AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast

If you’ve ever been intimidated by Ignatian spirituality, today’s guest will put you at ease. In fact, Fr. Michael Hansen is determined to make the Ignatian exercises accessible to as many people as possible. Why? It’s simple: He knows that God is at work, whether you’re doing the full thirty day retreat or just a one-off reflection. Host Eric Clayton has been intrigued by Mick’s work for a while....

If you have followed Jesuit-related headlines over the past few months, you might have heard about the situation in Nicaragua. In August, the government of dictator Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, closed the Jesuit-run University of Central America in the capital city of Managua. They confiscated the property, too, including the Jesuit residence there. While these devel...

You may have heard that the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops is meeting all month long in Rome. This is just the latest stage of the years-long Synod on Synodality, which included listening sessions in parishes and other Catholic ministry settings all over the world. Participants will be discussing issues connected to communion, participation and the mission of the church. One thing that m...

Here’s a list of famous comedians who all have at least one thing in common that’s relevant to this podcast: Bob Newhart, Bill Murray, Bob Hope, Chris Farley, George Carlin, Amy Poehler, Conan O’Brien, Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell, Dan Aykroyd, John Leguizamo, John Candy, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Jim Gaffigan, Janeane Garofalo and John Mulaney. Did you guess? They all have a Catholic backgroun...

If you’ve had any encounter with Jesuits or Ignatian spirituality, you know the whole thing rests on the simple yet radical idea that God is to be found in all things. And films — stories — are an obvious place to look for God. Stories reflect who we are as people; they point the way toward where we might yet go. We can all point to our favorite “religious” film, right? ("The Mission," "Of Gods an...

Fr. Chris Kellerman, SJ, is the author of "All Oppression Shall Cease: A History of Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Catholic Church" (Orbis, 2022), which provides a rigorously researched, era-by-era history of the Catholic Church’s teachings and actions related to slavery. The book gives a detailed account of the Church’s slaveholding past while issuing a call for the Church to take the necessary s...

Many weeks ago, host Eric Clayton visited a coastal town in Kenya called Malindi — and the Jesuit community that lives there. It’s a new community, only about five or so years old, and it’s been tasked with carrying out the legacy of St. Francis Xavier who visited that very place many, many years ago. Xavier — the great missionary — spent only a few days on that shore. But while there, he engaged...

Conventional wisdom would have us keep our options open. Don’t commit until you have to—and even then, always have a backup plan. The world’s a big place with lots of choices, and you deserve your crack at all of them. That might be conventional wisdom. But our guest today, Pete Davis, firmly disagrees. In fact, he wrote a whole book about it. It’s called “Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an...

If you spend any time on social media, you might have seen Washington Post columnist Christine Emba’s big essay earlier this summer. It’s headlined “Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness.” Every so often there’s a piece about contemporary masculinity that pops up, but Christine’s piece was so widely read. The essay takes on the challenges men face in American society today with nuance,...

Today's host, Eric A. Clayton, encountered today’s guest’s professional title before he met the man himself. Eric was told to chase down the person who held the “Chair of Ignatian Thought and Imagination” at Regis University—and he was not disappointed. Dr. Chris Pramuk is said chair. He’s also an associate professor of religious studies. His interests focus on the intersection of faith, creativit...

You can’t talk about the Catholic Church in the United States without talking about Latino Catholics. About half of the Catholic population in the United States is Latino, which includes U.S.-born Hispanics and about the one million Latino immigrants who arrive here each year. And very few people if any know more about U.S. Latino Catholicism than Professor Hosffman Ospino, an associate professor...

As we turn the corner into the second half of summer, you might be wondering to yourself: When do I get a chance to rest and recharge? It’s been nothing but go, go, go. If that sounds like your summer days, then today’s episode is a treat. Spiritual director and award-winning author Vinita Hampton Wright returns to the pod to talk about her newest book from Ave Maria Press, “Set the World on Fire:...

The Society of Jesus’ 71st Congregation of Procurators, which was held in Loyola, Spain. Over 100 Jesuits gathered for the congregation, one from each province in the world plus Jesuit Superior General Fr. Arturo Soca and his assistants. So what exactly is a Congregation of Procurators? It sounds like old-fashioned Church speak. A brief explanation: There are two types of big global congregations...

Sr. Rose Pacatte was the keynote speaker at the 2023 Catholic Media Conference. She talked about how artificial intelligence and the spiritual life intersect, how social media can — and cannot — spread the Gospel, and how we’re all called to media literacy as part of our lives as Christians. Today, Sr. Rose joins us to reflect on all these things: AI, Threads, pop culture, media literacy and her o...

John Herreid is the creative mind behind a new publication from Ignatius Press called “The Catholic Home Gallery.” This stunning volume is made up of 18 works of art by contemporary Catholic artists, each of which is removable from the book and suitable for framing. The images are accompanied by short essays on the artist and their work. John is a graphic designer for Ignatius Press and a talented...

What makes a prayer “feminist?” Shannon Evans — author, retreat facilitator, and the spirituality and culture editor at National Catholic Reporter — is back on the pod today to reflect on exactly that question. She has a great new book out, a compilation of prayers, called “Feminist Prayers for My Daughter: Powerful Petitions for Every Stage of Her Life.” And let me assure you, this book is for ev...

A vivid definition of the Catholic Church is attributed to the literary giant James Joyce: Catholic means “here comes everybody.” Never in recent history has that felt more accurate than during the current Synod on Synodality. Lots of AMDG listeners have been active in the synod, participating in this global process of spiritual conversation and consultation. The synod comprises several stages, fr...

This past April, French bishops voted to open the sainthood cause of 20th century Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac. If you had a time machine and went back to the 1950s and told Fr. de Lubac this news, he probably wouldn’t believe you. In those years, the church was so nervous about de Lubac’s scholarship that he was prevented from teaching theology and his books were removed from Jesuit libraries...

There are so many theories about why young adults are leaving the Catholic Church today. Maybe our parishes aren’t welcoming enough, or maybe they’re watering down the faith. Maybe young people are being asked to do too much to be part of the community. Or maybe they’re not being asked to do enough. Maybe they’re angry at the church’s positions on social issues. Or maybe they just drift away becau...

If you were going to make a list of the most inspiring things the Catholic Church is doing in the world, the work of Caritas Internationalis would be right there near the top. Caritas is a global confederation of Catholic charities working to alleviate poverty, promote social justice and advocate for the rights of the marginalized. With members organizations spread across about 200 countries and t...

There’s always the temptation for religious orders to lionize their founder. To point to a single person and say, “There! That’s the way to live the Christian life! Just do what they did.” Despite the number of parishes and programs and centers named for Ignatius of Loyola, the man himself was pretty resolute on the need to have your own experience of God. His experience was exactly that: his expe...

Often in the story of St. Ignatius of Loyola, we zero in on the “cannonball moment.” It’s the instant in Ignatius’ story when everything changes—even if the would-be saint hasn’t yet fully realized it. But even more important than that war wound is the eleven months that follow, that long, tedious period of recovery and reflection and reading. It’s then that Ignatius encounters a book on Jesus Chr...

“Lodge 49,” a comedy-drama TV series that ran on the channel AMC for two seasons, is about an ex-surfer named Dud (Wyatt Russell) who’s drifting through life after the loss of his father and the closing of his family’s pool supply store. He stumbles into a rundown old fraternal lodge belonging to a group called the Order of the Lynx. (Think of the freemasons or the Benevolent and Protective Order...

As you probably know, the global Catholic Church is in the middle of a three-year synod process on the topic of synodality. The synod has featured thousands of listening sessions with the faithful all over the world, the biggest consultation process in the history of the church. Maybe you’ve been involved in one or more of these meetings yourself. One of the key themes that has emerged again and a...

Most of us probably don’t stop to reflect on our use of technology and how the devices and apps we use affect our lives and society as a whole. What is it doing to our brains and our souls that we reach for our smartphones mindlessly hundreds of times a day? What do we say on social media that I wouldn’t say in real life, and how does our behavior online make the world better – or, more likely, wo...