Hello and welcome to Judge Whiticle, a podcast by the young hip and lay editors of American media.

That lay part means we aren't Jesuits but we work with them.

Join us each week for a smart Catholic take on faith culture in the news.

Off to nover drinks. I'm Ashley McKinliss and I'm with the take on faith, culture, and the news. Often Over Drinks.

I'm Ashley McKinless, and I'm with Zach Davis.

And it's 3.15 here in New York, but it is 915 in Rome, which is why I've got a nice drink with me.

Not that I needed, not that I never never needed a reason to drink before 5 o'clock on this podcast, but...

How's your transition back to the real world gone?

Rough. You should have stayed. Should have stayed on pilgrimage. No, I mean anyone who's done a retreat or a pilgrimage

knows how hard it is to kind of, is the people on the Cairo's retreat say, hashtag live the fourth, but like kind of ease back into real life and

remember that, you know, we've got to try to carry on the

graces that we found in pilgrimage yeah four days of rain in a row hasn't

helped no no I miss the Tuscan hills yeah but we've got a really

exciting show coming up this week.

Yes, this week we are talking to one of the co-founders of the Dominican Bluegrass group, Hill Billy

Thomas Thomas Joseph White.

He is also the director of the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas known as the Angelicum in Rome.

That's his day job.

But on the side he makes amazing bluegrass music with seven of his brother Dominicans.

Yeah, so maybe you've heard of the St. Louis Jesuits, you know, people that wrote some of those songs that make us cry at our grandmother's

funerals, but a lot of people wrote in and we're really excited to bring the Hillbilly Thomas

onto the show, so I'm glad we could finally make it happen.

...