In this episode of our limited Lenten series, Sr. Erin McDonald, CSJ, digital youth minister for the Congregation of St. Joseph and co-host of the "Beyond the Habit" podcast challenges us to hope.

If you’ve ever eaten at a university dining hall or at an airport bar or in a corporate cafeteria, you have relied on the labor of thousands and thousands of people whose work often goes unseen. Our guest today spends his own working hours fighting to make sure those food service workers are paid fairly and have access to good benefits and safe working conditions.

Chuck Hendricks is the food service lead director for UNITE HERE, a labor union in the US and Canada that has about 300,000 active members. Chuck is also the board president of a group called the Catholic Labor Network, which promotes the cause of workers and Catholic social teaching in labor unions, parishes and other organizations.

It was really fun to welcome Chuck into our Washington, DC, studio to talk about his work, his history with organized labor, and how his spiritual journey led him to the Catholic Church. You may or may not be familiar with the Catholic tradition’s deep history of supporting worker’s rights and unionizing. Back in 1891, Pope Leo XIII published the first modern papal encyclical on social justice issues. It was called “Rerum Novarum” and it emphasized the rights of workers in the wake of the often-dehumanizing Industrial Revolution. In his service with the Catholic Labor Network, Chuck has found a holistic way to support workers by practicing his faith. We think you’ll really like getting to know him and learning about the contemporary labor movement.

"I came to the Church because the Church came to the workers" by Chuck Hendricks: https://catholiclabor.org/i-came-to-the-church-because-the-church-came-to-the-workers/

The Catholic Labor Network: https://catholiclabor.org/

AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.

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In this episode of our limited Lenten series, Emily Mentock, a digital media professional and co-founder of Digital Continent, invites us to reflect on how Lent is a journey of conversion.

Spring means baseball is back in my life, and if there’s anything that’s almost as good as baseball, it’s writing about baseball. There is so much good writing about baseball – music, poetry, literature, biography, essay, plays, movie scripts. Something about the combination sport’s long history, its leisurely pace, its connection to childhood, its outdoor setting in beautiful weather, its daily rhythm make it such a fruitful topic in American arts and letters.

Our guest today, the writer John W. Miller, has entered the pantheon of great baseball writing with his new biography of Earl Weaver, manager of the Baltimore Orioles from 1968 to 1982 and one of the game’s most colorful figures ever. The book, which is titled “The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball” is so good that it shot up to number 7 on the New York Times bestseller list the week after it was released. And it’s not just for baseball fans, either – it’s a fascinating snapshot of American culture in the middle of the 20th century and a striking portrait of an almost Shakespearean-level character.

John is not only a New York Times bestselling author. He’s also a contributing writer to America Magazine and one of the most devoted members of our Jesuit Media Lab community. (He even put the JML in the book’s acknowledgments section!) Host Mike Jordan Laskey asked John to tell us about Earl Weaver and to describe his reporting and writing process. They also talked about the spirituality of baseball and biography writing. Get a copy wherever books are sold, and have a great Opening Day.

"The Last Manager": https://www.amazon.com/Last-Manager-Tormented-Reinvented-Baseball/dp/1668030926

"How I Found God in a Game of Catch": https://www.jesuits.org/stories/how-i-found-god-in-a-game-of-catch/

John W. Miller: https://www.johnwmiller.org/

John's writing for America Magazine: https://www.americamagazine.org/voices/john-w-miller

AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.

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In this episode of our limited Lenten series, Marissa Papula, director of campus ministry at Loyola Marymount University, challenges us to look clearly at temptation during Lent.

March is a big month on the American Jesuit calendar because it’s the biggest month for men’s and women’s college basketball. The March Madness tournaments are the most purely fun and chaotic sporting events on the planet. Nothing beats massive single elimination tournaments if you’re looking for surprises and drama. And these tournaments are often big showcases for our Jesuit colleges and universities, many of which have rich basketball histories. In recent decades, no Jesuit program has been more successful than the Gonzaga University Bulldogs men’s team, led since 1999 by head coach Mark Few.

And one person you might notice on the end of the bench if you watch a Gonzaga men’s or women’s game this March is a rather short guy wearing a red Gonzaga sweater over black clerical attire. This is Father Bryan Pham, SJ, a Jesuit priest and the chaplain for both Bulldog hoops teams. You might think someone with this job would be a huge basketball fan. Not so in Fr. Bryan’s case, who was quick to tell host Mike Jordan Laskey that he rarely understands what he’s watching on the court. Fr. Bryan is a huge fan of the athletes themselves, though, and he sees his role as one of availability and spiritual support. We wanted to find out what the work of a Jesuit basketball chaplain entails and what March Madness looks like through his eyes.

Fr. Bryan also shared reflections about his many other roles at the university. He’s a lawyer by training and serves as a professor and chaplain at the law school, runs legal clinics and appears in court with his student interns, and lives in a freshman dorm on campus. We know you’ll love getting to know this thoughtful, funny, impossibly busy Jesuit. Go Bulldogs. And go Bluejays, Golden Eagles, Musketeers and Stags.

Fr. Bryan Pham, SJ: https://www.gonzaga.edu/about/our-mission-jesuit-values/university-ministry/meet-our-team/fr-bryan-pham-sj

2025 Jesuit March Madness: https://www.jesuits.org/stories/jesuit-march-madness-trivia/

AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.

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In this episode of our limited Lenten series, Danielle Harrison, manager of the St. Charles Lwanga Center in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, invites us to consider our Lenten practice of prayer.

As you have probably heard in the news over the past month or so, the Trump administration has frozen foreign aid programs and essentially dismantled USAID, which is the federal government’s overseas humanitarian relief agency. These decisions have had an enormous impact on the work of both faith-based and secular nonprofit organizations doing humanitarian work, including Catholic ones.

Our guest today, Bill O’Keefe, is one of the top executives at Catholic Relief Services, which is the official overseas humanitarian agency of the American Catholic community. Since their founding over 80 years ago, CRS has grown to serve communities in poverty in more 100 countries around the world.

Bill has served at CRS for 38 years, and today he is the agency’s Executive Vice President for Mission, Mobilization and Advocacy. In addition to advocating on in Washington, DC, for robust U.S. foreign aid funding, Bill mobilizes CRS' supporters across the country in a shared mission to support the world's most vulnerable people. There is probably no single person in the country who knows as much as Bill does about how the gutting of the US government’s foreign aid programs will affect the US Church’s ability to help people across the globe.

Host Mike Jordan Laskey found it so informative and helpful to talk to Bill. But it was also incredibly upsetting. People will die because of these decisions. The US Catholic Church’s immense humanitarian network is being hollowed out. It’s hard to know what we US Catholics can do in response. Bill hasn’t given up hope, though, and he and his team are working hard to figure out how to keep doing their essential, life-saving work around the world. He also shared some practical ways we can all pitch in to help support the mission.

Bill O'Keefe: https://www.crs.org/about/leadership/bill-o%E2%80%99keefe

Tell Congress to urge the administration to reverse terminations of life-saving aid, disperse funding: https://support.crs.org/act/foreign-aid-operations?ms=mamcrs0225app00fea00

CRS Rice Bowl: https://www.crsricebowl.org/

AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.

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In this episode of our limited Lenten series, spiritual writer and campus minister John Dougherty invites us to reflect on how why Lent is a time to learn how to better rely on God.

Ash Wednesday is fascinating: We get these reminders of death and decay smeared on our foreheads and just walk around like that the whole day after. Not the most cheerful message. Yet folks can’t seem to get enough of it. Some parish priests say it’s right up there neck and neck with Christmas and Easter on the list of busiest church days of the year.

We’re sure there are a bunch of reasons for that, but we wanted to mark this Ash Wednesday and welcome the beginning of Lent by digging into its popularity. Our guest is Paul Jarzembowski, who serves the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in their work with the laity. He’s also the author of the 2022 book “Hope from the Ashes: Insights and Resources for Welcoming Lenten Visitors.” He talked with host Mike Jordan Laskey about the history of Ash Wednesday and what Paul thinks explains its enduring popularity. They also discussed the season of Lent and making our churches more welcoming places. For a rather solemn topic, our conversation was tons of fun.

We also want to mention our special Lenten audio offering this year here at AMDG. Our host Eric Clayton interviewed what we call “professional Catholics” who work in ministry about how they keep Lenten observance fresh year after year. He’s lined up some super thoughtful and interesting guests for the series, which you’ll find here on the AMDG feed every Friday in Lent.

Paul’s book, “Hope From the Ashes”: https://www.amazon.com/Hope-Ashes-Insights-Resources-Welcoming/dp/0809155753

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/