the history of the Catholic vote, from the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade to the presidential...
32 min
259
You have to visit the border to understand the ...
Family separations, the caravan, birthright citizenship—immigration stories have dominated the headlines in the lead-up to the 2018 midterms. But for Sister Norma Pimentel, who has worked on the U.S.-Mexico border for decades, migration is not a...
34 min
260
A good Catholic meddles in politics (and votes ...
The nuns are back (on the bus). Headed by Sister Simone Campbell, the executive director of NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, the almost-annual campaign (they’ve traveled six of the last seven years), is traveling across the country to...
30 min
261
Christians have been in Iraq for thousands of y...
Kevin Clarke is the chief correspondent at America. Recently, he traveled to Iraq for 12 days where he met with Iraqi Christians and other religious minorities. We talk to Kevin about why he decided to take this trip and the future of Christianity in...
47 min
262
Haley Stewart’s Catholic guide to living simply...
I’m sure I am not the only city dweller who sometimes fantasizes about putting in my two-weeks notice and escaping to a dude ranch in Wyoming or an organic pumpkin farm in Nebraska (or wherever they grow pumpkins). The ever-increasing rent, the...
36 min
263
Lakota and Catholic: Jesuit education on the Pi...
“My hope is that we can learn that we can be indigenous and all these other things: Catholic, worldly, a diplomat, a scientist, etc. My hope is that being indigenous is not limited,” Maka Clifford in the pages of America last year. Maka is the...
34 min
264
A survivor of sex abuse on how the church can h...
“[The sex abuse crisis is] not something that I think can be fixed by our priests alone,” Amanda Zamora told us this week. “The pain and the harm has been caused by the church and the solution will need to come from the church—and that...
38 min
265
Stephanie Saldaña on love, loss and memory in t...
He was a French novice living in a desert monastery in Syria. She was a journalist from Texas who wanted to become a nun. Then, they fell in love. I know, it sounds like a rom-com. But that is, in fact, how this week’s guest, Stephanie Saldaña,...
38 min
266
Synod on Youth preview: How will we keep young ...
Next month, the Vatican will hold the Synod of bishops on young people. Earlier this year, in preparation for the October gathering, the Vatican hosted 300 delegates from around the world. These delegates met in Rome and produced an 11-page document,...
32 min
267
"I can't date Jesus": A conversation with Micha...
Michael Arceneaux has stopped going to church. After growing up as a gay black Catholic in the South, he eventually decided that he could not find a way to integrate his identities into the Catholicism he grew up with. In his new memoir: I Can’t...
34 min
268
We don’t use religious words anymore. That’s a ...
When was the last time you talked about faith with a friend? If you’re listening to this podcast, maybe you don’t mind dropping words like “sin,” “grace” and “confession” in casual conversations. But most Americans, according to , have...
38 min
269
Julio Ricardo Varela on being the only Latino (...
“Being the only Latino means that while the white men get to disagree with each other and develop idiosyncratic or counterintuitive arguments, you can never just say how you feel or what you think about a story,” wrote Julio Ricardo Varela in ...
39 min
270
The one where two of the Jesuitical hosts get e...
Did you miss us? Jesuitical is BACK from its summer break and we are sunsprayed, rested and ready to hit the studio for a new season. We also have some pretty big personal news to share, so tune in for some life updates. We also loved getting to spend...
41 min
271
What does Catholic architecture look like in th...
This week, we talk with Gilbert Sunghera, S.J. He is an architectural consultant and associate professor of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy. Gilbert has worked on projects such as the , the parish of in Wyoming and . We talk with...
22 min
272
Why you (yes you) should care about theology. E...
You don’t have to have a Ph.D. in theology to write about religion (thank goodness)—but Tara Isabella Burton’s work shows it certainly doesn’t hurt. After getting her doctorate in theology at Oxford University, Tara became the first full-time...
17 min
273
Questioning the Bible just might help you fall ...
Rachel Held Evans grew up loving the bible. Like, was on her high school’s homecoming court representing the Bible club. She was taught to honor and defend it from all its enemies, science and history included. But her Biblical worldview started to...
41 min
274
The untold history of black nuns in the United ...
Ask most people what they know about black Catholic sisters, and they will probably murmur something about “Sister Act.” Dr. Shannen Dee Williams did, too, until she began digging into communities’ archives and uncovering the previously hidden...
37 min
275
How living in L’Arche made Jeremy McLellan a be...
This week, we talk with Jeremy McLellan, a comedian from Charleston, S.C. Jeremy was recently named a “New Face of Comedy” at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. He was recently baptized at this year’s Easter Vigil. We talk to the...
31 min