I left the Church. Now my kids are embracing it.

Jesuitical

America Media

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

4.8 • 949 Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week’s episode of “Jesuitical” features a conversation with journalist Helene Stapinski and her son, Dean Jamieson, a fiction writer from Brooklyn who, now in his 20s, finds himself drawn to the Catholic Church his mother left behind two decades ago because of the sex abuse crisis. Zac, Ashley, Helene and Dean discuss: - Helene’s faith journey, from a “cradle Catholic” and member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps to a mom disillusioned by the church’s sex abuse scandal and culture-war stances - How Dean became “Catholic curious” in college and started attending Mass, drawn to the aesthetics, anti-consumerist values and sense of community he found in the church - How the priest at Dean’s local parish in Brooklyn has sought to actively engage young adults and welcome them (and sometimes their parents) back In Signs of the Times, Zac and Ashley discuss Vice President JD Vance’s accusations that the U.S. bishops were being critical of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration because it would hurt their “bottom line”; the threat to Catholic Charities by Trump’s directive to freeze federal financial assistance programs; and the Vatican’s latest document on “the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence” that addresses the ethical challenges raised by AI and warns against “creating a substitute for God.” Links for further reading: “Turning Out, Tuning In? I left the Church, but now my twenty-something kids seem drawn to it” Vice President Vance: Thank you for making headlines about the bishops’ care for immigrants JD Vance suggests U.S. bishops only care for immigrants to protect ‘their bottom line’ Trump executive order will strip funds from Catholic Charities, White House says New Vatican document on A.I. warns against ‘creating a substitute for God’ 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 Media at americamagazine.org/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:44.9	Hello and welcome to Jesuitical, a podcast from American Media for Saints and Sinners.
0:50.8	You can join us each week for honest conversations about the Catholic Church and our world today, sometimes over drinks.
0:53.8	I'm Ashley McKinless, and I'm joined by Zach Davis.
0:54.8	Hey, it's good to be with you, Ashley. Good to be here. Man, it's, uh, what a year. Yeah, it's been a little chaotic. We're on a,
1:01.1	what do they say? Oh, it's only January. January 89th, I believe. Yeah, that's certainly what it
1:06.7	feels like. But I'm told reliably that January does in fact end this Friday when people are
1:12.4	going to be listening to this. Amazing. But we're closing out this never-ending month with a
1:17.9	fantastic episode for you. That's right. We're talking to a mother and son about their
1:23.8	differing relationships to the Catholic Church.
1:33.0	Ashley came across this great essay in Common Wheel magazine, which if listeners, if you're not familiar with that, it's a great Catholic magazine, lots of good stuff in there regularly.
1:37.5	But it was from a mother who had left the Catholic Church.
1:40.8	She was raised Catholic, but kind of fell away in the wake of the sexual abuse
1:44.7	crisis and was surprised to learn that her 20-something children were becoming Catholic curious
1:51.9	in hipster parts of Brooklyn, New York, of all places. Yeah, so the author is Helene Stepinski,
1:58.6	and her son is Dean Jameson. The article was titled,
2:02.5	Turning Out, Tuning In. I left the church, but now my 20-something kids seem drawn to it.
2:08.7	So we had them both in studio, which was a lot of fun. So we talked about, yeah, there are different
	...

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