AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast

In 2021, two Jesuits who had just been ordained priests were missioned to serve migrant communities on the U.S.-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas. Soon after they arrived, Father Brian Strassburger and Father Louie Hotop agreed that there were so many incredible people and stories they were encountering that they just had to share them with the world through a podcast. They asked our communicati...

For many of you listening, the idea of spiritual reading is probably a familiar concept. You might have a book or two on your bedside that you pray with each night: something on the lives of the saints or new insights into old spiritual practices. Next to that pile of spiritual books might be a bible, and each day you read a passage, slowly, prayerfully. It's not hard to look for the Holy Spirit a...

Fr. Ed Dowling is a Jesuit priest you might never have heard of before. After hearing his story, you might find yourself wondering how this holy man isn’t more renowned. Thanks to a new book by Dawn Eden Goldstein, Fr. Ed is finally getting his due. Goldstein is the author of “Father Ed: The Story of Bill W’s Spiritual Sponsor,” which is the first biography of Father Edward Dowling, SJ, a Jesuit f...

When Susan Bigelow Reynolds was studying theology in grad school at Boston College, she saw an advertisement for free housing at St. Mary of the Angels Church in the Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood. In exchange for the place to live, she’d have to provide a few hours of parish work per week. That seemed like a good deal, so she moved right in. Little did she know that her decision would come to shap...

There’s nothing better than the Easter Triduum – from the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday through the bitter, heavy celebration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday to the unparalleled drama of the Easter fire and baptizing new Christians at the Vigil on Saturday night. The one big danger this time of year: We’ve heard the stories of Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection so many ti...

One of the most interesting Jesuit universities in the world is Saint Joseph University in Beirut, Lebanon. Founded in 1875, Saint Joseph is the only Jesuit university in the Arab World. On its incredibly impressive list of alumni are seven presidents of Lebanon. The former Superior General of the Jesuits, Fr. Peter Hans Kolvenbach, earned his doctorate there and then joined the faculty. Saint Jos...

Here in the American Jesuit universe, we’re in two parallel holy seasons at the same time: Lent and March Madness. Nine Jesuit teams between the women’s and men’s tournaments are in the Big Dance this year, and you can read all about them on our website at Jesuits.org/basketball. Today’s guest didn’t quite make it to the NCAA tournament this year, but he led one of the biggest success stories in a...

Ten years ago, on March 13, 2013, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected Pope. Do you remember those first hours and days? We found out he was from Argentina, the first Pope from the Global South. Then we heard his name would be Francis the First…or maybe just Francis? Then we saw him step to the window above St. Peter’s Square, looking fairly calm but probably also a bit overwhelmed, and he asked t...

The Academy Awards are coming up March 12th, so we wanted to recommend a couple of Oscar-nominated movies that fans of the podcast might enjoy. And there was one person host Mike Jordan Laskey was hoping to interview for this episode: his favorite film critic of all time, Alissa Wilkinson from the website Vox, where she’s the senior culture writer. Nobody writes on the intersections of cinema and...

You may have never heard the name Fr. Clarence Rivers before today. Fr. Rivers was a renown composer and liturgist, among other things, and he was helping people better understand—better see themselves—in the liturgy long before the Second Vatican Council made such actions the norm. Fr. Rivers was also the first Black priest ordained in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, and his own heritage and lived...

Lent is just around the corner, and there are so many vivid symbols of this liturgical season. You’ve got ashes and palms and purple stuff everywhere. No Alleluias, no Glorias, no meat at the Friday fish fry. One of the best Lenten symbols is the CRS Rice Bowl, those little cardboard boxes we fill with cash to support the work of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) overseas. It’s easy to grab a Rice Bo...

On this week’s AMDG, host MegAnne Liebsch talks to historian Nicholas Lewis about his research into the history of Jesuit-run boarding schools for Indigenous children. These schools were part of a larger U.S. government attempt to assimilate Indigenous peoples into white European culture from the 1820s to as late as the 1970s. Indigenous families were compelled to send their children to boarding s...

One of the big challenges in higher education today is polarization in the classroom, which of course reflects the polarization of the country at large. Professors like Dr. Amy Uelmen are trying to figure out how to encourage their students to speak and listen to each other across divides on complex social issues where there are no easy answers. Amy is a professor at the Georgetown Law Center, whe...

A disturbing trend over the past couple of years has been the rise of antisemitism. The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks antisemitic incidents, says 2021 was the worst year in decades and that 2022 will look similar once the numbers are tabulated. We’re in a five-year upswing overall. Let’s not give any more oxygen to acts of hate. Instead, we are thrilled to be sharing this conversation host...

If you’ve spent much time reading about Ignatian spirituality, there’s a good chance you’ve come across the work of Jim Manney. He has a great book on the Examen called “A Simple, Life-Changing Prayer” that often serves as introduction for many to this all-important part of Ignatian spirituality. Jim has this way of boiling down his vast—and it is vast!—array of Ignatian knowledge in a way that is...

Over the past couple of weeks, there have been countless reflections on the life and work of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, highlighting his rich theological writings and his decades of church service and even some of the challenging moments he faced before, during and after his papacy. He was a complex man with so much experience. Let us pray that he might rest in the peace of Christ forever. Whenev...

Today’s guest is Anjela Barnes, the vice president of the Accokeek Foundation. In her work, she helps preserve and protect Piscataway park, located in southern Maryland on the Potomac River. This is part of the traditional homelands of the Piscataway people, of which Anjela is a member. As you’ll hear in this episode, host Eric Clayton met Anjela at Loyola University Maryland. She was on a panel d...

Poetry can be intimidating and inaccessible. Why even bother? Guest Philip Metres is a living reminder that it’s worth it to bother, worth it to wrestle with poetry even when it’s difficult because the power of language is uniquely human and is one of the best parts of being alive. Phil is a poet, author and professor of English literature at John Caroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. He’s the aut...

Earlier this month, Nicole Perone and John Grosso were anxiously awaiting the birth of their first child. Nicole and John are both what you could call professional Catholics – Nicole is the national coordinator for a young adult initiative called ESTEEM that works to prepare college students for faith life after graduation. And after several years working in digital media for the Diocese of Bridge...

It’s a great time of year to sit back, relax and watch a Christmas movie. To help you fill out your binge-watching schedule these last few days before Christmas, host Mike Jordan Laskey invited Fr. Jim McDermott, SJ, onto the show to talk about some of their favorite movies to watch this time of year. Jim is an ideal candidate for this work. He’s a fantastic writer who covers the intersection of p...

In today's episode, meet writer and illustrator team, Paul Mitchell and Katie Broussard, a brother and sister passionate about sharing Ignatian spirituality with kids -- their own and others! Their latest project, "The Examen Book" from Loyola Press, doesn't just teach kids how to pray the examen; it invites families to encounter a God of love together. A little more about Paul and Katie: Paul car...

Saint Joseph is the most mysterious character from the Advent story. He doesn’t say anything and we know pretty much nothing about him, yet there are few figures more central to the story of our faith community. So host Mike Jordan Laskey asked his friend, Sister Colleen Gibson, SSJ, if she could help shed some light on this shadowy member of the Holy Family. Sr. Colleen is a Sister of Saint Josep...

Back at some of the very first Jesuit-run schools in the 1500s, teachers would work with students to put on plays. This tradition was called “Jesuit drama,” and it was seen as a fantastic way to accomplish several educational goals at once. The plays themselves were in Latin, so that helped the students learn the language. Plays required memorization and skilled rhetoric, both big values at the ti...

This week, we’re pleased to bring you another cross-over episode with our colleagues from the Jesuit Border Podcast! Jesuit fathers Brian Strassburger and Louie Hotop live and work in the Rio Grande Valley, providing aid and spiritual companionship to migrants on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Their podcast depicts their daily ministry, and how communities are responding to the humanitarian c...

A king. A cope. And a faith under siege. Intrigued? Today’s episode covers all this and more. Our guest, Dr. Jan Graffius, the curator of collections at Stonyhurst College in the UK – the oldest surviving Jesuit school in the world – is our guide through a riveting history that traces the rise and fall of the Catholic Church in England through the lens of a single piece of art: a cope commissioned...