AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast

After college and a stint as an elementary school teacher, Annie Phoenix was looking for volunteer opportunities with prison education programs. But there really weren’t any education programs in Louisiana prisons. So, she decided to start one. Annie co-founded multiple initiatives aimed at expanding education access to people who are incarcerated. Through her non-profit Operation Restoration, Ann...

Casey Stanton is the founding co-director of a new initiative called Discerning Deacons, which is engaging Catholics from all over the world around the question of ordaining women to the permanent diaconate in our church. Just to be clear from the start, they’re not talking about ordaining women to the Catholic priesthood, which is a totally different topic. This question about women deacons is mo...

Today’s guest, Fr. Andrew Laguna, SJ, is a vocation promoter in the US West Jesuit Province. The term “vocation promoter” is probably one few of us have heard before — unless, of course, we’ve been discerning religious life. But the term and title go back to the earliest days of the Jesuits. Early Jesuits were understandably concerned with growing the nascent Society of Jesus. One of those men was...

As you might have heard, the Catholic Church is in the middle of a long, global consultation process on the theme of “synodality,” a fancy-sounding theological word that means “on the way together.” Synodality is a way of doing church that emphasizes things like listening, shared leadership responsibilities between ordained and lay faithful, and reading and responding to the signs of the times. On...

Here’s an understatement: The last decade has been a challenging time for legacy print media. Heck, it’s been a challenging time for online media. How many of your favorite local newspapers or blogs or news websites have called it quits? You have to adapt or die, and the best ways to adapt aren’t always clear. Few people have as sharp a perspective on today’s media landscape as Fr. Matt Malone, SJ...

If you were going to make a list of the Catholic church’s problems today, maybe the word “clericalism” would be high on your list. We toss that word around a lot, but what is it, exactly? The Association of U.S. Catholic Priests defines it this way: “an expectation, leading to abuses of power, that ordained ministers are better than and should be over everyone else among the People of God.” Maybe...

On a given day, Fr. Damian Czerniak, SJ, faces a laundry list of responsibilities: finding Ukrainian refugees temporary housing, providing psychosocial support, assisting with paperwork, distributing funding, and maintaining contact with two Jesuit houses in Ukraine. Alongside Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), Fr. Damian is coordinating the Jesuit response to Ukrainian refugees in Poland. Since the in...

Welcome to a special March Madness episode of AMDG. As of Thursday afternoon, there are three Jesuit teams left in the women’s and men’s NCAA basketball tournaments. On the women’s side, the Creighton Bluejays have made their first ever Sweet Sixteen. On the men’s side, number-one overall seed Gonzaga have secured their incredible seventh straight trip to the Sweet Sixteen. But the clear top story...

Kathy Powell is currently the Creative Director, working with Becky Eldredge, LLC | Ignatian Ministries. But ever since the loss of her first child, Francis, through miscarriage, Kathy has dedicated a great deal of time and energy to walking with families who have had to lay their babies to rest all to soon. In this episode, we hear Kathy’s story. We learn from her how to walk with others. And thi...

This week, we celebrate the Feast of St. Patrick…St. Patrick’s Day. But too often, we reduce this day to a round of green beer and shamrock-themed t-shirts. Let’s go a little deeper. Our guest today is author Julianne Stanz. Julianne is a nationally known speaker, retreat leader, storyteller, and the Director of New Evangelization for the Diocese of Green Bay and a consultant to the USCCB Committe...

All of us have been watching Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with feelings of horror and sadness and helplessness. There have also been incredibly moving stories of the resilience and compassion of the Ukrainian people, who have been living under existential threat for years and years. It was our absolute privilege at AMDG to welcome one of Ukraine’s leading Catholic theologians last week. Pavlo Smyt...

Well, Lent is here. Hooray. To be honest, it feels like the last thing we need right now is 40 days of fasting and penance and just the general heaviness that comes with this season. We’ve been living in a perpetual state of Lent for two years now. So host Mike Jordan Laskey called up his friend Fr. Paddy Gilger, SJ. Fr. Paddy is a sociology professor at Loyola Chicago and a super thoughtful perso...

One of the most interesting developments in the Jesuit world these days is the emergence of a field called “Ignatian leadership.” The concept comes from the belief that Ignatian spirituality has a huge amount to offer leaders today, whether or not they’re working in “religious” contexts. A lot of those Jesuit concepts that have been at the heart of the order since its founding can be incredibly he...

Lent is only a few weeks away. But before you panic about what to do during these upcoming forty days of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, listen to the advice of spiritual author Gary Jansen. Gary is the author of several spirituality books, including his latest, “MicroShifts: Transforming Your Life One Step At A Time.” Throughout his career as a writer, editor and publisher, Gary has devoted a lot...

Dorothy Day is among the most inspiring, challenging and holy American Catholics ever. As the Jesuit peace activist Daniel Berrigan said, Dorothy "lived as if the truth were true." There were no half-measures with her. The co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, Dorothy put her faith into action in pursuit of social justice with so much passion and heart and intelligence that she’s now up for...

Ana Grande's great uncle was Fr. Rutilio Grande, SJ, a Jesuit from El Salvador who was just beatified last month. (Beatification is the final step before canonized sainthood in the church, and we can call him Blessed Rutilio now.) Blessed Rutilio was assassinated by El Salvador's security forces in 1977 for his ministry and community organizing with impoverished farmers. He was good friends with A...

Listen to our new Ignatian retreat, a four-part series of ten minute audio modules, written and narrated by Ryan Carroll, a PhD student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Missed an episode of this prayer retreat? Find this and other digital retreats at https://www.jesuits.org/spirituality/ignatian-digital-retreats/.

John W. Miller was a successful journalist with the Wall Street Journal, covering all sorts of topics all over the planet. A few years ago, he gave it all up for an extremely different path. He tells host Mike Jordan Laskey about the spiritual journey that led him to co-directing his first feature film, the documentary "Moundsville," which tells the story of a small West Virginia town on the Ohio...

Listen to our new Ignatian retreat, a four-part series of ten minute audio modules, written and narrated by Ryan Carroll, a PhD student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Take time to pray as you begin this new year. New episodes drop every Monday in January.

This Saturday, January 22, Father Rutilio Grande, SJ – along with laymen Manuel Solórzano and Nelson Rutilio Lemus – will be beatified in San Salvador, El Salvador. All three men are martyrs, killed in 1977. Fr. Grande, though, was the first priest assassinated before the Salvadoran Civil War began. And, he was a close friend of Archbishop and saint, Óscar Romero. Fr. Arturo Sosa – the superior of...

Listen to our new Ignatian retreat, a four-part series of ten minute audio modules, written and narrated by Ryan Carroll, a PhD student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Take time to pray as you begin this new year. New episodes drop every Monday in January.

Growing up in an abusive household, Issac Sneed wasn’t allowed to have friends. He learned to fend for himself. As an adult, he kept people at arm’s length. For years, he struggled with substance abuse and, at times, lived on the streets. While staying in a homeless shelter, he began attending reflection circles with Ignatian Spirituality Project (ISP)—a Jesuit ministry across the U.S., Canada and...

Listen to our new Ignatian retreat, a four-part series of ten minute audio modules, written and narrated by Ryan Carroll, a PhD student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Take time to pray as you begin this new year. New episodes drop every Monday in January.

Hosts Mike Jordan Laskey and Eric Clayton kick off the new year by reflecting on some Ignatian spiritual principles that can guide us as we navigate 2022.

This week on AMDG, we're bringing you a special cross-over episode from our colleagues at the Jesuit Border Podcast. Hosted by two Jesuits, Fathers Brian Strassburger and Louie Hotop, this podcast explores the Catholic response to humanitarian needs on the U.S.-Mexico Border. Since the summer of 2021, Louie and Brian have been working in the Rio Grande Valley, providing aid and spiritual companion...