Visitation Sessions (A Podcast‪)‬ Emily Stimpson Chapman, Chris Chapman, Kate Stapleton, Casey Stapleton

This week, your hosts Chris and Emily Chapman and Casey and KATE Stapleton (not Chris Stapleton 🤦🏼‍♀️) review some of the flash points in Butker’s Benedictine speech and discuss why both the speech and Emily’s Substack article about it are making so many people so danged crazy.
Note 1: This will be our last podcast for the next two to three months, as the Chapmans head off on pilgrimage, the Stapletons head off on tour, and we all try to keep our houses from collapsing down around us. Thank you so much for listening to this first season of Visitation Sessions, and if you don’t want to miss the first episode of Season Two, when it premiers later this summer, subscribe to our Substack today.
Note 2: Emily wants you to know she was having a hard time with words the day we recorded this and besides referring to Kate as Chris in the opening and forgetting the word liceity, she also said that Saul was going door to door in ancient Jerusalem dragging Jews out of their houses. They were Jews. And they weren’t yet called Christians. But it was the Jews who followed Christ that he was after, just in case there was any confusion on that point.
Note 3: If you’re enjoying this podcast, we would love it if you could head over to Apple and say nice things about us. Just nice things, please. Emily could use a break from being called bad names.

Mentioned on the Podcast:
Harrison Butker’s Commencement Address
Nostra Aetate (Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions)
Ohio State University 2024 Commencement Address
Butker’s Speech by Amy Welborn

In Case You Missed It
Men (and Women) at Work
Hard Workin’ Women
In Search of the Masculine Genius



Get full access to Visitation Sessions at visitationsessions.substack.com/subscribe

Today, we’re talking about homeschooling, the purpose of the domestic Church, why awkwardness matters, and a whole lot more of listener requested topics, in this special Q&A Episode.
In This Episode:
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
John Henry (Tonie character)
John Henry (short—Also available on Disney Plus)
Future Faithful Families Project
“Every Tech Tool in the Classroom Should Be Ruthlessly Evaluated,” by Jessica Gros
“To Fight Less About Books in Schools, Have More Books at Home” by Brandon McGinley (Paywalled. Sorry!)




Get full access to Visitation Sessions at visitationsessions.substack.com/subscribe

This week, we dive deeper into the Christian obligation (yes, obligation) to practice hospitality and answer your questions about what that looks like when you’re tired, strapped for cash, and would rather just watch Netflix.
Mentioned in this episode:
Apostolica Acuositatem (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity), Second Vatican Council
“Enduring Homelessness Requires More Than Just Survival,” by James DeMasi
“Why Dutch People Don’t Mind You Peering Into Their Homes” by Katja Brokke
Around the Catholic Table: 77 Recipes for Easy Hospitality and Everyday Dinners (Cookbook) by Emily Stimpson Chapman
The Catholic Table: Finding Joy Where Food and Friendship Meet (Book), by Emily Stimpson Chapman


Get full access to Visitation Sessions at visitationsessions.substack.com/subscribe

Two high schoolers, a homeschooling mom, and a sleep deprived writer sit down over drinks to talk about learning. It sounds like the beginning of a very boring joke, but it actually was a fascinating late night conversation about learning, education, technology in classrooms, the virtue of studiositas, the vice of curiositas, the wonder of children, and why Emily dislikes the word “educator” almost as much as she dislikes the word “creative” when it’s used as a noun.
Mentioned on Today’s Show
“Every Tech Tool in the Classroom Should Be Ruthlessly Evaluated,” by Jessica Gros
Real Learning Revisited by Elizabeth Foss
“Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” by Wendell Berry
Men I Have Chosen for Fathers by Marion Montgomery
Another Sort of Learning by Father James Schall
St. Michael’s Abbey



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The Chapmans are counting down the days until they take two three-year-olds and a five-year-old to Italy. The Stapletons are counting down the days until they take six kids on a converted school bus and embark on their summer concert tour. Obviously, when it comes to travel, none of us are sane. But there is a reason for our madness. This week, we’re talking about the graces of travel—why we do it, the different ways it can look for different people in different seasons, and why travel, in some form or another, is so integral to the life of faith.
Mentioned on “Traveling Mercies”
The Miracle Club
Walking the Camino": Six Ways to Santiago
The Shrines of Pittsburgh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acteal_massacre
Bike to Mary Pilgrimage (Wisconsin)
Faraway by the Stapletons


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Today, we welcome our first guest ever to the show, Dr. Matt Breuninger—associate professor of Psychology at Franciscan University, author of Finding Freedom in Christ: Healing Life’s Hurts, and most important, the former owner of Visitation House.
We talked for a solid 90 minutes up in the attic about what it means to be a good man, a good father, and a good husband (including an inordinate amount of time discerning if it involves jiu jitsu), and had way too much fun. Maybe a little too much fun. But once you get past the first 15 minutes of nonsense, we promise there is a ton of substance, largely thanks to Matt, who is one of the smartest and best guys any of us know. You should buy his book, follow him on Instagram, and bring him to your diocese to speak.
Mentioned on Today’s Episode:
Known: Embraced By the Heart of the Father (A 12-Week Online Coaching Program led by Matt Breuninger and Isaac Wicker)
A Father Who Keeps His Promises by Scott Hahn
The Holdovers
Twilight Samurai
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
“Evangelical Sanctity: The Completion of Natural Virtue,” by Saint John Henry Newman (Sermon III of the Oxford Sermons)
These Beautiful Bones: An Everyday Theology of the Body by Emily Stimpson Chapman
Familiaris Consortio


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