Evangelist or Catholic influencer? Spreading the Gospel in the digital age.

Jesuitical

America Media

Spirituality, Christianity, News, News Commentary, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 949 Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on “Jesuitical,” Ashley and Zac speak to Noah Banasiewicz, S.J. Noah is a Jesuit scholastic and lecturer in the School of Communication at Loyola University Chicago. Ashley, Zac and Noah talk about: - The opportunities and pitfalls of evangelizing on social media - The fine line between evangelist and Catholic influencer - How media theory can help us understand the evolution of evangelization In Signs of the Times, Ashley and Zac discuss the controversial ICE nativity scene at St. Susanna Catholic Church in Dedham, Mass., and Pope Leo’s comments on Ukraine and the Trump administration. They also break down the new Vatican document on ordaining women to the diaconate. In parish announcements, Zac and Ashley announce that they will be filming a mailbag episode and call for questions from the audience. If you have a question for the “Jesuitical” team, please send your questions to [email protected] by Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. In As One Friend Speaks to Another, Ashley and Zac discuss their thoughts on Pope Leo’s explanation for not praying at the Blue Mosque in Turkey. Links for further reading: Noah’s article in America, “Catholic influencers have a media theory (and evangelization) problem” Boston archdiocese tells church to remove ICE message from Nativity, but pastor refuses for now Pope Leo explains why he appeared not to pray at the Blue Mosque in Turkey Vatican report says no to ordaining women deacons—for now Women Deacons and the Catholic Church | An Explainer video from America You can follow us on X and on Instagram @jesuiticalshow. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/groups/jesuitical. Please consider supporting Jesuitical by becoming a digital subscriber to America magazine at americamagazine.org/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	At the recent jubilee of young people in Rome, Pope Leo called on participants to spread your enthusiasm and the witness of your faith.
0:07.4	At Boston College Klaus School of Theology and Ministry, you are invited to answer that call through graduate theological studies.
0:14.0	100% of master's students receive scholarships.
0:17.3	Learn more at BC.edu slash CSTM.
0:20.3	Music Learn more at BC.edu slash CSTM. Hello and welcome to Jesuitical, a podcast from American Media for saints and sinners.
0:35.5	You can join us each week for honest conversations
0:37.9	about the Catholic Church in our world today, sometimes over drinks. I'm Ashley McKinless,
0:42.8	and I'm joined by Zach Davis. Jack. Ah, yes. Good to be with you. What are you doing? You ready?
0:50.9	Perhaps I was praying even then. Do you think you would pray in podcasts at the same time?
1:11.3	Oh, yeah, always. I'm not sure. But we're going to find out. This was something that Pope Leo said at his press conference earlier this week, which we'll get into later in the show in face sharing. But before that, we've got a really fun episode. Yeah, we're talking to our friend Noah Benazzoitz, who worked with us here at America and is now doing really interesting work at your alma mater. Yeah, America's premier institution,
1:16.7	Loyal University of Chicago. I'm a proud alum. I'm thrilled that they have Noah work in there
1:20.9	in their School of Communications. Noah is really smart thinker, and now he's teaching students
1:26.6	about media theory, also what it means
1:28.9	for Catholic evangelization. Obviously, we're kind of in the Wild West when it comes to how
1:34.0	digital media is changing. Yeah, and I think Catholics know that we're called to spread the good
1:38.0	news always, but that looks different today. So many people are coming to the faith online.
1:43.0	They're following people on YouTube or Instagram or a podcast like this.
1:46.9	And it's interesting to think about, you know, what's the line between evangelizing, being an evangelist and being an influencer?
1:53.5	And what are some of the tensions that come with, you know, wanting to get out there and work with the algorithm and be faithful to the gospel. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of stuff to get
2:03.7	into there. And Noah is just the right person to do it with. So stick around for that conversation.
2:07.7	Yep. But first, we have signs of the Times, the part of the show where we sip through the
2:11.2	Catholic News of the Week so you don't have to. What's our first story, Zach? So there's a
	...

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