Tomorrow's American Catholic Podcast

Thomas Masaryk is an artist, deacon, and hospital chaplain. He holds degrees in fine arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology and Queens College in New York and has apprenticed with sculptor Donald Miller and master Sicilian wood carver Frank Licitra. Thomas’s work has been featured in individual and group exhibitions, as well as numerous publications in the United States and overseas. Throug...

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine is the Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace and University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies Emerita at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Levine has been awarded grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of...

Mary Fontana is an author, essayist, and award-winning poet whose prose and poems have appeared in The Sun , America , BorderLore , Prairie Schooner , and other publications. Her book Strangers in the Province of Joy: Practicing Radical Hospitality on the US-Mexico Border was released in May by Orbis Books. This narrative history of Annunciation House, a house of hospitality for migrants and refug...

Michele Dunne is a professed Secular Franciscan and the executive director of the Franciscan Action Network , a collective Franciscan voice seeking to transform United States public policy related to peace making, care for creation, poverty, and human rights. Before coming to her current position, Michele’s career focused on the Middle East and US foreign policy. From 2006 until 2021, she headed p...

Matthew Fox is a spiritual theologian, Episcopal priest, and activist for gender justice and eco-justice. He holds a doctorate in the history and theology of spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris. To date he has written over 40 books, including Original Blessing , The Coming of the Cosmic Christ , Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth , and A Way to God:...

Sergio Lopez is a husband, father, educator, and Catholic organizer from Southern California. He serves as the National Director for Mission and Leadership Formation for Catholics in Communion , where he accompanies Catholic leaders, parishes, and organizations working to build a more just, compassionate, and faithful church. He previously served in leadership formation with Catholic Relief Servic...

Janet McKenzie was born in Brooklyn and raised in and around New York City. She studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Art Students League, and was the recipient of the Edward McDowell Traveling Scholarship. For many years she has lived and worked in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. In the mid-nineties, Ms. McKenzie began to incorporate diversity, children, and symbolic imagery in...

Fr. Thomas J. Reese is a Jesuit priest and currently a senior analyst for Religion News Service . He has previously been a columnist at the National Catholic Reporter as well as an associate editor and editor in chief at America magazine. Fr. Tom entered the Jesuits in 1962 and was ordained in 1974. He was educated at St. Louis University, the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, and at the Univ...

It’s been four months since we relaunched Tomorrow’s American Catholic along with this podcast. Between January and April, we released 14 episodes with over 2,600 downloads, and we have many more cued up for release and scheduled to record. As we concluded this initial cycle, we thought it might be fruitful to pause and reflect with our podcast co-facilitators, Patrick Carolan, Barbara Mariconda,...

Father Vincent Pizzuto, PhD, is a professor of New Testament and Christian Mysticism in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the (Jesuit) University of San Francisco. Committed to linking ancient Christian tradition with contemporary faith, his courses explore the relationship between historical-critical exegesis, Christian mysticism, and theology both ancient and modern. In additio...

The Rt. Rev. Br. Mark D’Alessio is a Franciscan friar and the founder of the interfaith community of the Companions of Francis and Clare. He is also a spiritual director, Christian bishop and priest, ordained lay Buddhist minister, chaplain, retreat leader, author, crisis counselor for the homeless, and past president and executive director of the Psychotherapy & Spirituality Institute, which draw...

Sean Forrest is a musician, presenter, author, youth minister, and missionary who has used his gifts and talents to make an impact on many fronts. He is the co-founder of Haiti180 , an organization that nurtures leaders of faith, provides love-filled childhoods, and extends God’s care through education, medical aid, and housing for Haiti’s poorest. To date, Haiti180 has built an orphanage, a schoo...

Bishop John Stowe is originally from Amherst, Ohio. After a year of community college, he joined the formation program for the Conventual Franciscan Province of Our Lady of Consolation at St. Bonaventure Friary in St. Louis, Missouri. He began studies in philosophy and history at St. Louis University and completed a bachelor of arts degree in each in 1990. He subsequently earned a master of divini...

Mike Matteuzzi is the founder of Contemporary Spirituality , an organization dedicated to connecting sincere seekers with the wisdom teachings of the world’s religions. Contemporary Spirituality offers “something more for sincere seekers” through in-person and online programming. It seeks to build a supportive community that emphasizes commitment to a regular contemplative practice while assisting...

Fr. Reginald Norman was born in Durham, North Carolina, and raised in Connecticut. He converted to Catholicism in 1990 at St. James Roman Catholic Church in Stratford, Connecticut, and pursued a career in business before answering the call to priesthood. Ordained a priest for the Diocese of Bridgeport, he has served as pastor and administrator at multiple parishes and is presently the vicar of the...

Pastor Christine Pelfrey attended Catholic schools from kindergarten through high school. She first felt a call to ordained ministry as a child preparing to receive her First Communion. But without a clear path forward in the Roman Catholic tradition, she pushed aside the call for many years. In 2014, when the pestering of the Holy Spirit made it clear that the call to ministry was not to be pushe...

Colette Lafia is an award-winning writer, retreat leader, and spiritual director who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. A graduate of the Spiritual Directors’ Institute at Mercy Center in Burlingame, California, she also completed the Living School program in the Christian contemplative and mystical traditions. She is the author of The Divine Heart: Seven Ways to Live in God’s Love , which recei...

Fr. Tom Lynch served as pastor of Saint James parish in Stratford, Connecticut, for 31 years. Committed to issues of social justice and living the radical demands of the gospel, Saint James earned a reputation for bringing discipleship to life. Under Fr. Tom’s leadership, this vital, engaged community of faith was named one of the top 100 Excellent Catholic Parishes in the United States. Fr. Tom h...

Sr. Leonida Katunge is a St. Joseph Sister from the region of Mombasa, Kenya. She is a theologian and a civil lawyer with extensive experience in academia, pastoral ministry, and human rights advocacy. She holds a Ph. D. and a master’s degree in sacred liturgy from the Pontifical Athenaeum of St. Anslem in Rome, a bachelor’s degree in theology, a Master of Laws, a Bachelor of Laws, and a diploma i...

Therese Lefever has spent a lifetime in the service of others: as a mom, an educator, in parish ministry, religious education, and as a social activist. She is program director at the Burroughs Community Center in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she leads programs such as Our Woven Community . Our Woven Community provides local resettled refugee women the opportunity to become self-sufficient leade...

Kurt Johnson is an internationally renowned scientist, social activist, author, and former monastic. He is also a pioneer in the field of interspirituality, the discovery of a universal spirituality within the world’s religions. His latest project is the two-volume set Interspirituality (Light on Light Press), a compendium of writings on the heritage and future of the interspiritual movement with...

Robert Nicastro, Ph. D., is a theologian, teacher, and writer whose research explores the convergence of religion, science, and artificial intelligence. His work focuses on how emerging technologies are reshaping human identity, planetary consciousness, and the future of religious thought. His doctoral dissertation,  The Future as Sole Support: Metaphysics, Hyperphysics, and the Theology of Teilha...

In this inaugural episode, podcast co-facilitators Patrick Carolan, Michael Centore, and Barbara Mariconda introduce themselves and their hopes for the podcast, and speak a bit about their vision of “tomorrow’s American Catholic.” Patrick Carolan is a Catholic activist, organizer, and writer. He served as the executive director of the Franciscan Action Network for ten years and co-founded the Glob...