AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast

A great lesser-known Martin Luther King, Jr., quote is “that before you’ve finished eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world.” It’s even truer today than when Dr. King spoke the line during his Christmas sermon in 1967. Think of the millions of unseen hands that worked to bring you your toothpaste, your smartphone, your shoes, your clean running water, your toast, your cup of coffee. Our guest today is a Jesuit economist who’s particularly interested in that last one on the list — your cup of coffee. Fr. Stephen Pitts, SJ, is an economics professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A lot of his research and ministry work has been done in connection with a cooperative of farmers called Capeltic Coffee. Based in Chiapas, Mexico, Capeltic is a word from the local Tseltal Maya language that means “our coffee.” Capeltic is a Jesuit-supported project that was founded in 2001, and it brings together more than 300 local farmer-owners who grow, harvest, process and sell their coffee together. Host Mike Jordan Laskey asked Fr. Pitts to share Capeltic’s story and why he finds their cooperative approach to be an interesting economic model. They also talked about the intersection of economics and Catholic social teaching more broadly, including what Fr. Pitts thinks the church tradition has to offer the discipline and what good economics can offer the church. It was a fascinating conversation with someone whose intellectual and pastoral vocations are so beautifully integrated. More about Capeltic Coffee: https://www.capeltic.org/home Order coffee in the USA: https://shop.ignatiansolidarity.net/collections/coffee/products/capeltic-origin-roasted-gourmet-coffee-2-20-lbs-1-kg More about Fr. Stephen Pitts, SJ: https://spittssj.github.io/ AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. www.jesuits.org/ www.beajesuit.org/ twitter.com/jesuitnews facebook.com/Jesuits instagram.com/wearethejesuits youtube.com/societyofjesus www.jesuitmedialab.org/

There aren’t many people on Earth more famous than the Pope. It can be easy to think that there’s not much new to learn about a person with that level of fame. But we think you’ll learn something on literally every page of a new biography of Pope Leo XIV, which is titled “American Pope: Leo XIV’s Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City.” The book is by two NPR journalists, Daniel Burke and Scott Detrow, and they’re our guests today. Daniel serves as NPR’s Senior Editor of Religion and Spirituality and Scott is a host of “All Things Considered.” “American Pope” is the first deeply researched and reported biography of Pope Leo, and it covers his entire life from childhood through the 2025 conclave. Daniel and Scott traveled to Peru and all over the United States to report this story, talking to dozens and dozens of people who knew Robert Prevost during all stages of his life. And their reporting shines through throughout the book, which is filled with vivid story after vivid story about Pope Leo gathered from these interviews, 70-year-old church bulletins, historical archives, and more. Host Mike Jordan Laskey found the biography to be a truly moving portrait of a priest, a missionary and a leader. It was so fun to have Daniel and Scott on the show just before the book released on October 6. We know you’ll enjoy hearing their behind-the-scenes stories of reporting and writing “American Pope.” And we think what they shared about the project in this conversation will make you eager to track down a copy as soon as you can. "American Pope: Leo XIV’s Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City": https://bookshop.org/p/books/american-pope-leo-xiv-s-road-from-the-south-side-of-chicago-to-vatican-city-daniel-burke/c6b282694ebe4270?ean=9781250446053 AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. www.jesuits.org/ www.beajesuit.org/ twitter.com/jesuitnews facebook.com/Jesuits instagram.com/wearethejesuits youtube.com/societyofjesus www.jesuitmedialab.org/

For 12 years, the Catholic author, speaker and minister Meg Hunter-Kilmer lived out of her car, driving all over the US and beyond to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. If that sounds to you like someone with incredible zeal for the Lord, that is an accurate impression. Meg is a powerhouse of discipleship. She’s also an incredibly gifted writer, and we were thrilled to publish a series of her essays on lesser-known Jesuit and Ignatian holly men and women over the past couple of years. We’ll leave a link to her series, which we called “Friends of Ignatius,” here in the show notes. The occasion for her recent conversation with host Mike Jordan Laskey, though, was the publication of Meg’s newest book, titled “Eyes Fixed on Jesus, Volume 2: A Journey Into the Gospels.” In the book, Meg combines storytelling, Scripture study and cultural history to present the Gospel accounts in vivid ways. Mike asked Meg about the project and why she’s so excited to encourage Catholics to read more Scripture. She also shared the fruits of returning to the same Scripture stories time after time, and how there’s always more for us to discover in the text. They talked about one of the holy Jesuit priests she wrote about for our “Friends of Ignatius” series, the Venerable Eusebio Kino. Finally, as Meg serves as a campus minister at the University of Notre Dame, they talked about what she finds young Catholics to be hungering for these days. It was such a fun conversation and you’ll hear Meg’s passion and deep faith come through so clearly. “Eyes Fixed on Jesus, Volume 2”: https://www.orderosv.com/product/eyes-fixed-on-jesus-vol-2-a-journey-into-the-gospels More about Meg: https://www.piercedhands.com/ Read Meg’s 10 “Friends of Ignatius” essays here: https://www.jesuits.org/profile/meg-hunter-kilmer/ AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. www.jesuits.org/ www.beajesuit.org/ twitter.com/jesuitnews facebook.com/Jesuits instagram.com/wearethejesuits youtube.com/societyofjesus www.jesuitmedialab.org/

This past summer, the Scripture scholar Amy-Jill (AJ) Levine, Ph.D., was elected as the first Jewish president of the Catholic Biblical Association (CBA). Sadly and horrifyingly, AJ’s election led to a torrent of antisemitic online comments and posts directed her way. Subsequent statements of support from the CBA and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops were positive, and we thought the way we could show our support was to invite her onto the podcast for a conversation about her distinguished scholarly career, which she has dedicated to countering Biblical interpretations that exclude and oppress. We were honored she accepted our invitation. AJ spoke with host Mike Jordan Laskey last week. AJ Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies Emerita, Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies Emerita, and Professor of New Testament Studies Emerita at Vanderbilt University. Since retiring from Vanderbilt, she is Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. Her publications include “The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus”; “Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi”; “Jesus for Everyone, Not Just Christians”; and “The Jewish Annotated New Testament,” the third edition of which has just been published. In our conversation, Mike asked AJ about some of the central theses of her intellectual project, plus why a self-described Yankee Jewish feminist has spent so much of her career thinking about Jesus. We also talked about her recent election as president of the Catholic Biblical Association, the horrible anti-Jewish backlash, the subsequent support she received, and how she might use her position with the CBA to continue her work. “The Jewish Annotated New Testament”: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-jewish-annotated-new-testament-9780190461850 More about AJ Levine: https://www.hartfordinternational.edu/faculty/amy-jill-levine AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. www.jesuits.org/ www.beajesuit.org/ twitter.com/jesuitnews facebook.com/Jesuits instagram.com/wearethejesuits youtube.com/societyofjesus www.jesuitmedialab.org/

A few weeks ago, we welcomed Dr. Michele Murray here on AMDG. Dr. Murray is the new president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. To keep up this back-to-school theme, our two guests today are leaders of the Jesuit Schools Network of North America (JSN), which is the network of 90 Jesuit secondary and pre-secondary schools in our region of the world. JSN serves as a hub, bringing together faculty and staff from our schools to help them learn from each other and grow into even stronger institutions. Our first guest is Jen LaMaster, who began serving as JSN’s executive director this past July. Before taking on this role, she was a leader for secondary education for the Jesuits’ Midwest Province. She also spent 13 years in leadership roles at Brebeuf Jesuit Prep in Indianapolis. Our second guest is Lauren Hackman-Brooks, who is JSN’s director of mission formation. She spends her time helping schools to live out their Catholic, Jesuit identities in bold and creative ways. Lauren has spent her entire career in Jesuit education, from post-college volunteer service at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago to four years leading mission engagement at Gonzaga University in Spokane. Host Mike Jordan Laskey loved hearing Jen’s and Lauren’s 30,000-foot perspective on Jesuit education. He asked them about the biggest challenges school leaders are facing today and how Jesuit schools can stand out in a very crowded high school marketplace. What makes our schools unique? Jen and Lauren both bring a huge amount of passion, energy and insight to the work, and we think you’ll learn a lot about the state of Jesuit secondary education today. More about the JSN: https://jesuitschoolsnetwork.org/ AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. www.jesuits.org/ www.beajesuit.org/ twitter.com/jesuitnews facebook.com/Jesuits instagram.com/wearethejesuits youtube.com/societyofjesus www.jesuitmedialab.org/

Think about your favorite movie. What is it? Get it in your head. Now think about what happens when you’re at a party or out at a bar and you encounter someone else who loves that movie. You start talking about it, right? You’re so excited to meet another fan, to find something you have in common: this shared story. To those listening in on your conversation, it probably sounds like you’re speaking in code, lost in jargon that is hyper specific to characters and places and plots that seem worlds away from daily life. There’s a certain joy in finding your people like this; it builds instant community. But what it also does it create insiders and outsiders; those who know the story, and those who don’t. And listen—at a micro level, it doesn’t really matter. You might chat about that favorite movie for a while but then the conversation moves on, other people cycle in and out. All is well. Except, what if this happens at a macro level? What if there are folks who never get a chance to cycle into the conversation, who are forever on the outside—and who are made to feel dumb and insignificant as a result? That’s what we’re talking about it—and it’s why this conversation is able to begin in speculative fiction and end in our Gospel call to visit those who are in prison. It’s what gets today’s guest, Dr. Sonya Cronin, out of bed in the morning. Dr. Cronin is a wonderful conversationalist. She teaches classes in the Department of Religion at Florida State University, ranging from Hebrew Scripture to science fiction. She’s also the program leader for FSU’s international programs. But where this connection between storytelling and justice really comes alive is in her work as executive director of the Carrier Pigeon Post, a nonprofit created to restore hope to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals through stories and education. They do this primarily by publishing and distributing a free newspaper that’s full of stories, meant to encourage cultural competency and cultural literacy through narrative-inspired imagination. If you want to learn more about Carrier Pigeon Post—and I promise you, you will—visit carrierpigeonpost.org.

Here at AMDG, we are bringing you the entire text of “The Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola” in podcast form. Over 12 episodes, join our pilgrimage guides Fr. Jack Bentz, SJ, and Cameron Bellm as we make our way through this spiritual classic. Today, the series premiere, features two introductions to the text written by St. Ignatius' Jesuit contemporaries: Jerome Nadal explains how Ignatius’ companions persuaded him to recount the ways God had guided him from the beginning of his conversion. Luís Gonçalves da Câmara then describes the long, interrupted process by which Ignatius dictated the story and he committed it to writing. Episode 2 will drop Friday, July 31 — the Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola. These first two episodes and the remaining 10 episodes (dropping on subsequent Fridays) will all appear here on the AMDG podcast feed. The series is edited by Frank Tuson, who also composed all the music you hear on the podcast. The podcast uses a translation of the “Autobiography” by Fr. Parmananda Divarkar, SJ. The text is read by Fr. George Drance, SJ. Produced by Mike Jordan Laskey. "The Autobiography of Saint Ignatius Loyola Podcast," a special-edition series of AMDG, is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. www.jesuits.org/ www.beajesuit.org/ twitter.com/jesuitnews facebook.com/Jesuits instagram.com/wearethejesuits youtube.com/societyofjesus www.jesuitmedialab.org/