Jesuitical

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 religion correspondent for Vox (with a V she is quick to clarify). There she translates religious stories to a largely secular audience and brings a theolog...

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 fall apart in college. Neat, pre-packaged answers that she was taught weren’t satisfying anymore. “I never had permission to challenge the Bible,” Rach...

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 lives of African-American women religious. Now she’s telling those stories in a forthcoming book (with an amazing title), Subversive Habits.  Shannen tells...

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 comedian about his time living in a L’Arche community, his struggles with depression and making people laugh in 2018. In Signs of the Times, Pope Francis ac...

It was a curious Tweet that came across my timeline. Was A.C. Slater really getting baptized in the Jordan River? Got baptized in the same river Jesus did...#JordanRiver #Jesus #JohnTheBaptist pic.twitter.com/WIuPtqEk9b — Mario Lopez (@MarioLopezExtra) March 22, 2018 And there was another one—this time at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Annunciation: Angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary she was goi...

How do you change the mind of someone who thinks you don’t belong in this country because of your faith? Make them laugh, says Negin Farsad, Muslim-American comedian, actress, writer and filmmaker. And she does. Back in 2014, she took a troupe of Muslim comedians on tour in America’s heartland to talk (and joke) about Islamophobia for the documentary film “The Muslims Are Coming!” Today, she conti...

Cyrus Habib is the 16th and current Lieutenant Governor of Washington State. Born in Baltimore, Md., Cyrus is a three-time cancer survivor and has been fully blind since he was 8-years-old. His parents immigrated to the United States from Iran before he was born, and he is both the first and only Iranian-American official to hold statewide elected office in the United States. We ask Cyrus how his...

It’s not an easy position for faithful Catholics to stake out, criticizing a popular pope. But Ross Douthat is worried about where Pope Francis is leading the Catholic Church. In his new book, To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism, the New York Times op-ed columnist argues that Francis’ “truces” with the modern world—specifically his more pastoral approach on issues rang...

What makes a Christian movie? Can you define it based on its themes and subjects? Or is it all in whom it’s marketed at? Alissa Wilkinson is a film critic at Vox, where she covers film and culture. Before writing at Vox, Alissa was critic-at-large at Christianity Today. We discuss the role of religion in film, whether “Christian” or not, what her favorite films are and more on this week’s show. Du...

This week, we talk with Wajahat Ali, a contributing op-ed writer for The New York Times, where he covers religion, family life and U.S. politics. Wajahat is also one of the producers of the Emmy-nominated series, “The Secret Life of Muslims,” which takes a look into the lives of U.S. Muslims. We talk with Wajahat about the perception of Muslim Americans in the age of Trump, and how his Jesuit educ...

“Any way I tell this story is a lie.” Mary Karr opens her memoir “Lit” with a warning about the inevitable unreliability of memory. But don’t be fooled. Mary Karr delivers many truths that you need to hear. Mary Karr is an award-winning poet and New York Times best-selling author. Her poems have been published in the New Yorker, the Atlantic and the Paris Review. Her trilogy of memoirs, The Liars...

As I write this, thousands of students across the country are walking out of their high schools to protest gun violence. April 20 marks the 19th anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo., which left 13 dead. At the time, it was the deadliest school shooting in modern U.S. history. Tragically, that grisly record had been overtaken several times in the last two decad...

Whoever says you have to choose between science and faith has not met Guy Consolmagno, S.J.—a Jesuit brother and director of the Vatican Observatory. We ask what projects the pope’s astronomers are working on now, if he believes in aliens and why people in every time and place look to the stars with big questions. And in Signs of the Times, Pope Francis denounces a chemical attack in Syria that ki...

“You know, I don’t know about Jesuits except what I am learning,” Sarah Silverman tells us on this week’s episode of Jesuitical. “Every Jesuit I meet, I find that I adore and just love the bringing emotion and feelings and intellect together.” Every week, during the interview portion of the podcast, we feature a guest, Catholic and sometimes non-Catholic, that offers an interesting perspective on...

For this week’s episode, we’re bringing you our live recording from last Friday, March 23 at Loyola University Chicago. We’re talking with a frequent guest of the show, James Martin, S.J., about his new podcast “The Examen with Father James Martin.” Now, I will admit—I have always wanted to be good at praying the Examen (like a good Jesuit-educated Catholic), but for various reasons (sloth and ori...

What is a papal ninja and how do you become one? This week, we went straight to the source to find out. Sean Bryan competes on the hit NBC show “American Ninja Warrior,” where he takes on insanely difficult obstacle courses—for the greater glory of God. And that’s just his side gig. Sean also helps lead the Lay Mission Project, which forms lay people to live out their faith and transform whatever...

It’s taken over a year for us to get our boss, Matt Malone, S.J., on Jesuitical—and we promise it was worth the wait. Matt is president and editor in chief of America, and the reason why Jesuitical exists in the first place. This week we talk to him about Pope Francis’ election five years ago, for which he was present, the spiritual side of St. Patrick’s day and his journey to working at America....

This week, due to inclement weather, we were unable to record on our usual Wednesday. This week’s episode is an abbreviated one, sans consolations and desolations, but have no fear: It’s a good one. Since Selection Sunday—the official start of the NCAA tournament and office bracket pools across the nation—is this weekend, we decided to bring in Joe Lunardi, the ESPN bracketologist and administrato...

I feel the same way about poetry that I do about prayer: I know it’s good for the soul; I really respect those who have mastered the art—and I have a very hard time getting into it. To which Elizabeth Acevedo, this week’s guest, (wisely) responds: “Maybe you just haven’t found the right poet.” Liz is a slam poet and author of the upcoming novel, The Poet X, set for release on March 6. In the book...

How’s your Lent going? Did you make it at least a few days (unlike me) before breaking your Lenten practice? If you’re trying to up your prayer game this Lent and haven’t quite figured out how to do it yet, you won’t want to miss this week’s guest. Luigi Gioia, a professor at the Pontifical University of Sant’Anselmo in Rome, is the author of Say It To God: In Search of Prayer, which the Archbisho...

This week, to celebrate our one year (liturgical) anniversary we are talking with Liel Leibovitz and Stephanie Butnick. They are two-thirds of Unorthodox, a Jewish podcast from The Tablet. Here at Jesuitical, we hold a special place in our hearts for these hosts—they are a part of our origin story. We talk to Liel and Stephanie about how we basically stole their podcast format, the differences bet...

We live in an age of opinion writers telling us that we live in an age of [insert sweeping generalization here]. The hotter the take, the more attention it gets not only from readers who already agree but pundits eager to tear it down with their own scorching rebuttal. Enter Christine Emba, an op-ed writer for The Washington Post, who traffics in nuance and explores the deeper questions beneath th...

“It is not possible to build bridges between people while forgetting God,” Pope Francis said early in his pontificate. “But the converse is also true: it is not possible to establish true links with God, while ignoring other people.” Many U.S. Catholics have not only ignored their Muslim brothers and sisters but harbor discriminatory views about Muslims at alarming rates. Georgetown University’s B...

Is yoga cultural appropriation? Is it just stretching? Is it possible to blend yoga and the Catholic faith? This week we get into these questions and more with Bobby Karle, S.J., the founder of Ignatian Yoga, a practice that draws on Ignatian spirituality and yoga. Through Ignatian Yoga, Bobby offers classes, retreats and workshops centered around the core principles of Ignatian spirituality, like...

You have heard it said, “Who run the world? Girls” (Bey 4:12). But we ask: Who runs the church? Popes, of course. But across the country there are dedicated women of faith taking the lead in parishes, schools, social ministries—and magazines. Our guest this week is one of them. Kerry Weber is an executive editor at America and the driving force behind a groundbreaking new survey of U.S. Catholic w...