Just Politics

Some threats to democracy, such as the insurrection on January 6, 2021, are lawless and loud. But others draw on the workings of the law to turn them against democracy itself. In this episode we talk to Celina Stewart, chief counsel and senior director of advocacy and litigation for the League of Women Voters, about those threats. They include gerrymandering, restrictive voting laws, and other mea...

Just Politics will be taking a little break this week. We'd hoped to bring you an interview with a member of Congress, but as you may have heard, things are a little chaotic in Congress right now, and our interview was postponed due to the votes to elect a new House Speaker. As we've discussed this season, our democracy is in peril, and the past couple of months have been a clear illustration of t...

Democracy's decline at the global level can prompt feelings of helplessness and despair. But inaction is not an option for justice-seekers, and fortunately, there are ways to take action. Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow in Carnegie's Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, has studied the issue and recommends five strategies for supporting democracy. She also names tactics that, while neces...

It's been a chaotic week in Washington, D.C., with a narrowly averted government shutdown and the historic ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. We speak with NETWORK government relations director Ronnate Asirwatham, who explains why it doesn't have to be this way—that the drama surrounding a still-possible government shutdown involves a small group of extremist legislators determined to slash f...

  It's easy to be overwhelmed by the sense of brokenness that pervades politics in the United States today. But the problems at the heart of all this precede the dysfunction of the past decade and the political alliances of the last 40 years: They go back to Jim Crow, slavery, and beyond. This week's guest, Lisa Sharon Harper, has traced her own personal history as a Black woman in white evangelic...

Christian nationalism is a term that comes up with increased frequency in U.S. politics. It's a label that tries to sanitize something very ugly: the goal of a society in which only white Christians of a particular ideology enjoy the full privilege of being an American. To unmask this movement, we turn to an ally from another Christian tradition: Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joi...

Book bans, political violence, and other hallmarks of Christian nationalism are not things many people imagine just showing up in their backyard. But that's exactly what happened to Dr. Nichole Flores in her community of Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Dr. Flores is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia whose work focuses on justice, democracy, migration, fa...

What does it mean to live in a fragile democracy? It can be difficult to imagine what that actually looks like. State voter suppression laws and candidates for elected office threatening political retribution against their opponents are two examples. But it isn't every day that we witness the fragility of our system of government up close. On August 2, NETWORK government relations advocate Jarrett...

The Just Politics podcast, a collaboration between NETWORK and U.S. Catholic magazine, will return for a third season on September 11, 2023. This new season will focus on democracy—the threats it faces, specifically, white supremacy and Christian nationalism; its promise; and how people can work to preserve, protect, and expand it.     Launched in 2022, Just Politics is hosted by Colin Martinez Lo...

Are we on the path to a more just politics and equitable world? If we are, women are going to lead us there. It's the finale of Just Politics' second season, and we celebrate with our first crossover episode as the hosts of the Beyond the Habit podcast—Sisters of St. Joseph Erin McDonald and Colleen Gibson—join us for a wide-ranging discussion of the place of justice in the evolving role of women...

As Tax Day approaches, we look at the hazards of extreme wealth disparity. In his State of the Union address this year, President Biden called for the passage of the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax Act, saying that billionaires shouldn't pay less in taxes than teachers and firefighters. But that injustice is only one datapoint in a decades-long trend of ever-widening inequality between the wealthie...

Holy Week is a time for pondering the deepest mysteries of the Christian faith, especially how in the betrayal, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the mission of the Son of God on earth was fulfilled. Confronting the ugly political realities in the United States today can spark the question for people of faith: Where is God in all of this? In this episode, Laura Peralta-Schulte, NETWORK'...

The 13th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act—March 23—is a time to reflect on the significant legacy of Catholic sisters in helping people in the United States get access to quality, affordable health care. The Rev. Jen Butler, founder of Faith in Public Life, reflects on the legacy of Sister Catherine Pinkerton, C.S.J., who worked as a lobbyist at NETWORK for 24 years. Going back into the 1990...

  March 13 is the 10th anniversary of the election of Pope Francis. In this episode we explore the threads of the pope's identity—the first Latin American pope, the first Jesuit pope, the first pope named Francis—and unpack what they mean for his leadership of the Catholic Church.  In Just Politics' first interview with a Vatican official, Emilce Cuda, a lay woman theologian from the pope's home c...

Do Presidents' Day and Ash Wednesday have any connection beyond their close proximity on the calendar this year?  It turns out that reflecting on the history of the United States through the lens of the legacies of 46 presidents can be a helpful tool in preparing for the penitential journey of Lent. Taking into account slavery, Jim Crow, Native American genocide, and other issues, this history rai...

What does it mean to respond seriously to great harm? What if that harm stretches over centuries, from slavery and the Jim Crow era down to the persistent racist injustices and iniquities of the present day?  Catholics and many other justice-seekers believe in reparatory justice as a way to move toward reconciliation and healing. Reparatory justice demands honest reckoning with past and ongoing ha...

People of faith believe God is at work in the world around us. But this can be hard to see, given the state of politics in the United States, especially when religious leaders often seem fixated on all the wrong issues, and many faith communities appear reluctant to address political issues at all.  The Just Politics podcast is dedicated to asking the hard questions and taking on the most pressing...

Advent challenges us to better prepare ourselves for the arrival of Jesus in our world. And this call to transformation resonates especially with the issue of immigration in the United States. Immigration reform has long eluded advocates seeking better policies for how the United States responds to the needs of more than 10 million people in the country without legal status, as well as the many pe...

For years, politicians in the United States have invoked the rhetoric of being "pro-family." But what does that really mean? For justice-seekers, it means policies and policy proposals that would help families to flourish: the Child Tax Credit, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, Medicaid expansion, and others. In this episode, we talk to a longtime champion of pro-family policy on Capitol Hill: Re...

Why do people in the United States struggle with the idea of calling something racist? Sister Emily, Sister Eilis, Joan, and Colin explore America's troubled relationship with confronting racism, not as a relic of an earlier era but as a present-day evil that is part of both religion and politics in the United States. Since November is Black Catholic History Month, they talk to Sinsinawa Dominican...

Just Politics celebrates Halloween by confronting some of the scariest elements of our pre-election season: election deniers running for the statewide offices that will oversee future elections; threats of political violence; and the embrace of Christian nationalism by many people. Joan Neal discusses these threats with the Rev. Christian Watkins, who leads NETWORK's efforts to defend democracy th...

As the 2022 midterm elections near, Sister Emily, Sister Eilis, Joan, and Colin discuss the importance of being a "Pope Francis Voter"—a multi-issue voter willing to do the work to build and protect an inclusive democracy where every person can flourish. Pope Francis calls concern for poverty, environmental destruction, and other issues "equally sacred" to the care for the unborn that is central t...

With the help of NETWORK's historian, Mara Rutten, we explore the 50-year history of U.S. Catholic sisters' involvement in political advocacy as part of their vocations. This includes the founding of NETWORK in the early 1970s and continues down to the present day. Sister Eilis, Sister Emily, and Colin also chat with two of NETWORK's past leaders: Sister, Servant of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Na...

Sister of Providence Emily TeKolste and Sister of the Humility of Mary, Eilis McCulloh are both based in the Midwest and serve on the Grassroots Mobilization team at the NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice. In conversation with NETWORK deputy executive director and chief equity officer Joan F. Neal and grassroots outreach and education coordinator Colin Martinez Longmore, they delve into the...

What does a better kind of politics look like and how can we make it a reality? In this podcast, Catholic sisters and their coworkers at NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice answer this question with a variety of guests. From the border to the federal budget, the pews to the polls, join us to explore the intersection of Catholic teaching and politics. Just Politics is a collaboration between...