AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast Jesuit Conference

If you made a list of the best things about the Catholic Church in the United States, Catholic Charities USA would be in that list’s very top tier. A network of 168 local agencies based in dioceses throughout the country, Catholic Charities served more than 15 million of our at-risk neighbors last year alone. They serve people without homes, those who are unemployed or underemployed, children who are hungry or malnourished, elderly persons who are isolated, vulnerable migrants and refugees on the move, families recovering from natural disasters, pregnant women and new mothers in need, and persons with disabilities who have inadequate care. All together, the work of Catholic Charities makes up one of the largest networks of humanitarian aid in the nation.

Today’s guest is Kerry Robinson, the president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA. If Catholic Charities is in the top tier of American Catholic endeavors, Kerry is in the top tier of American Catholic leaders. She’s dynamic, passionate, faith-filled and extremely smart. And she’s the second-ever woman and second layperson to lead the network. Before joining Catholic Charities, Kerry spent almost two decades working with a group called Leadership Roundtable, which she helped to found in 2005. Leadership Roundtable helps the church develop and implement best management practices to build accountable and transparent leadership culture. Kerry’s entire career has been dedicated to strengthening the church, and her experience and vision helped prepare her to lead this massive network.

Host Mike Jordan Laskey asked her about what she has learned in her first year on the job, plus how Catholic Charities is responding to the extremely challenging conditions facing migrants and asylum seekers arriving in the US in the hopes of providing safety and opportunity for their families. She also shared some favorite stories and things she has learned from traveling all over the country visiting Catholic Charities agencies and how her Jesuit education at Georgetown University helped set her on her life path.

Learn more about Kerry Robinson: https://stories.catholiccharitiesusa.org/introducing-kerry-alys-robinson/

Catholic Charities USA: https://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/

Catholic Charities staffers facing rising threats: https://religionnews.com/2024/03/22/threats-to-catholic-charities-staffers-increase-amid-rightwing-anti-migrant-campaign/

AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.

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Welcome to “Pathway to Priesthood”—a limited audio series from the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States in which host Eric Clayton talks with Jesuits who are in the final days of preparing for priestly ordination.

Hear Jesuits reflect back on their vocation stories and experience of formation, all while wrestling with some of the biggest questions surrounding priestly ordination.

On this episode, we’re asking a basic question: Why even consider religious life? And what actually is it?

To reflect on these questions and more, we have two Jesuits: Michael Mohr and Brook Stacey.

Michael was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He has a background in teaching, and has spent the last couple of years of his formation studying at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Brook grew up in Toronto, Ontario. Though his undergraduate studies were in geology, he has more recently completed a master’s degree in psychospiritual studies. Both men have had the opportunity to live in a variety of places throughout the formation, and they both come at this question of religious life from very different perspectives. But at the end of the day, they both have found great consolation as members of the Society of Jesus.

As you listen to their stories and reflections, consider whether you or someone you know might be interested in discerning a call to Jesuit life. If so, head over to beajesuit.org.

In 60-plus years of life, Reynaldo Domínguez has never heard someone say, "I live without water and I live in peace." Water is fundamental to a healthy and peaceful life, he says. Yet for Reynaldo and his community in Guapinol, Honduras, access to clean water has become a deadly fight that has killed two of his brothers and sent him and his family into hiding.

The conflict started in 2018 when the Honduran company Inversiones Los Pinares, backed by international investors, began to dig out a road through the mountains deep inside the protected National Park Carlos Escaleras. As they began they began digging an open-pit iron ore mine, harmful sediments filled the Guapinol River, the source of water for many of the surrounding communities. Reynaldo and his community quickly organized to push back against this illegal and life-threatening environmental disaster. Things quickly turned deadly. Many of Reynaldo's fellow activists have been jailed, even more have been forced to migrate, and several have lost their lives in the fight to protect the land for future generations.

Reynaldo joined us from an undisclosed location to tell us about what's happening in Guapinol.

This episode was recorded in Spanish. Listen to the original here: https://soundcloud.com/jesuitconference/reynaldo-spanish-mixdown-v2-240118?si=f61e75f956234a7fa9f55ddf0ebaf2ca&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Learn more about our partners Radio Progreso: https://www.radioprogresohn.net/
Learn more about SHARE Foundation: http://www.share-elsalvador.org/

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This podcast was edited and produced by Harrison Hanvey and MegAnne Liebsch. Jose Artiga, executive director of the SHARE Foundation, provided English language dubbing. Original theme music by Kevin Laskey. Photo by Photo by Roberto Palomo.

En más de 60 años de vida, Reynaldo Domínguez nunca ha oído a nadie decir: "Vivo sin agua y vivo tranquilo". El agua es fundamental para una vida sana y en paz, nos afirma. Sin embargo, para Reynaldo y su comunidad en Guapinol, Honduras, el acceso al agua potable se ha convertido en una lucha mortal que ha matado a dos de sus hermanos y lo ha enviado a él y a su familia a la clandestinidad.

El conflicto comenzó en 2018 cuando la empresa hondureña Inversiones Los Pinares, respaldada por inversores internacionales, empezó a excavar una carretera a través de las montañas en lo más profundo del Parque Nacional protegido Carlos Escaleras. Cuando empezaron a excavar una mina de hierro a cielo abierto, sedimentos dañinos llenaron el río Guapinol, fuente de agua para muchas de las comunidades de los alrededores. Reynaldo y su comunidad se organizaron rápidamente para oponerse a este desastre medioambiental ilegal y peligroso. La situación no tardó en volverse mortal. Muchos de los compañeros activistas de Reynaldo han sido encarcelados, otros se han visto obligados a emigrar y varios han perdido la vida en la lucha por proteger la tierra para las generaciones futuras.

Reynaldo se unió a nosotros desde un lugar desconocido para contarnos lo que está sucediendo en Guapinol.

Escucha el episodio en ingles: https://soundcloud.com/jesuitconference/english-version-reynaldo-dominguezs-deadly-fight-to-care-for-creation?si=e8902d693fc34f6ca1fe8a1329b4b0ea&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Más información sobre nuestros socios de Radio Progreso: https://www.radioprogresohn.net/
Más información sobre la Fundación SHARE: http://www.share-elsalvador.org/

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Este podcast fue editado y producido por Harrison Hanvey y MegAnne Liebsch. José Artiga, director ejecutivo de la Fundación SHARE, se encargó del doblaje al inglés. Tema musical original de Kevin Laskey. Fotografía de Roberto Palomo.

The American essayist and novelist Marilynne Robinson may not be Catholic, but her writing reveals a deeply sacramental imagination. Through five books of fiction and dozens of essays, Robinson trains her readers in the art of spiritual attention. Where is God’s grace operating in nature and in the ordinary ways humans love, disappoint and forgive one other?

In her essay “Psalm 8” she writes, “I have spent my life watching not to see beyond the world,” but “merely to see, great mystery, what is plainly before my eyes… With all due
respect to heaven, the scene of miracle is here, among us.”

Robinson is best known for her novel “Gilead,” which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. It has three sequels, each installment following a different protagonist in the fictitious Iowa town. The last of those, “Jack” (2020), traces the wanderings of a Prodigal Son who has difficulty recognizing a place in his family, church, and hometown. We all know a Jack or two, and Robinson helps us understand their plights with empathy.

In March 2024, she released a new book, "Reading Genesis," which is a long meditation on the first book of Hebrew Scripture. She defamiliarizes old stories that we thought we understood – of Adam and Eve, of Cain and Abel, of Abraham and Sarah. She challenges easy clichés – Old Testament God: bad! Jesus: good! – to show us how God’s faithfulness to humanity starts right there…in the beginning.

Which is why today’s interview with guest host Fr. Joe Simmons, SJ, starts with Genesis, and branches out into philosophy, science, poetry and fiction, and back to theology. Fr. Simmons, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the work of Robinson and Virginia Woolf, even talks with our guest on Ignatius Loyola and his contemporary, John Calvin – and the miseries of studying in 16th-century Paris! – which made Fr. Simmons laugh out loud. You won’t want to miss that.

More about Marilynne Robinson: https://us.macmillan.com/author/marilynnerobinson

"Reading Genesis": https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Genesis-Marilynne-Robinson/dp/0374299404

More about Fr. Joe Simmons, SJ: https://www.marquette.edu/theology/directory/joseph-simmons.php

AMDG is a production 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/

In honor of National Poetry Month - which is currently underway during April 2024 - author and editor Gary Jansen returns to the podcast to talk about his latest book, "Meditations at Midnight: Poetry and Prose."

Gary lives at the intersection of faith and art. He’s worked in publishing a long time—both at secular publishing houses editing Catholic authors, and now at Loyola Press, acquiring and mentoring authors that are writing for a Catholic publisher. Gary is an author himself; he’s been on this podcast before talking about his ghost-ridden memoir, “Holy Ghosts,” and his self-help book called “MicroShifts.” In 2023, he won the Christopher Award for the children’s book “Remember Us With Smiles,” that he co-wrote with his wife. And those are just a few of his books.

He’s back today to talk about his latest book and to reflect on the lasting impact that good writing can have on our souls.

If you want to learn more about Gary, visit garyjansen.com.