Jesuitical

This week on “Jesuitical,” Zac and Ashley speak with Mary Kate Polanin, the executive editor of The Good Newsroom, the digital news outlet of the Archdiocese of New York. They discuss the important and changing role of diocesan communications, Catholics in the digital space and New York’s new archbishop.

In Signs of the Times, Zac and Ashley discuss Pope Leo’s surprising and historic choice to lead the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication and dig into the advice “Magnifica Humanitas” offers to each of us when it comes to navigating our relationship with A.I. Plus: Pope Leo heads to Spain on Saturday—and Bad Bunny is hoping they cross paths. 

Links from the show:

Pope Leo appoints president of EWTN News as head of Vatican communications

America’s coverage of “Magnifica Humanitas”

Bad Bunny wants to meet Pope Leo XIV. In Madrid, a crossover event is in the works.

The Good Newsroom

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On this bonus episode of “Jesuitical,” Ashley and Zac speak with two digital evangelization experts who helped create the Vatican’s study group report on the digital environment as part of the Synod on Synodality. Kim Daniels directs the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University, and José Manuel de Urquidi runs the Evangelization Lab. Both were synod delegates, along with then-Cardinal Robert Prevost (the future Pope Leo XIV), at the global sessions of the synod in Rome in 2023 and 2024. 

They discuss:

00:00 What are the Synod Study Groups?

7:10 How Pope Leo has shaped synodality

15:16 How influencers challenge church jurisdiction

28:30 Accompanying digital evangelizers

33:40 Converting to real communities

Links:

Study Group 3’s final report on the Digital Environment

The Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life

Evangelization Lab

Coverage of Pope Leo’s encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas”

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This week on Jesuitical: A feed drop of this week's special “Inside the Vatican” roundtable, a discussion of “Magnifica Humanitas,” Pope Leo’s groundbreaking first encyclical on protecting the human person in the age of artificial intelligence. Host Colleen Dulle sits down with her co-host and senior Vatican correspondent, Gerard O’Connell, as well as America’s president and editor in chief, Sam Sawyer, S.J.

They discuss the document’s key takeaways, how it is being received in Silicon Valley, Pope Leo’s challenge for every Catholic in the A.I. age and much more. 

Chapters:


0:00 Intro


1:11 Pope Leo present for the launch of his own encyclical


4:21 How the encyclical is being received by the tech community


8:43 Magnifica Humanitas on the growth of Catholic social teaching


13:16 Acknowledging the Church’s role in slavery


15:53 Exploring Pope Leo’s ecclesiology


22:30 Leo’s concrete recommendations for A.I.


32:30 How lay people can deal with A.I.


37:40 Outro

Links:


Read “Magnifica Humanitas”


Pope Leo’s first encyclical tackles A.I., power and human dignity


Pope Leo XIV makes historic apology for the Catholic Church’s role in legitimizing slavery


Why Pope Leo’s new encyclical quotes Gandalf: Literary images of hope and faith in ‘Magnifica Humanitas’


A capitalist (priest) reads ‘Magnifica Humanitas’

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This week on the “Jesuitical” podcast, Ashley McKinless and Zac Davis speak to theologian and legal scholar Cathleen Kaveny about why Catholics seem obsessed with questions of sexual morality. They were prompted to dig into the historical development of Catholic sexual ethics after Pope Leo said in a press conference, “We tend to think that when the church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual. And in reality, I believe there are much greater, more important issues…”

00:00 Leo's comments on sexual morality

4:08 What Scripture says

6:05 How Catholic teaching developed

9:30 What is "natural law"?

16:37 How Catholics became obsessed with sex

20:26 JPII's "theology of the body"

24:41 Sex and justice

28:50 Sex, confession and salvation

36:35 A healthy approach to sex

Links:

Pope Leo speaks on same-sex blessings, migration and more on plane back to Rome

Heaven and hell in post-Vatican II Catholicism: How to move from fear to love

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This week, Jesuitical co-host Ashley McKinless and producer Sebastian Gomes speak to Michael W. Higgins about the spiritual master, Father Henri Nouwen (1932-1996). They explore Nouwen’s “wounded healer” approach to ministry, his brokenness and vulnerability, and his impact on contemporary Catholic thought.

In “Signs of the Times,” Ashley and Zac discuss Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Pope Leo, plans for a border wall through a pilgrimage site, a cosmetics mogul turned Catholic priest, and when customer service hung up on Pope Leo.

00:00 Who is Henri Nouwen?

2:51 Pope Leo meets Marco Rubio

7:42 A border wall through a pilgrimage site?

10:40 A cosmetics mogul turned Catholic priest

12:39 Customer service hangs up on Pope Leo

15:40 You need to know Henri Nouwen

18:31 Henri Nouwen was an enigma

25:14 Nouwen's writings

31:23 How Nouwen understood priesthood

36:54 Intimacy, celibacy and homosexuality

41:17 Nouwen, the wounded healer

44:52 Good ministry isn't performative

48:39 How Nouwen prayed

58:00 Faith sharing: overcoming performative piety

Links:

Pope Leo XIV’s First Year

Pope Leo meets with Marco Rubio amid Trump’s personal attacks

Catholic diocese fights Trump administration plan to seize pilgrimage site for border wall Cosmetics millionaire turned seminarian, he’d give fortune ‘back a million times’ for Jesus

Story of customer service agent hanging up on Leo shows pope’s ‘normal’ side

"Genius Born of Anguish: The Life and Legacy of Henri Nouwen"

2026 Henri Nouwen Conference: "Longing for Home: The Prophetic Witness of Henri Nouwen in a Wounded World"

Henri Nouwen Society

Henri Nouwen: How to (actually) pray without ceasing

The Monk and The Cripple by Henri Nouwen, 1980

Podcast Deep Dive: The first American pope—how it happened and what it means

Performative piety: Why liturgy is not a space for self-expression

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