The end of the summer and the beginning of fall means many of us will be returning to school in one form or another. Teachers, students, bus drivers, cafeteria workers—it’s all about to begin again. It’s a time of excitement and maybe a little apprehension. I’ll wager a bet that a few listeners are familiar with a particular type of school. It may be your alma mater; it might be your place of employment. It might just be where you send your tuition. I’ll bet when you visit this school, there are...
Aug 21, 2024•50 min
This is a conversation about racism and the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. Put more precisely, this is a conversation about how the Spiritual Exercises might better form us to understand and push back against the repercussions of racism in America. The question that frames this conversation is one that comes from the global Society of Jesus. At the last General Congregation—GC 36—when Jesuits from around the world gathered to elect a new superior general and examine the most pressing...
Aug 14, 2024•56 min
Today’s topic is one straight out of science fiction. We’re talking about transhumanism—which, as you’ll soon learn, is very much a real thing with very real ethical implications. That’s why Dr. Jason Eberl, professor and director of the Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics at Saint Louis University, is here to share his insights and expertise. Transhumanism, at its core, is about modifying the human body. As Dr. Eberl will explain, that can be as simple as taking some sort of drug to hel...
Aug 07, 2024•50 min
Today, July 31, we celebrate the Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Happy feast day! We'll wager a guess that if you’re a listener of this podcast, then today’s saint needs no introduction. You know about the cannonball, the pilgrimage, the Spiritual Exercises and the founding of the Society of Jesus. Ignatius’ story, told year after year, might even begin to feel a bit dry. That’s why we're excited about today’s interview. Our guest takes a fresh approach to this well-known history. We’re looking...
Jul 31, 2024•42 min
There is a list of Jesuit giants through history you hear over and over. That list starts with Saint Ignatius and his companions, of course, then includes to other Jesuit saints and blesseds to more modern Jesuits who are often called by just one name: Rahner. Hopkins. De Lubac. Teilhard. Arrupe. Dulles. Ellacuria. Bergoglio. And today’s episode is about one more on this list: Lonergan. Bernard Lonergan was a Canadian Jesuit philosopher and theologian who lived from 1904 to 1984. And to be hones...
Jul 24, 2024•52 min
A few weeks ago, our guest was the sociologist of religion Tricia Bruce, who talked about what we know about the state of the American Catholic Church today. On this episode, host Mike Jordan Laskey is pursuing the same questions but from a different angle. Our guest is Scott Moringiello, and he’s an associate professor of Catholic Studies at DePaul University in Chicago. In that role, he teaches a rather large course called Introduction to Catholicism, which he has taught multiple times. Over t...
Jul 17, 2024•57 min
In honor of the upcoming Summer Olympics in Paris, we’re thrilled to welcome the swimmer and five-time Olympic medalist Missy Franklin onto the podcast. Maybe you remember Missy taking the Olympics by storm back in 2012 at the age of 17. What you might now know, though, is that Missy was a student at Regis Jesuit High School in Denver, Colorado during that Olympic run. She went back and graduated the year after her historic performance. Host Mike Jordan Laskey asked Missy how the school communit...
Jul 10, 2024•33 min
Most of our listeners have surely at least heard of Homeboy Industries, which is the largest gang intervention, rehab and re-entry program in the world. Founded in Los Angeles by the Jesuit priest Fr. Greg Boyle in 1988, Homeboy works with about 10,000 former gang members each year in dozens of different ways, from job training to tattoo removal to wraparound case management services. Fr. Greg recently received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his pioneering work in this area. One of Homebo...
Jul 03, 2024•34 min
"The Holy Spirit provides." This is one of the central mantras of the Migrant Familia program at Holy Trinity Jesuit Parish. Based in Washington, DC, the parish's Familia provides crucial support to newly arrived migrants and asylum seekers, helping them find housing, apply for work permits, enroll in school, and receive medical care. More than provide services, however, the Familia program creates, well, a family for migrants who come to the U.S.—often without resources, friends, or family of t...
Jun 26, 2024•46 min
The internet, wherever we access it, is so much of our lives now. Being online isn’t some alternate reality different from our real lives. The internet is real life. But what is that doing to our brains and our souls? How are the mini computers in our pockets affecting our lives, whether we’re using them for listening to great Jesuit podcasts or mindlessly scrolling through Instagram? What is our technology doing to our ability to, say, pay attention to the person in front of us? Or to read some...
Jun 19, 2024•53 min
We presume listeners to this podcast are interested in the state of the Catholic Church in North America. But if you stop to think about what you know about the church, or how you think you know what you now, you might realize your picture is incomplete. Maybe we parrot popular talking points about polarization or disaffiliation or frustrations with this or that church teaching. But so many of perspectives come from sitting where we sit – our age, race, class, gender, geography, political and ec...
Jun 12, 2024•49 min
Of all the saints and heroes of the faith we have in our Catholic tradition, it can be difficult to spiritually connect with martyrs. Maybe that’s part of the point of martyrs, to trouble us a bit in a holy way, to remind us that sometimes faith in Christ can mean literally laying down one’s life for one’s friends. The martyrs invite us to reflect on the depth of my own faith commitments, and whether we’d share their steadfast courage if we were in their shoes. Does faith come first in my life, ...
Jun 05, 2024•54 min
Welcome to “Pathway to Priesthood”—a limited audio series from the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. In these conversations, host Eric Clayton talks with Jesuits who are in the final days of preparing for ordination to the priesthood. They reflect back on their vocation stories and experience of Jesuit formation, and wrestle with some of the biggest questions surrounding priestly ordination. On this, our final episode — at least for now — we’re reflecting on what it means to be ...
Jun 03, 2024•56 min
If you’re as interested in Catholicism and the arts as we are here at AMDG, you might also have been excited to see that a new movie about Flannery O’Connor’s writing and life is now playing nationwide. The movie is called “Wildcat,” directed and written by Ethan Hawke and starring his daughter Maya Hawke, who plays both Flannery and a range of characters who appear in the author’s stories. The movie blends traditional biopic narrative with detours into brief adaptations of O’Connor’s stories, b...
May 29, 2024•37 min
Welcome to “Pathway to Priesthood”—a limited audio series from the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. In these conversations, host Eric Clayton talks with Jesuits who are in the final days of preparing for ordination to the priesthood. They reflect back on their vocation stories and experience of Jesuit formation, and wrestle with some of the biggest questions surrounding priestly ordination. On this episode, we’re asking tough questions—literally. In our church and in our world,...
May 27, 2024•37 min
It’s graduation season, which means it’s commencement address season. Host Mike Jordan Laskey did a quick Google search for “most common words in graduation speeches,” and the top hit provided this list – which doesn’t include prepositions or other super-common words: 1. Life 2. Make 3. People 4. World 5. Yourself 6. Success 7. Generation 8. Human There are certainly exceptions, but the standard commencement address is all about YOU, the graduates, and what YOU will do with YOUR immense gifts to...
May 22, 2024•54 min
Welcome to “Pathway to Priesthood”—a limited audio series from the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. In these conversations, host Eric Clayton talks with Jesuits who are in the final days of preparing for ordination to the priesthood. They reflect back on their vocation stories and experience of Jesuit formation, and wrestle with some of the biggest questions surrounding priestly ordination. On this episode, we’re talking about accompaniment. We’re asking the question: Who makes...
May 20, 2024•40 min
This year marks 10 years since Fr. Paul Shelton, SJ, was ordained a priest. As a result, he's been feeling a bit reflective, nostalgic even. He's been thinking about the very first Mass he ever celebrated. But not for the reason you think. Today's episode of "AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast" is a fun one. In it, we hear from a variety of voices, a variety of perspectives on what actually happened at Paul's first Mass. Because it was anything but ordinary. It was Pentecost. And a Jesuit caught fire. This ...
May 15, 2024•26 min
Welcome to “Pathway to Priesthood”—a limited audio series from the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. In these conversations, host Eric Clayton talks with Jesuits who are in the final days of preparing for ordination to the priesthood. They reflect back on their vocation stories and experience of Jesuit formation, and wrestle with some of the biggest questions surrounding priestly ordination. On this episode, they dive into one of those all-important Ignatian concepts: Discernmen...
May 13, 2024•40 min
If you made a list of the best things about the Catholic Church in the United States, Catholic Charities USA would be in that list’s very top tier. A network of 168 local agencies based in dioceses throughout the country, Catholic Charities served more than 15 million of our at-risk neighbors last year alone. They serve people without homes, those who are unemployed or underemployed, children who are hungry or malnourished, elderly persons who are isolated, vulnerable migrants and refugees on th...
May 08, 2024•40 min
Welcome to “Pathway to Priesthood”—a limited audio series from the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States in which host Eric Clayton talks with Jesuits who are in the final days of preparing for priestly ordination. Hear Jesuits reflect back on their vocation stories and experience of formation, all while wrestling with some of the biggest questions surrounding priestly ordination. On this episode, we’re asking a basic question: Why even consider religious life? And what actually is i...
May 06, 2024•48 min
In 60-plus years of life, Reynaldo Domínguez has never heard someone say, "I live without water and I live in peace." Water is fundamental to a healthy and peaceful life, he says. Yet for Reynaldo and his community in Guapinol, Honduras, access to clean water has become a deadly fight that has killed two of his brothers and sent him and his family into hiding. The conflict started in 2018 when the Honduran company Inversiones Los Pinares, backed by international investors, began to dig out a roa...
May 02, 2024•45 min
En más de 60 años de vida, Reynaldo Domínguez nunca ha oído a nadie decir: "Vivo sin agua y vivo tranquilo". El agua es fundamental para una vida sana y en paz, nos afirma. Sin embargo, para Reynaldo y su comunidad en Guapinol, Honduras, el acceso al agua potable se ha convertido en una lucha mortal que ha matado a dos de sus hermanos y lo ha enviado a él y a su familia a la clandestinidad. El conflicto comenzó en 2018 cuando la empresa hondureña Inversiones Los Pinares, respaldada por inversore...
May 01, 2024•50 min
The American essayist and novelist Marilynne Robinson may not be Catholic, but her writing reveals a deeply sacramental imagination. Through five books of fiction and dozens of essays, Robinson trains her readers in the art of spiritual attention. Where is God’s grace operating in nature and in the ordinary ways humans love, disappoint and forgive one other? In her essay “Psalm 8” she writes, “I have spent my life watching not to see beyond the world,” but “merely to see, great mystery, what is ...
Apr 24, 2024•50 min
In honor of National Poetry Month - which is currently underway during April 2024 - author and editor Gary Jansen returns to the podcast to talk about his latest book, "Meditations at Midnight: Poetry and Prose." Gary lives at the intersection of faith and art. He’s worked in publishing a long time—both at secular publishing houses editing Catholic authors, and now at Loyola Press, acquiring and mentoring authors that are writing for a Catholic publisher. Gary is an author himself; he’s been on ...
Apr 17, 2024•41 min
You might be familiar with the American Catholic novelist, Flannery O’Connor. You might have read her short stories in a class, maybe “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” or “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” to name a few. You might have even read one of her novels, an essay or two or some of her letters. You might know that she spent much of her relatively short life in Georgia. And, if you know her work well, then you also know that she died in 1964. And so, you might be really surprised to learn...
Apr 10, 2024•38 min
There’s an old saying in Jesuit circles: If you’ve met one Jesuit, you’ve met one Jesuit. A fun list to make is all the different careers guys had before joining the Society of Jesus. We have actors and comedians, doctors and lawyers, astronomers and one former lieutenant governor. Shane Liesegang, SJ, today’s guest, is the only Jesuit host Mike Jordan Laskey has ever met who was a video game developer. Before entering the Jesuits in 2015, Shane worked for over a decade in video game development...
Apr 03, 2024•56 min
Fr. John P. Foley, SJ, spent 34 years as a missionary in Peru -- a full career in most lines of work. But then, in 1995, he was missioned back to the United States to start a high school for Latino students from low-income backgrounds in Chicago. Despite immense challenges -- like not knowing where the school would be even at the press conference announcing there would be a new school -- Cristo Rey Jesuit High School was founded in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood in 1996. Centered on an innovative...
Mar 27, 2024•43 min
While Fr. Daniel Hendrickson, SJ, president of Creighton University, is excited for both his women's and men's basketball teams' March Madness journeys, today’s episode isn’t about basketball at all. (Well, it makes an appearance for a couple minutes at the end.) It’s about the roles of Jesuit colleges and universities in our world today. Host Mike Jordan Laskey spoke with Fr. Hendrickson a couple months ago about his book “Jesuit Higher Education in a Secular Age,” which explores how Jesuit edu...
Mar 20, 2024•43 min
Ever since the Jesuits in the United Kingdom launched the daily prayer project “Pray As You Go” (PAYG) in 2006, the creative team behind the resource has shared fabulous audio prayer programs that are spiritually nourishing in their beauty and simplicity. Each day combines music, Scripture from the lectionary, and short spoken prayer prompts that always invite you to reflect on the Scripture in a new way. PAYG will slow you down and invite genuine contemplation, making it so different from almos...
Mar 13, 2024•38 min
