

AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast
Jesuit Conference
Jesuits and friends come together to look at the world through Ignatian eyes, always striving to live Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam -- For the Greater Glory of God. Hosted by Mike Jordan Laskey and Eric Clayton. Learn more at jesuits.org. A production of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Aug 21, 2019 • 29min
Sister Jean Reflects on Her 100th Birthday
Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, BVM, took the world by storm as the chaplain for the 2018 Loyola Chicago Final Four men's basketball team. She turns 100 on Wednesday, August 21! In this conversation with host Mike Jordan Laskey and guest host Deanna Howes Spiro of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, Sr. Jean reflects on turning 100, her instant rise to fame last year, and what advice she might offer new college students starting this fall.

Aug 12, 2019 • 27min
Why this Jesuit Swam Six Miles (!) with Very Little Training
Last month, Matt Wooters, a Jesuit brother from the Midwest Province, decided he was going to try and swim six miles for a birthday fundraiser benefiting the immigration legal aid group RAICES. The only problem was he only had a few weeks to train and it’s not like he was doing long-distance swims all the time.
But as Brother Matt is wont to do, he just went for it. His effort struck a cord, and the the fundraiser blew up on social media. With an original goal of $1000, he blew past that right away and ended up raising over $23,000 for RAICES.
Host Mike Jordan Laskey chats with Matt to ask him about the swim, his thoughts on why he thinks the fundraiser did so well, and how his experience working with immigrant families has affected his view of our political discourse around migration.
Matt was also the first participant in a new segment on the show, which we’re calling 20 Questions, so stay tuned for that at the end of the episode.
As we continue to grow here at AMDG, we’d really appreciate it if you could leave us a nice review on iTunes, subscribe to the show wherever you listen, and tell your friends and family about it.

Aug 5, 2019 • 1h 5min
Here I Am, Lord: 50 Years of Music with the St. Louis Jesuits
If you’ve been to Catholic Mass in the United States at some point over the past few decades, you’ve probably sung at least one piece of music by a group of five composers called the St. Louis Jesuits.
Here, I’ll quiz you. How many of these song titles do you recognize?
Be Not Afraid.
Here I Am, Lord.
Come to the Water.
City of God.
One Bread, One Body.
Lift Up Your Hearts.
Though the Mountains May Fall.
I bet you’re humming at least one of them already.
While the St. Louis Jesuits have gone their separate ways over the years, all writing and playing music independently, they are reuniting in September for one final concert together – a 50th anniversary celebration of their partnership.
Host Mike Jordan Laskey spoke with two of the members of the group, Fr. Roc O’Connor, SJ, and Dan Schutte, about five of the group’s greatest compositions, one by each member, and had a lot of fun walking down memory lane.

Jul 18, 2019 • 42min
Malcolm Gladwell on Thinking Like a Jesuit
When best-selling author and public intellectual Malcolm Gladwell announced he was doing a three-part podcast on thinking like a Jesuit, we had to learn more. Host Mike Jordan Laskey chats with Malcolm about the origins of the series, what surprised him in his deep dive into Jesuit moral reasoning, and why most every modern political problem could use a dose of St. Ignatius. This is the first official episode of AMDG, a new podcast from the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. Please subscribe and tell your friends! Connect with us at jesuits.org.

Jun 24, 2019 • 37min
How World Cup Soccer is a Source of Solidarity and Spiritual Growth
The Women’s World Cup is in full swing in France, with more elite teams vying for the championship than ever before. One of the biggest soccer fans around is Pope Francis, who recently said that sports “can foster a culture of dialogue and respectful encounters.”
We wanted to use the occasion of the World Cup to dig into the spiritual and character-building dimensions of sports, so our guests are two people who have been connected to the game of soccer for four or five decades between them: Shannon Hartinger is the girls' varsity soccer coach at Loyola Academy, a Jesuit high school in in Wilmette, Illinois. She played in college at North Carolina State University, where she was a two-time captain and an all-conference scholar-athlete.
James Millikan, SJ, is a Jesuit in formation who is studying philosophy, social sciences and math at ITESO, the Jesuit University of Guadalajara in Mexico. James played goalkeeper at Whitman College in Washington State and has also coached high school soccer.

Jun 17, 2019 • 32min
World Refugee Day: Fighting for Justice with Giulia McPherson of Jesuit Refugee Service
Every minute, 24 people are forced to leave their home because of war, persecution or violence.
Experts estimate that there are more people who have been forced to flee their homes due to conflict than at any other point since World War II.
We are in midst of a global refugee crisis.
In over 50 countries where the crisis is the worst, the Jesuits are there. Jesuit Refugee Service, which was founded in 1980 by then-Jesuit superior general Pedro Arrupe, serves over 640,000 people around the world each year.
June 20 is World Refugee Day, which is celebrated annually to lift up refugees and raise awareness of the challenges they face. Our guest is Giulia McPherson, the director of advocacy and operations for Jesuit Refugee Service USA, who shares about JRS' work and how we can get involved in support of their incredible mission.
Connect with JRS: https://www.jrsusa.org/
Giulia's bio: https://www.jrsusa.org/about-us/our-team/#giulia
Produced by the Office of Communications and Vocation Promotion of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.
Hosted by Mike Jordan Laskey. Edited by Marcus Bleech. Theme music by Kevin Laskey.

Jun 6, 2019 • 39min
An atheist went on a Buddhist retreat and wound up a Jesuit priest
If you had met Fr. Ted Penton, SJ, right before turn of the millennium and told him he’d be ordained a Jesuit priest in 2019, he wouldn’t have believed you.
Ted was an atheist when he decided to go on a retreat at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand while traveling after college. His experience there changed everything, and led him on a path back to the Catholic Church, the spiritual home of his childhood.
Fr. Ted is one of the newest Jesuit priests in the world. He ordination was just a few weeks ago in Toronto, one of the 22 Jesuits set to be ordained to the priesthood this year. In this conversation with host Mike Jordan Laskey, Ted opens up about his faith journey, his ordination, and how he went about writing the homily for his first Mass as the presider when the Gospel for the day wasn’t his all-time favorite passage.

May 1, 2019 • 38min
What the biblical prophets might think of Amazon with Br. Joe Hoover, SJ
As my wife would tell you, I am a compulsive Amazon shopper. A few taps of my thumb and voila – diapers or granola bars or a massaging seat cover for the car show up at our house two days later.
I wish I wasn’t so bad at this, because I know Amazon is not a great company, to put it mildly. Their CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world and his lowest-paid employees barely make $30,000 a year while facing some pretty tough working conditions in Amazon warehouses.
What I am supposed to do with this cognitive dissonance? What wisdom does our faith have to offer in this age of mammoth CEO salaries and truly unfathomable wealth disparity?
Joe Hoover, a Jesuit brother, writer, actor, and poetry editor for America Magazine in New York, tackles those questions and more in a recent piece for America titled “If Jeff Bezos wants to be ‘disruptive’, he should listen to biblical prophets.”
Brother Joe joined me to talk about the piece and also his vocation as a Jesuit brother in honor of Religious Brothers Day, which is May 1.
Read his piece here: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/04/24/if-jeff-bezos-wants-be-disruptive-he-should-listen-biblical-prophets

Apr 17, 2019 • 37min
Processing the Notre-Dame Fire with Architecture Professor Fr. Gilbert Sunghera, SJ
On Monday afternoon here on the East Coast, the horrifying photos and videos began to pour in: the Notre-Dame Cathedral was on fire. The international outpouring of sorrow and compassion was immediate, even among people who've never been to the cathedral. Why? What does a great cathedral mean to us -- even in this secular age?
Our guest Fr. Gilbert Sunghera, SJ, is a Jesuit priest who was trained in architecture and now serves as an associate professor of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy. He talks about the roles a cathedral like Notre-Dame plays in our culture, our common hunger for beauty, and more.

Apr 11, 2019 • 51min
Pope Francis' "Christus Vivit" and Drafting Books of the Bible with Fr. Michael Rossmann, SJ
Host Mike Jordan Laskey chats with his former college roommate, Fr. Michael Rossmann, SJ, about Fr. Michael's vocation promotion ministry, Pope Francis' new letter on young people and the church, and they take turns drafting books of the Bible, assembling Scriptural super-teams of five books apiece. (It's like the NFL Draft but way more fun.)