Ignatius Press Podcast Ignatius Press
-
- Religion & Spirituality
-
Welcome to the Ignatius Press Podcast! Ignatius Press has been faithfully publishing Catholic books, films, art, and more for over 40 years. With our extensive history, our library contains a wide variety of authors and titles, and we can’t wait to share them with you. On this podcast, we will feature author interviews for those who are interested in deepening their faith and learning more about Jesus Christ, his Church, and the rich Catholic intellectual and artistic tradition. We pray that this podcast will inspire and nourish your faith.
-
Bronwen McShea: The history of Catholic women is the history of the Church
Because the Catholic Church has always taught that only men can be ordained to the priesthood instituted by Christ, there is a perception that the Church’s story is a story about men. There’s the Blessed Mother, of course, and maybe the occasional nun who rises to prominence, but since only men can be ordained, the thinking goes, it is men who have built and shaped the Church’s common life throughout the centuries.
Not only is this bad ecclesiology, it is bad history, argues historian Bronwen McShea. In this episode, Andrew Petiprin speaks with McShea about her new book, Women of the Church: What Every Catholic Should Know. Women have always been at the heart of the Church, McShea says, and the spiritual, intellectual, and cultural contributions of women—queens and abbesses, wives and mothers, religious sisters, writers, and mystics—have made the Church what she is today.
Women of the Church: What Every Catholic Should Know, published by Ignatius Press and the Augustine Institute, is now available at Ignatius.com.
You can read an excerpt from the book at First Things: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/04/the-remarkable-legacies-of-ordinary-catholic-women -
Mark Giszczak: Why does God allow suffering?
They’re simple questions, and ones that every believer has to confront at some point in his or her life: why do we suffer, and why does God—who we believe to be good and loving—allow it?
Humanity’s struggles with these questions have inspired countless works of art and literature—from the book of Job on through the ages—as well as theological treatises. But the struggle is also very personal; we all must undergo suffering in our lives, and as Christians, come to an understanding of how these sufferings fit into God’s plan for our redemption.
Mark Giszczak, professor of Sacred Scripture at the Augustine Institute, has written a new book called Suffering: What Every Catholic Should Know. While it takes the reader through Scripture from the Book of Job through the Crucifixion, bringing in the wisdom of the Church Fathers as well as Catholic sacramental and liturgical tradition, the book is accessible and sensitive to the deeply personal nature of suffering.
Giszczak joins your host Andrew Petiprin in this episode to discuss Suffering.
Read more of Giszczak’s work at CatholicBibleStudent.com. -
Francis X. Maier: A layman surveys the American Church today
Francis X. Maier has been immersed in the life of the Church at different levels for decades. As senior aide to Archbishop Charles Chaput for more than twenty years, and as editor-in-chief of the National Catholic Register for many years before that, he got to know the leaders and major players in the American Church in both professional and personal settings.
When he sat down to write a book offering a snapshot of Catholic life in the U.S., he had many contacts in high places to whom he could reach out. But they wouldn’t be able to tell the whole story.
In writing his new book True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church, Maier conducted more than one hundred candid interviews with individuals living and working in the Church. These included bishops and priests as well as laymen and women serving in various leadership roles. But they also included husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, parish priests and religious sisters living their vocations in low-profile ways: faithfully carrying out their professional duties, loving their families, and building up their local communities.
In this episode, host Andrew Petiprin speaks with Maier about what he learned about the American Church while conducting these interviews, and about how our current situation—colored as it is by scandals, political division, and secularism—contains many sources of profound hope.
Find True Confessions by Francis X. Maier at Ignatius.com.
-
Jennifer Lahl on the untold stories of detransitioners
In a society that often claims to value the voices of the marginalized, one group that find themselves frequently silenced by the very people claiming to speak for them are detransitioners—men and women who have gone down the road of “gender transition,” only to change their minds, embrace their biological sex, and reverse course.
In this episode, Andrew Petiprin speaks with Jennifer Lahl, a nurse and documentary maker who works to amplify the voices of those who have been harmed by gender ideology. Together with Kallie Fell, Lahl has written the new book The Detransition Diaries, which tells the stories of five women and two men who have reclaimed their identities after dangerous journeys through hormone therapies, surgeries, and other treatments aimed at changing their biological sex.
Find The Detransition Diaries at Ignatius.com.
Follow Jennifer Lahl on X: @JenniferLahl
Follow Kallie Fell on X: @kal_fell
-
Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs on reclaiming sacred art
Is beautiful sacred art a thing of the past? Is it impossible for contemporary artists to inspire the kind of reverence and devotion for sacred subjects that the artworks of great masters have done for centuries?
The Catholic Home Gallery is an answer to these questions—a collection of eighteen artworks by contemporary artists that embody the richness of the Catholic artistic tradition with fresh creativity and insight. Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs, one of the nine artists featured in the book and our guest for this episode, is passionate in her belief that not only is it possible to regain the wisdom and skills of previous centuries of sacred artists—many of which have been lost or sorely neglected in recent times—but that there is an urgent need to do so in the Church today.
In her conversation with host Andrew Petiprin, Thompson-Briggs discusses why sacred art should not be considered a luxury item or reserved only for a privileged elite, but should rather be incorporated into the spiritual formation and life of every Christian. She also talks about her own work as an artist, the importance of bringing sacred art into the home, and some of the other artists working today whose work she admires.
The Catholic Home Gallery: Eighteen Works of Art by Contemporary Catholic Artists
Explore the art of Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs
Catholic Artists Directory
-
That was (the real) Father Stu
When Mark Wahlberg’s hit movie “Father Stu” was released in 2022, audiences all over the country were introduced to Father Stuart Long, a former boxer-turned-wannabe-actor-turned Catholic priest who died in Helena, Montana in 2014 at the age of 50. The motorcycle-riding tough guy who found his way to Christ and the priesthood captured the hearts of many moviegoers, but the film only told part of the story of the real Father Stu’s remarkable life and spiritual legacy.
Few people knew Father Stu as well as did Father Bart Tolleson, Stu’s close friend and fellow diocesan priest. His new book “That Was Father Stu: A Memoir of My Priestly Brother and Friend” recounts Stu’s often-bumpy road to conversion and ordination, but also tells the story of his transformative priestly ministry and his fight against the degenerative disease that ultimately took his life. In this episode, Andrew Petiprin speaks with Father Bart about his friendship with Stu and about the tremendous witness of holy suffering Stu gave in the final years of his life.
Customer Reviews
Blessed to hear Andrew on the Press!
Andrew, wonderful to see you sharing your talents with Ignatius Press and the world! I just listened to your delightfully rich chat with Fr. Wetta. He is a classic…so quirky and holy…a real-life saint in the making! For years, I have been handing his books out like candy. I actually gave his recent one away to a student, before I was able to finish it ;) You are a wonderful podcast host …excellent timing and humble and respectful pausing for your guest:-) Ignatius Press is blessed to have you!👍🏻🙏🏻✨
CRT
Thank you for talking about Critical Race Theory. I learned some things I didn’t know before. I hope more Catholics will listen to this to learn how CRT is poisonous at its core!
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Good day to all. I just discovered this Podcast and enjoyed my first episode:). May I kindly ask why the podcasts aren’t in numerical order? 🤔 Perhaps a glitch on Apple’s behalf or maybe the order in which you cared to download. Anyhoo, thanks for your attention to this matter. No worries, just curious like that monkey we all know named George. Teehee. God bless all worldwide.
Attention Social Media lass:
Friendly observation: Episode 67. Sound Quality way off. Full of static and hard to hear. All the best. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻